Thursday, March 31, 2005

Left of the Dial

HBO’s documentary on Air America, Left of the Dial, premiers at 8 eastern tonight.  Wonkette’s Greg Beato asked the documentary’s co-director/co-producer, Patrick Farrelly, some questions:

GB: Were there any scenes that you missed that you wished you’d gotten?

Patrick: During Air America’s financial meltdown, there was a lot of stuff going on behind closed doors that we would have liked to have access to but we were shut out. Which is totally understandable, but at the same time, as documentary makers, we just want to see and shoot everything. But I think when people see the film they’ll get a great sense of what it was like to be on the inside.

GB: With 350 hours, it sounds like you guys could have actually made this into a reality series, akin to The Restaurant or something like that. Was there ever any talk of that?

Patrick: No. We think that Left of the Dial tells an important story. The founding of Air America Radio which now is a success story, is a really important media and political event. Air America has become an important addition to the political diversity of radio. At a time when the range of opinion you can see on television is getting narrower and narrower as television becomes more corporate, Air America is a really important development. I don’t think a reality show would do much justice to the story. Project Greenlight it certainly isn’t.

Drat! Koppel’s leaving

The rumors were true:

Ted Koppel, who during a quarter century as the host of “Nightline” on ABC provided a hard-news alternative to the monologues and light banter of Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and David Letterman, will leave the network when his contract expires in early December, ABC News announced today.

Mr. Koppel said in an interview that he had informed ABC of his decision earlier this week and did not yet know what he might do next. It was not immediately clear how ABC intends to replace him or whether “Nightline” would continue after he leaves.

But there’s still hope for Koppel fans like me:

Asked what those jobs might be, Mr. Koppel said only: “There are some very interesting prospects out there, let’s put it that way.”

Even as my demographic is disparaged:

In recent months, ABC executives have asked the leaders of various divisions within the network - including news, entertainment and sports - to develop proposals for alternative programming for the “Nightline” slot (including an overhauled “Nightline") that might prove more popular than Mr. Koppel’s program and draw a younger audience. [B mine]

4/1 UPDATE: More today.

Pharmacists for life

A front page story in the Washington Post on Monday has set off a fair amount of talk about the “new debate” over “Pharmacists’ Rights” to not fill prescriptions.

I agree with the Carpetbagger:

I’m not trying to be intentionally obtuse here, but I’m not quite sure why this is even a legitimate controversy. Pharmacists, by virtue of their professional responsibilities, agree to fill prescriptions. Doctors prescribe a remedy, a patient seeks that remedy, a pharmacist provides the remedy. It’s a pretty simple system.

If a pharmacist realizes that he or she may be called on to perform tasks with which they’re uncomfortable, this person has a choice: do the job or find a different job in which these moral quandaries won’t be an issue. In other words, if you don’t like filling prescriptions, don’t become a pharmacist.

Legitimate or no, the threat is considerable as this map from Majikthise clearly illustrates. (Georgia alreay has a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to refill prescriptions.)

Read the rest of "Pharmacists for life" in the extended entry.