Ferrrr-esh Aaairrrr!

For fans of Terry Gross and her ubiquitous NPR program, here's an interview in today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

I'm not among those who adore Gross. Her show plays too many greatest hits and repeats ("Here's our interview with so-and-so from 1989"), and she can get flummoxed just like any other interviewer. I heard her interview Ice T. as the L.A. riots were raging, back in 1992, and she basically asked him whether he and his fellow hip-hop artists were more or less responsible for the riots. To his credit, Ice T. managed not to laugh in her face or get really angry.

Speaking of the L.A. riots -- they took place just under ten and a half years ago -- here's an eyewitness account from a television helicopter cameraman, and here's Time writer Richard Schickel on How TV Failed to Get the Real Picture ($). That Schickel article costs money to read, but that page has many links to other sites with substantial post-mortems of the riots.

And speaking of the Time Warner/AOL/CNN empire, a story in today's Wall Street Journal said that CNN and ABC (owned by Disney, another huge media conglomerate) might merge their news operations. (No link -- the WSJ site is all pay.) I could get depressed about stories like that, but... It's all just Big Business. When Disney buys the New York Times, that's when I'll get worried.