Culture critic reflects on the times

SORAYA VICTORY/YH Frank Rich considers the entertaining value of Monica Lewinsky.

When New York Times writer Frank Rich switched from writing theater reviews to authoring an Op-Ed column, he didn't realize that he'd still be critiquing drama. Yet Rich sees the current media obsession with Monica Lewinsky as the latest example of news as soap opera. "I could never have predicted that entertainment would have become our form of political life and cultural life," he said. Yesterday, Rich addressed this transformation at a Master's Tea and a Poynter Fellow lecture titled, "Journalism in the Age of Monica." In an age in which reporters cultivate their own celebrity, Rich said that substantive issues take a back seat to descriptions of sex, and news is stretched with a mix of vamping and punditry that he termed "Journalistic Hamburger Helper."

"The bias is in favor of entertainment," Rich said of today's network news coverage. "The question is: is it entertaining enough?"

Before becoming a critic of "culture in the broadest sense," Rich earned the nickname "the Butcher of Broadway" as the Times' chief theater critic for 13 years. Since 1993, a twice-a-week column has allowed his critical eye to observe more widely; he has commented on everything from gay-bashing in D.C. to his son's decision to come to Yale. In both critical roles, Rich said, "The critic works for the reader," not for the theater industry or any other institution. Maintaining this ethic means he has to "be as fair and accurate as I can be, but deliver an opinion that is of use to the reader." This philosophy has earned him plenty of respect, but also plenty of theater-world hate mail.

SORAYA VICTORY/YH Rich addressed students and faculty at a Master's Tea on Thus., Oct. 15, at Jonathan Edwards.

Yet Rich remembers criticism of his reviews as mild compared to the violent reactions his editorial columns often evoke. While the transition from observing Broadway to observing the national stage was generally smooth, according to Rich, the critical processes--from preparation all the way to print--differ widely. As a drama critic, Rich knew where he'd be every night and what shows he'd be writing about; being a columnist is more "self-starting," since he chooses everything from topic to headline. In fact, Rich doesn't even have an editor--a liberating but terrifying position. Approaches also differ. "In the theater, I always wanted to preserve the feeling that you don't know what's going to happen when the curtain went up," Rich explained. "I wanted to go to things cold." Now he is "constantly reading, phoning, watching, surfing the internet. At any given time I'm reporting stories and learning about stories."

Perhaps Rich's long experience of watching theater produces his witty, reasoned, highly readable take on the national melodrama of Bill and Monica. In his talk, Rich chronicled the media's increasing emphasis on entertainment, dating back to the advent of the primetime miniseries like Roots and The Holocaust during the 1970s, which proved to networks that they could take serious issues and "turn them into long-term soap operas" garnering high ratings. Applying such tactics to news brought sensationalized coverage of the Gulf War and the media circuses of the O.J. Simpson trial and Princess Diana's death.

This progression, in Rich's view, made Monicagate "an accident waiting to happen." He noted that while the public's opinion has remained unchanged--most Americans have long believed that Clinton had an affair and lied about it and that he should not resign or be impeached--the media "are a little out of touch." Especially on the question of sex: columnists and pundits couldn't believe that Americans were not shocked by the lurid details of the Starr Report. To the contrary, Rich noted, "People are a little more adult than the media is giving them credit for."

Though he believes that treating the public as prudish and naïve makes the media "subjective and condescending," Rich conceded that the public's hypocrisy doesn't help. Most people, for example, tell pollsters they don't want to hear any more of Monica, yet all the while driving up television ratings and clearing out newstands full of Lewinsky-related media.

The widening gap between a sensationalized media and an inured public hasn't left Rich feeling all that great about his profession. "This has not been a good time," he said, and he looks forward to the end of a "madcap year" of Monica. Nevertheless, the recent decline into schlock tactics hasn't blinded Rich to the increase in the quality of print journalism during his career. "A lot of things have been improved," Rich said. Gone are the days when the Times "pointedly edited out style, flavor, and descriptive detail." Now, Rich said, "Good writing is valued more than it used to be."

And for him, this change is for the best. When asked what he looks for in a critic, Rich identified three elements: "knowledge of the subject, passion for the subject, and good writing." It was his passion for theater, he remembered, that kept him interested even after watching scores of mediocre performances, and it was his love of writing that kept him devoted to his job. "The great part is saying exactly what you mean to say in as clear a way as possible," Rich said. "It's even better if it's something you're excited about--if it's spreading the news."

Such excitement keeps Rich hopeful about his field, even when watching another Monica report. Optimistic that the public can distinguish quality from sensationalism, Rich believes, "There may be a way to get high circulation and ratings with the journalism business and not show business." As for Monica, he feels the curtain will one day fall on her drama as well. "The good news is the story will end," he said. "Perhaps not in my lifetime, but certainly in the lifetime of Yale undergraduates."

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