Public Access Host Gets Caught In a Web

In Richard Graziano’s dream, an unidentified man prepared extensively for an audition. The man woke up early the next day and arrived on stage, but before he got his first note out, the music stopped and the producers said “next.”

Graziano, the host of Queens Public Television’s “The Filthy Rich Show,” told this dream to a small crowd in the station’s break room an hour before his lewd public access variety show. About 10 people made up of producers and guests ate pizza in the room, a small space with an aged microwave and an old style coffeemaker, while Graziano cracked perverted jokes and used a white paper bag and black plastic bag he found in the room as a hat and beard.

After eight years of “The Filthy Rich Show,” Graziano still believes in his imminent rise to fame. But media has changed, and it has rendered public access television nearly obsolete. Graziano, a self-described attention seeker, musician, poet and artist, admitted to a limited knowledge of the Internet. Yet he attempted to have his first live stream with an October evening episode.

Media: Analysis and Length in the New York Times

Reporters at the New York Times have questioned whether a higher word count allows more freedom to stray from journalistic objectivity.  Some worried about the ethical principles of the publication, and looked towards the standards of the magazine, which some believed to be too lax.

Article length plays a significant role in print news.  Daily reports require the recitation of facts while longer pieces rely on analysis.  Reporters have been pressured to state just the facts in shorter pieces, but longer articles allow them to include more information and additional angles on the focus of the story.

Articles in magazines are considerably longer than newspaper pieces.  Gerald Marzorati, the editor of the New York Times magazine, said longer pieces allow narratives to unfold, which may present history, personal profiles or a story of a specific thing.  “A cover story we published a couple of years ago on Social Security reform took thousands of words to explain the origins of S.S. and the changes to the program over the years — something a newspaper piece would never have the space to do,” he said in an e-mail.