TIM ROBBINS - TIM ROBBINS CHASTISES TV EXECS FOR ELEVATING BRITNEY OVER IRAQ

In a keynote speech that former New York Daily News TV columnist David Bianculli likened to Edward R. Murrow's "wires and lights in a box" and Newton Minow's "vast wasteland" criticism of the TV industry, actor Tim Robbins castigated broadcasters during his appearance before the NAB convention in Las Vegas Monday. Robbins challenged his audience to "see themselves as part of a larger picture ... to pursue stories past their headlines." He asked rhetorically, "Haven't criminal acts occurred in government? Shouldn't there be accountability for inept policy decisions? Shouldn't someone be fired? And you know something? I didn't hear any of that, because I am still thinking about that starlet getting out of the car without the panties." In an article app earing on the Broadcasting and Cable website, Bianculli wrote that before appearing before the broadcasters, Robbins had been asked not to deliver his speech (he didn't say by whom) and that he would therefore post it "in some other medium." At that point, he wrote, a voice in the audience yelled "speech," the audience applauded, and Robbins pulled out his prepared text. In it, he noted that at the outset of the Iraq war conservative TV and radio broadcasters "told America ... that I was a traitor , a Saddam lover, a terrorist supporter, undermining the troops. I was appealing at the time for the inspectors to have more time to find those Weapons of Mass Destruction. [To critics], I was a naïve dupe of left-wing appeasement." Then, with acid sarc asm, he continued: "If I had known then what I know now, if I had seen the festive and appreciative faces on the streets of Baghdad today, if I had known then what a robust economy we would be in -- the unity of our people, the wildfire of democracy that has spread across the Mideast -- I would never have said those traitorous, unfounded and irresponsible things." In his article about the speech, Bianculli, who moderated Monday's affair, observed: "A few people walked out. At the end, the majority of th e crowd gave Robbins a standing ovation."

15/04/2008