Tim Robbins Is My Hero

Tim Robbins may have just saved the future of television news broadcasting.

Okay, that's a tad drastic. But he has used his star power to urge those in charge to change the way they deliver "news."

"We don't need to look at the car crash; we don't need to live off of the pain and humiliation of the unfortunate; we don't need to celebrate our pornographic obsession with celebrity culture... We are better than that."

They thought they were going to have a keynote speaker who would serve them fluff about how wonderful they all are and how the internet and technology makes news available to people all over the world instantaneously. But Robbins said something that needed to be said.

News today is crap.

Especially television news broadcasts. Everything he said is right on. They show the rapes, the deadly car crashes, the tallish black male who killed a smallish white female, and what Paris Hilton, Michael Jackson and Tom Cruise have done in the past 24 hours.

I don't care that Oprah went to the bathroom twice while having lunch at the expensive yada-yada-yada, or that Lindsay Lohan spent $2,500 buying sunglasses for her pets.

There are things going on in the world, the country, and locally other than murders, crimes and tragic deaths. Why is there the need to only highlight these things? Is that really what brings in ratings? Is that what attracts advertisers?

The news is full of sensational stories that scares the average white suburban viewer, because, after all, aren't all the people sitting at home watching the news on their TV white and from the suburbs?

The journalist heroes that people talk about from decades past who have covered (or in some cases, uncovered) great political stories and got classic interviews - that's journalism. Journalists are supposed to provide the public with news of what is happening locally, state-wide, nation-wide and world-wide. Good and bad, and give them all the pertinent information.

The fact that the average American knows little to nothing about the situation in Darfur, yet they do know What Britney Spears' shirts say on a daily basis is disgusting. There is a genocide going on right now, and people don't know. Why? Because the people in charge of the media don't think that we care. Well, if we never hear about it in the first place, how can we even form an opinion on the subject matter?

Instead of relishing on the bloody images of a victim being carted away from a deadly 10-car-pile-up, present the news in a respectful matter.

Stop portraying certain people as criminals based on their income, location, skin color, clothes or accent. These people must have been forced to do real journalism through college, have they forgotten everything?

I'm not doing anything new by saying that there is a problem with the current state of the news. All I am trying to get across is the magnitude of what Tim Robbins did. He was granted a high honor, and used it to take a chance to speak to the National Association of Broadcasters to point out what is wrong with the news today.

So while Robbins will never be known for these remarks more so than for his performances in Bull Durham or The Shawshank Redemption (or his Award-snubbed performance in Tenacious D: Pic Of Destiny), this might be the most powerful thing Robbins has ever done.



Oh yeah, his speech, just like this post, ended with a standing ovation.