Juan Devis, Too Good for KCET

I worked for all of two months at KCET, and they had to be the silliest, stupidest two months of my life. That place is the fucking abyss.

However, there is one, single redeeming quality to that clown factory: a straight up creative genius named Juan Devis. Juan's conception of what's possible with online multimedia is visionary, and actually delivers on the much-ballyhooed promise of the internet to combine the best elements of film, television, radio and print media and surpass all of them in its capacity to tell stories in a non-linear, interactive and artistic way. I'd say Juan's 'Departure' series on kcet.org belongs on display at the Guggenheim, or maybe the Smithsonian, but it properly belongs out in the world, not in a stuffy museum.

One thing you can say about Juan's work being on kcet.org is that it's getting the worst of both worlds: no prestige and no exposure. Someone with money and a vision should liberate him from that cesspool of mediocrity.

Here's Juan's latest, a profile of Watts.

Black Gold Digging

Remember back in the early '90s when PBS' News Hour soft-pedaled the crap out of a huge price-fixing scandal involving the agribusiness Archer Daniels Midland, which happened to underwrite the program?

Well, now The News Hour is the happy recipient of gobs of cash from Chevron, but this time they're not even pretending to be careful about drawing the line between journalism and prostitution. In fact, the program has plastered its name all over Chevron's propaganda web site, lending Jim Lehrer's tweedy credibility to Chevron's crude attempt at reverse-psyching people into thinking that the company's new mission is to "find newer, cleaner, more abundant ways to power the world," instead of, say, starting wars in major oil-producing Middle Eastern countries, hoovering record profits while sorry schmucks pay almost $5 a gallon for gas, and paying pseudo-scientists to pretend global warming is just a theory. A News Hour staffer even goes so far as to spell the whole tawdry relationship out it in the 'recommended comment' presently featured on the homepage, underneath the big fat News Hour video clip:

As a member of The NewsHour staff, we appreciate Chevron's support of our reporting on important domestic and international stories like the global food crisis and extending the impact of our work by posting it on their site. We hope it sparks thoughtful conversation about the issue.

The global food crisis is an important international story, good call, robflynn! No wonder PBS hired you to shill for Chevron: you have a real brain for this news stuff. Let's talk about the global food crisis, Rob. You might be surprised to learn that one of the countries where the global food crisis has hit hardest this year is Burma, where a cyclone displaced 1 to 2 million people this past May, whose desperation was then compounded by the criminal indifference of the country's military junta, leading to mass starvation. Chevron has long been a major investor in a major natural gas project in Burma, and a prop behind the military regime. You might even say that Chevron has direct responsibility for the plight of thousands of starving Burmese children. So Rob, how about if The News Hour facilitated some thoughtful conversation about that important international story? Chevron could extend the impact of the story by posting it on their site.

But specifics like political repression in Burma are not really the focus of willyoujoinus.com. Chevron prefers to stick to the broad strokes. On a page explaining the geopolitical challenge facing Chevron and other people of good conscience, for instance, readers are taught that:

A stable social, political and business environment is essential for attracting long-term investments. That means a reliable legal framework that recognizes the rule of law and respects contracts—which in turn leads to predictability and security. Revenue transparency is necessary to reduce the occurrence of corruption and abuse. And the basic needs of the local people must be met to provide a reliable work force, supply chain and market for products.

Those are comforting words coming from a company facing a lawsuit for bloody attacks on two Nigerian villages.

Speaking of Nigerians, another helpful user comment on the site comes from Yomi Owope -- perhaps one of Chevron's happy Nigerian employees? -- who explains that honestly, we're entirely too focused on the U.S. as the main culprit in aggravating world energy shortages, and we should really start focusing on China. Note to American Chevron customers from the world's underprivileged: stop being so arrogant as to think that your consumption is the problem - the world doesn't revolve around you, Mr. Narcissist! Fill up your Hummer and burn that stupid bus pass. China is the new black this season.

I haven't read all of these thoughtful comments yet, I must admit, but it strikes me as curious that of the many that I was able to stomach, none of them touch on important issues gaining headlines nowadays about Big Oil gouging consumers and funding political road blocks to alternative energy resource development, or offering helpful campaign advice to a certain presidential candidate who's calling on America to step up and let oil rigs back onto coastal sea shelves in California and Florida. You'd think that with The News Hour on the job, we'd be getting some answers to these tough questions.

My New Favorite Blog

This is my new favorite fucking blog. Well, maybe aside from this one, also amply linked on my new favorite blog, curiously enough. Finally I can bookmark a blog that my job doesn't require me to read. ALL MINE! I think I'll write for it. I understand it has actual readers.

Rubber Stamping the Bush Administration

David Dreier, of course, is an asshole. And the Courage Campaign is most awesome. The best political advertising out there (a low bar, admittedly) has been far and away surpassed by The Courage Campaign's last few spots, like this one and this one.