Impeached Ill. Gov. Blagojevich to appear on ‘Apprentice’
Rod Blagojevich is currently facing federal corruption charges for trying to sell President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat.
But that won’t stop the impeached Illinois governor’s pursuit of reality stardom.
Blago has will appear on this season of Donald Trump’s The Celebrity Apprentice and try to avoid being fired from this gig…
EXCERPT FOR MORE, CLICK HERE
Jackson, Lennon and Elvis
by James Hirsen
Media coverage of the death of Michael Jackson has reached a fever pitch with his memorial service that is scheduled to take place this week in Los Angeles.
Fans from all over the world have registered for the chance to receive tickets to attend the event, although only 11,000 people will actually be allowed into the Staples Center.
All three networks will broadcast live coverage of the service with their primetime attendant anchors present at the arena.
The cable news channels will feature wall-to-wall coverage of the event, too, and the memorial service will likely be the lead story on the evening news everywhere.
As we have all witnessed, numerous stories of significance involving foreign policy and domestic legislation have been shunted aside in favor of Jackson interviews, retrospectives and specials. This is part and parcel of what our celebrity loving country has come to expect.
Regrettably, the tragic scenario has played out a number of times before. A music icon dies suddenly and unexpectedly, and under a mysterious set of circumstances. Along with Jackson, two other legendary stars come to mind, and their passing had the same dramatic effect on the public and the culture.
It was a chilly December day when John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono finished a routine recording session. They had no idea how deep a darkness would soon fall.
The world at the time was consumed with things other than a former Beatle’s solo career. A new leader, Ronald Reagan, had just been elected President of the United States, with a full slate of issues ahead of him that included a faltering economy and enemies abroad.
As John and Yoko returned to their Manhattan apartment at the Dakota, a disturbed fan, Mark David Chapman, sent four hollow point bullets racing Lennon’s way. Police took the legendary musician to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The media behaved quite differently the day the Lennon music died. The New Media was not yet in force. Cable news programming was still in formation. Much of the public heard the word of Lennon’s death from Howard Cosell during a broadcast of “Monday Night Football.”
Still, news of the former Beatle’s passing spread fast. It was the lead story on all of the major networks and above the fold in newspapers around the world.
As the sad news traveled, crowds gathered outside the Dakota. Much like the throngs who mourned for Jackson in New York, London and L.A., Lennon fans sang songs and recited lyrics in his honor. Yoko Ono asked the mourners to return the next Sunday for a memorial for John. That Sunday, Central Park was overrun with over 100,000 people. A similar gathering took place in John’s hometown of Liverpool with 30,000 people in attendance.
Many radio stations played Lennon music exclusively for several days in a row.
Although John’s death was similar to Michael’s in terms of public reaction, media coverage and cultural impact, another pop music icon passed on under much more eerily parallel circumstances.
His career was fading. His performances had fallen far below expectations with the resultant criticism from the entertainment press. He appeared unhealthy, but he and his handlers decided it was time for a summer comeback tour.
Just like in Jackson’s case, the tour never happened. In August of 1977, Elvis Presley was found dead on the floor of his Graceland home by his fiancee, Ginger Alden.
His death was the lead story on all of the broadcast networks except for CBS, which made it second to a Panama Canal story, possibly because Walter Cronkite was away on vacation.
For years insiders at the CBS newsroom were said to have repeated the words “remember Elvis,” because the network felt as if it had been remiss in its coverage of the star.
The day the Elvis music died dominated the media cycle for weeks on end. Much like the death of Jackson, the cause of Elvis’s death would remain a mystery and consume massive amounts of media airtime.
Early reporting indicated that Presley died from a cardiac arrhythmia, which fit with the excess weight he was carrying. But an autopsy of the legendary singer showed large quantities of a host of drugs including Morphine, Demerol, Valium, Codeine and Quaaludes, some of which were also found in Jackson’s home.
The passing of Jackson, Lennon and Elvis invites the kind of speculation that, like their iconic images, goes on forever.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A. in media psychology, is a media analyst, teacher of mass media and entertainment law at Biola University, and professor at Trinity Law School.
Jackson’s Key Asset: The Beatles Catalog
by James Hirsen
Back in 1985 Michael Jackson bought a publishing catalog for $47.5 million, which included world famous songs from one of music’s most legendary groups, The Beatles.
In 1995, Sony purchased from the pop singer half the rights to the catalog at a cost of $90 million.
To accomplish the transfer, a joint venture was created called Sony/ATV.
Today each of the halves of the entity is worth more than $700 million, which means Michael’s creditors, who are reportedly owed around $500 million, will be humming Beatles songs as they attempt to settle with the King of Pop’s estate.
Michael piled up massive debt from the time his solo career peaked with the “Thriller” album to his recent passing.
