HeyJaredThe Lint Trap of History
This Substack publishes archival ephemera I've found interesting in my career as a media historian.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 11
- Latest publication
- Sep 16, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 8, 2026
Latest issues
Requiem for a Heavyweight (opens the original)
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Sometimes great athletes win by losing. That’s what happened, repeatedly, to George Chuvalo. The Canadian heavyweight contender from the 1960s and 1970s, who won 73 of an amazing 93 professional bouts, lost all the big ones. He lost to world heavyeright champions Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali (twice), Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Ernie Terrell. Though he beat several excellent professional figh
Brief Thoughts on TV Yesterday and Tomorrow: 9/11 and the New “60 Minutes” (opens the original)
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I’ve been extraordinarily busy in my new role as Chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine, so today’s post will be brief. First item: As every reader of this blog is no doubt aware, Friday marks 25 years since 9/11, the first critical juncture of the 21st century. Most Americans, and most people around the world, experienced that horrific event through the medium of television. Five years ago, I wrote a piece in <a href="https://slate.com/business/20
Everybody Is The Man-On-The-Street Today (opens the original)
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In the newsroom, it’s abbreviated M.O.S.: “Man on Street.” Sometimes it’s just called “sound” - as in, “we need some sound in this piece.” The actual words spoken, the information communicated, and the value to the viewer are all secondary. The primary purpose of any and all vox populi as voiced by un-chyroned strangers has always been to eat up time and fill the newshole with interesting and/or diverse voices and perspectives. The random people interviewed very often know less about the subject
The Return of Network TV’s Instant Special (opens the original)
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Today’s post was inspired by a tweet posted by Los Angeles Times media reporter Steve BattaglioI think devoting an hour in primetime for a celebration of Dolly Parton’s life was a brilliant move by CBS last night. It represented a return to an earlier TV era. As Battaglio notes, you “don’t see these too often anymore.” From about the early-1960s to the late-1980s, these so-called “instant specials” were much more common on network television. News divisions w
Why the Federal Communications Commission Will, Unfortunately, Probably Beat ABC (opens the original)
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Yesterday, the American Broadcasting Company sued the F.C.C. in Federal Court. You can read the court filing (“Complaint for Declaratory and Injuctive Relief”) right here, and it’s a pretty good read. “Government censorship is deeply un-American,” it begins, followed by much tub-thumping about Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment. Th
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