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January 21, 2005

Smarter Sun

I thought that the New York Sun aspired to be a better newspaper than the New York Times, not just a conservative version of the caricature the Sun's editors perceive the Times to be. Today they are hyping the right's Michael Moore. Now, I have a couple of problems with this from a cultural standpoint, mostly that it shows just how little the right understands modern popular culture that they are trying to frame someone they hope will be a popular documentarian as either their version or response (or both) to Michael Moore.

This is a bit of a leap, but think of American and British bands of the 1960's. The British had the Beatles (think of them crudely as the equivalent Michael Moores of pop-documentary filmmaking) and the American response was the Monkees -- who despite having some good songs and in Peter Nesmith a pretty talented songwriter, are seen today (and then) as a poor imitation. Much better were groups like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield -- groups who did their own thing. Were I a conservative documentary maker, I would aspire to the same levels of success as a Michael Moore but not just a paralel of his success. I would hope to do it my own way.

Something else that is just dumb (here's the article, btw) is that conservative outlets, like the NY Sun, have spent years demonizing Moore as basically a liar who dishonestly gives liberalism and liberal ideas a good shine. Is that really what they want their own superstar perceived as? A liar who dishonestly advances the case of conservativism? Maybe it is -- that sentence is an accurate description of our President, afterall.

No, but what really bothers me is the actual article. Here are two examples of the wonderful objective reporting that the Sun has injected into New York that the Times allegedly lacks (remember, these are the people that formerly critiqued the Times daily with Smarter Times).

Mr. Maloney's film was hailed as the "most anticipated" documentary in 2005 by the American Film Renaissance, an upstart film institute based in Dallas.

Hmmm, would that be this AFR, whose website describes itself as "the First Conservative Film Festival in the Country"?No wonder they are so eagerly anticipating this guy's new documentary, but no mention in the Sun article anywhere that the film festival is explicitly ideological and partisan, even when they interview the organization's head. And then the very next sentence:

People attending October's Liberty Festival in Los Angeles apparently gave a preview version of it a standing ovation - though not of the duration of Michael Moore's 20 minutes at Cannes

Again, would that be the same film festival that describes itself as "American's first conservative film festival...and there's nothing Michael Moore can do about it!" I think so. It's possible that the Sun's low circulation has reinforced a view among it's editors that only die hard partisan conservatives who hate the NY Times bother to read it, and citing those same low circulation numbers, that's certainly possible -- so why bother being objective or calling a conservative organization for what it is.

Whatever your quibbles with Michael Moore, I believe that he considers himself a filmaker before a liberal. It's obvious that Evan Coyne Maloney and his backers at the New York Sun consider him a conservative first and a filmaker secondary. Maloney will probably never even get a bad review. He and the Sun will think that validates his films, in reality it means no one outside of the rightwing will ever take him seriously enough to even consider his movies critically, and Michael Moore will still go unrefuted in the world at large.

Posted by Chris at January 21, 2005 03:28 PM

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Posted by: Keith McNulty at January 23, 2005 10:14 PM

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