Commentary

Media X: Coast Versus Coast

We Angelenos really appreciate those little jests you charmers on the Least Coast like to make about L.A. Like the gem delivered by one of my Manhattan-based colleagues after the 1987 earthquake: "Gee, I hope the tofu crop wasn't damaged."

How droll. Go ahead and laugh it up, you metrosexual scumbag. Because the truth is, your sense of geographical and cultural superiority is seriously misplaced.

And no, I do not say this because the new "It" medium, TMZ.com, is named after an old Hollywood catchphrase (the "thirty mile zone" within which on-location shoots were regulated). And it's not because our mayor's a slick, sharp-dressed playa with a hot girlfriend and yours is a short, dumpy old white guy who can only get dates thanks to his bankroll.

I say this because we got the significance of this week's CNN/YouTube Democratic debate, and you didn't.

The Los Angeles Times said Monday night's cybernetic free-for-all was "lively" and "broke ground in style and content." Your New York Times? It stooped to admit that the format was "novel," but there was "little actual debate."

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Who cares what was said? When do politicians ever say anything genuine? It was the "electronic forum" aspect of the thing that was remarkable. The debate wasn't a gimmick. It was a moment of change preserved in amber, an opportunity to glimpse the shape of future communications that never presents itself so clearly.

Angelenos were fascinated. New Yorkers dismissed the debate with that blasé thing you do that seriously pisses everybody else off. Not because you're so sophisticated. Because you're so clueless.

There was a lot to learn from Monday night.

For one thing, it's obvious now that every media channel is attitudinally agnostic, an insight that should give any communicator pause. I'm not just talking about crackers watching Fox News--it goes deeper than that. When you saw the debate, for example, it was obvious how smoothly an iconoclastic attitude jibes with the Internet as a medium. Even the Republicans, when they go through the same exercise in September, will have to field questions from gay couples.

You could cook up a pretty good media plan just based on what you saw on Monday night. That is, you could if you didn't think you know it all already.

Out here, we don't claim infallibility because we live in the future, and we know better. Back East, you issue press releases about the future, usually involving an agency reorganization, or do something totally not new and long overdue, like sit out the upfront, and proclaim yourselves prophets.

One day, the Hollywood talent agencies are finally going to figure this out and wrest control of blue-chip clients' marketing strategy from the media agencies in New York. Who'll be laughing then?

And by the way, the tofu crop is doing just fine, thank you very much.

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