Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [24]
The friendliness we generally encounter on the road is wonderful. Except on one particular night in Denny’s. They have a big-screen TV in the corner, and everybody is glued to it. All watching Fox News. It doesn’t take me long to get sick of it, and I ask if they can change the channel. But they won’t. It’s stuck on Fox News!
TERRY: Most of the truck drivers are these huge, burly guys. And there’s Jesse, sitting there complaining about Fox News and talking loudly about Bush. I mean, he’s big too, but it scared the heck out of me!
Why do I react like this? The media today are controlled by the big corporations. It’s all about ratings and money. Believe it or not, I think the downfall of our press today was the show 60 Minutes. Up until it came along, news during the Walter Cronkite era was expected to lose money. The networks wrote it off, in order to bring the people fair reporting and the truth. But when 60 Minutes became the top-rated program on television, the light went on. The corporate honchos said, “Wait a minute, you mean if we entertain with the news, we can make money?” It was the realization that, just like any sitcom or drama series, if packaged the correct way, the news could make you big bucks. No longer was it a matter of scooping somebody else on a story, but whether 20/20’s ratings this week were better than Dateline’s. I’m not knocking 60 Minutes. It was tremendously well done and hugely successful, but in the long run it could end up being a detriment to society.
My major criticism of today’s media is, they’re no longer reporting the news, they’re creating it. When that happens, you’re in deep trouble. Here’s an example from the sports world: Not long ago, after the Vikings lost a football game, the press went to a Minneapolis bar wanting people to trash the team. I heard this from somebody who was there that night. Instead of arbitrarily seeing what a certain table’s opinion was of the game, they kept going around the room until they found the right person to say what they were looking for. That’s who got on TV. To me, that’s dishonest reporting. Creating the news.
I went through something similar after I appeared on David Letterman’s show. I guess Letterman wanted to get a little spark going, so he said: “Now you’re governor of Minnesota, home of the Twin Cities. If you had to pick one, which city do you like better?” Well, back home, that was a death sentence waiting to happen. So I figured, rather than avoid the question, I’d be honest. “Well, David,” I said, “I was born in Minneapolis. So naturally, if push comes to shove, I’m gonna choose my hometown. I went to Minneapolis Roosevelt, not St. Paul Central.”
Then I thought I’d have some fun. I made a mistake, though. In my position, I wasn’t allowed to make jokes, even on Letterman or Leno. (Even though, last time I checked, mostly what they do on those shows is entertain people and say funny things.) Anyway, I said, “My biggest criticism of St. Paul is their streets. In Minneapolis, all the streets are either numerical or alphabetical, so you’ve got a good idea where you are. In St. Paul, there’s no rhyme or reason to them.”
I added this: “Dave, you know that St. Paul’s got a huge Irish population. And when they were naming them streets, well, you know them Irishmen.” I made the motion of drinking a beer. Now correct me if I’m wrong but, on St. Patty’s Day, what do they do? They drink—not water, right? When I go to see the Timberwolves play, right across the street is so-and-so’s Irish Pub. So I kind of viewed the two as synonymous with each other.
Here’s what the Minnesota media did with that: They went out until they found an Irishman who was angered and offended. I heard they went through about ten people first, who all laughed and said, “Of course, who cares, that’s what the Irish are known for.” That last angry Irishman was the one who got on TV.
I was greeted home by hordes of reporters at the airport, demanding an apology to the Irish community. At that