FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WARNING: Snark Attack
Loss of Buchwald, talk of King retiring signal end of gentler era in media, rise of the rude and crude

By Alex Ben Block., Senior Columnist for Hollywood Today

Hollywood, CA (rushprnews) 01/22/2007 - The death this past week of the great American humorist Art Buchwald and discussion about when news icon Larry King might retire from CNN-sometime beyond his contract in 2009 -- signals the end of a gentler era in American politics and culture and the rise of snarky news - presented by the cynical, self-righteous and self-assured.

While very different, Buchwald and King both employed wit and a certain charm to poke, cajole and hold up for examination the major figures of the day. That kind of gentle approach, for better or worse, is being rapidly replaced by a more confrontational, harsher style that encourages rude behavior and flaunts what is most vulgar.

Buchwald was a witty story-teller, who could also be a wonderfully subversive satirist. He was in a way a forerunner for the snarky. He certainly made fun of the follies from Watergate to Monica Lewinsky and beyond. But he did it with a deft touch and rarely showed a mean spirit. He was an equal opportunity humorist, poking fun at Republican and Democrat windbags. He wrapped his opinions in funny stories and colorful characters but made his point.

Buchwald's 40 plus years of columns sprang from a literary tradition, where clever wordsmiths were valued. He was influenced by the sophisticated internationalist views of Post-war Paris where he came to manhood. After legendary editor Ben Bradlee recruited him to The Washington Post, just in time to be part of the JFK saga, Buchwald became a denizen of the salons, politics and cultural life in DC, earning the moniker - the "wit of Washington."

In an editorial the day after his death, The Washington Post pointed out what his passing meant:

"Unfortunately, the Buchwald touch, the ability to use humor deftly, pointedly and yet without cruelty to thoroughly deflate some pious politico or misguided movement, is pretty much a thing of the past in everyday public discourse. There is some wit to be found on the Internet and among the angry cable-TV talkers and the various thoroughly predictable opinion-mongers, but not a lot of it, and not often. Mr. Buchwald kept things civilized."

Rapidly replacing the civilized we have the snarky.

Snarky is comedy with an edge and the kind of attitude associated with schoolyard bullies. It's topical and insufferably opinionated. It zeroes in on the miscast and misfit in society. Yet it usually isn't about cheap insults. It's about being smarter than the other guy, being confident that they know best, being holier than thou. It is packaged with a fatal charm that allows them to be snarky without being overly caustic, because that would be repellent, and without the sophomoric pratfalls. For example, Letterman is snarky while Leno, the class clown, is less so.

Some trace the history of snarky to Mark Twain, a tradition passed on to the Marx Brothers, Smothers Brothers, Mort Sahl and "Saturday Night Live," among many others. It has been seen in magazines from Spy to the National Lampoon to the New Yorker. Today it is having a profound effect on the way the media present our world, from the ranting of Don Imus to the conceit of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

The media snarks have flowered under the Bush presidency where everything has two meanings, fanning the flames of cynicism. Government announcements are packaged in 1984-news speak, so that as they gut the environmental rules they give it a name that makes it sound like they are promising clean skies.

These obvious efforts to fool some of the people all of the time provide easy targets for the snarky. They love taking on the bumbling establishment, or people caught in public scandals. It doesn't matter which establishment. It can be the government, the military, corporate America, overpaid movie stars, political action committees or the MSM, the blogger acronym for the mainstream media - everyone from CBS to The New York Times.

Many of the blogs strive to be the anti-MSM. But they do have their heroes. In the Snark World, last week there was a near Super Bowl level event. In perfect synchronicity, the two current commanders of American snarky, News Corp. and Fox's Bill O'Reilly and Viacom and Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, traded verbal punches on each others shows. The dueling appearances produced few fireworks, a lot of banal patter and a spike in ratings for both programs. That makes this stunt a success in business terms.

That is why snark is not going away. It pays. Instead, like a virus that infects everything it touches, it tilts talk shows and infiltrates news reporting. Everyone from politicians to CEOs to network news anchors are afraid that they may be the next joke that the snarks feed off, on air, in print and online. Everyone looks over their shoulder to see if they are going to be victims, while watching to see who will be skewered next.

To read more from this column and Larry King, the "anti-snark" please click to read entaertainment newsmagazine Hollywood Today (www.hollywoodtoday.net ).

Permission to reprint or rebroadcast granted provided Hollywood Today is credited and link is included whenever possible: www.hollywoodtoday.net

###