Creditors could force a sale of Michael’s share in the catalog.
A quick “auction” of the asset could result in a distress sale at below market prices given the current state of the music business.
Possible litigation involving the Jackson family, Paul McCartney, Sony and others has the potential to stretch out the process for years.
George Putnam, TV Anchor and Real Life Legend
The Mary Tyler Moore Show premiered on CBS in September 1970, and the headlining character turned the world on with her smile for seven years. While this show about fictional television station WJM became one of TV’s classic sitcoms, not many people realize that one of its central characters was based on a couple of real-life news personalities.
The character of local celebrity anchorman Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight, was in fact a comedic amalgam of two Los Angeles news superstars—George Putnam and Jerry Dunphy.
Putnam was the legendary broadcaster who pioneered political commentary and audience input in newscasts. He covered every presidency since Herbert Hoover’s and was reading the news for NBC as early as 1939.
His L.A. competitor, Dunphy, was also a widely recognized TV news anchor for 40 years. He interviewed four presidents and survived a gunshot wound, two heart attacks, and triple bypass surgery. He passed away at the age of 80. Together, with their looks, style, and affable presence, Putnam and Dunphy provided the inspiration for the Baxter character.
The two anchors had an uncanny resemblance to each other. And, of course, to Ted Baxter. Both became nationally known newsmen, but what’s even more interesting is that they crossed over into pop-culture stardom, appearing in television and feature films. Putnam was in a number of films, one of the first being Fourteen Hours, which launched Grace Kelly’s pre-royal career. Dunphy, meanwhile, appeared in movies like Beverly Hills Cop III and Hard to Kill.
Putnam appeared in a dozen films, the most recent being the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. I spoke with Putnam about his career and about moving back and forth between the worlds of news and entertainment.
Twelve feature films go a long way toward making the face of a news anchor recognizable. When I asked him how he first entered the film business, he replied, “I was, perhaps, much more Mr. Show Biz than [other journalists]. I was fairly attractive, fairly young, and the Hollywood scene adopted me.”
But he never forgot his broadcasting roots. Putnam would always portray either a journalist or a reporter, and he explained, “I always demanded that I use my own name.” Even when Arnold Schwarzenegger asked him to “use some other name” he said no.
Putnam worked with so many of the greats like Robert Mitchum and Grace Kelly, folks who were considered to be icons in the Golden Age of Hollywood. I asked Putnam, “How would you compare the celebrities in Tinseltown today with the stars of yesterday?” His answer came swiftly. “Couldn’t carry their pencils,” Putnam declared.
“What is the difference?” I probed. “Oh! Stardom was stardom,” he explained. “They weren’t washing and putting their laundry out in the back line. They lived as stars. It was, of course, the studios. The studios made and built and maintained stars. They told you who to be seen with, who to eat with, who to dine with, which car to drive. They ran your life.”
As part of the process of controlling their stars, the studios muzzled actors. When I asked if it were true that celebrities back then weren’t as politically outspoken as they are today, Putnam agreed. “It was unheard of for a star,” he said. “Can you imagine a Clark Gable taking a stand on politics?”
As a journalist, Putnam was in a very special category of one. No other broadcaster had the length, breadth, and depth of experience that he did. He remembered reading the news for NBC in New York in 1939 for media pioneer and then-president of NBC David Sarnoff. Over the years he worked as a newsman, reporter, and commentator for most of the major broadcasting organizations in the United States, including NBC, ABC, Mutual, Dumont, and Metromedia. He even had the chance to personally meet Presidents Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
For those who want to follow in the George’s footsteps, he revealed the secrets to becoming a great newsman. “Insatiable curiosity. Objectivity, of course. Perseverance. And then, most of all, integrity.”
George told me about the values that carried him through the ups and downs of his career walk. “Work ethic,” he said, repeating it for emphasis. “Learning as a little kid. I worked for a dollar a day on the farms of Minnesota with my own grandfather. I was four or five-years-old.” More than eighty-five years later, the man was still working.
I asked him, “Will you ever retire?” He replied philosophically, “I could, but what’s the alternative? I’d say from what and to what?”
Not only did George not stop working, in all those years he never even took a vacation. Why not? The answer was contained in the Putnam attitude. When I asked him, of all the work experiences he’d had, which was the most satisfying, he responded, “Tomorrow.”
I spoke with George two days before he passed away. Still had the voice, the sparkle, the strength of spirit.
Walk beside the still waters, my friend, to a million tomorrows.
(Partially excerpted from the book, Hollywood Nation, and an interview conducted with George Putnam by James Hirsen)
James Hirsen has a Master’s Degree in Media Psychology and is a media analyst, Trinity Law School professor, and teacher of mass media and entertainment law at Biola University.
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