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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
So, are you going to protest?
Garofalo:The strange thing about it being called a "protest" is the news, in its way of having redefined certain words in the English language -- i.e. "fair," "balanced," "compassionate," "diplomacy," "dissent" and "protest" -- they have managed to take those words away from us and redefine them and use them in a disparaging way. So you know, if you want to call it a protest, I call it a peace march, or a peace standing-around, I suppose. That's it: a peace standing-around. But I'm going to go to Times Square at 5 p.m., and then continue to show up at Union Square at 5 every other day, if I can.
Plus I'll continue to do any interviews or things of that nature that can contribute in any way. I think I'll stay away from the belly of the beast, like you know, I won't be going on Fox News and stuff like that any more. It's just really rather absurd to even participate on Fox or MSNBC, or maybe even CNN, which is maybe a little better than the other two.
But it's a huge audience. Isn't it worth it? Or is the experience that bad?
Garofalo: It's not always a bad experience. It's case by case. It's not even network by network. Because I have had some very decent interviews on Fox. Rita Cosby, Tony Snow -- Bill O'Reilly has even been interesting. Some of the other ones, I think it's embarrassing for both of us. They don't seem to have any self-awareness. They seem to think it's only the person who comes on who has a rough time, but unfortunately ...
But are you boycotting them because they're not treating you well, or because they're too conservative, or ...
Garofalo: No, no. I've done it. It's clearly sort of counterproductive. For the most part, Fox has decided to waste the American public's time with the straw man of celebrity bashing, and it's just another diversionary tactic. It's just another way to avoid the issues.
But there are a number of reasons the networks are as bad as they are. First of all, the level of debate in our culture has degraded. There's a level of crassness. Secondly, you have the FCC deregulation in 1996 which made less and less corporations able to own more and more outlets, and they downsize them and eliminate certain facets of their foreign bureaus, and that's the problem.
If you're talking about Fox or the New York Post, [they] are under Rupert Murdoch's tutelage, and clearly have an agenda, which is pretty much to do P.R. for the State Department. But there are things that underserve the public in all of these outlets. They don't disseminate particularly thoughtful or nuanced information with a historical context or global perspective. What they all seem to be doing is underserving the public.
If you're talking about cable news, there's obviously not a lot of incentive to be thoughtful or nuanced. They claim, of course, that they are being populists. But you're saying they pander to our worst instincts.
Garofalo: I wouldn't say that Fox is deliberately courting the sociopaths. Maybe Ann Coulter does, or some of those right-wing radio people. Or Mike Savage on MSNBC. When MSNBC hires Mike Savage, then, you know, it's as if they're throwing in the towel. When you hire Mike Savage after firing Phil Donahue, what you're basically saying is, we're not even going to make an attempt here to edify. We're just going to make a shameless rating grab.
Why do you think you're being singled out so much on these shows, and by the media in general? The Post, yesterday, put you on a list of entertainers whose work people should boycott.
Garofalo: You know what is so funny about that is they're giving me way too much credit for having work to boycott. It's so funny when people talk about me being blacklisted since I'm not even on the works-fairly-often list. It would be extraordinary to blacklist me. So in a way, the New York Post has given me a lot more cred there.
I don't think anybody who is seriously looking for news is going to read the New York Post. I think it's a great paper if you like sports or erroneous gossip. Or if you want to read about the boycotting of the Dixie Chicks. But again, it's a time-waster, it's a way for these hawks, and these hawk publications, who have pushed us to the brink of this disaster, to now [have] us look the other way. It's like, "Don't look at the man behind the curtain, look at Susan Sarandon!"
