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Sat 24 Feb, 2007 02:19 am
Popped into this place for a late afternoon lunch the last couple of days. They had the Fox News Channel on the TV.
Yesterday, they had the whole network devoted to the issue of what should be done with Anna Nicole Smith's remains. From the tone of the talking heads, they had been spending all day talking about this, and it was late afternoon when I came in. They were analyzing the judge who was going to decide.
So the Great Moment comes, and of course we have to be whisked away to the courthouse, lest we miss anything. The judge ruled that she should be buried next to her son, and appointed a guardian to protect the living son's rights. After that was over, more analysis, presumably all evening.
Today I popped in the place again. Same channel on the TV. No court this time, but they had a professional ringmaster on the screen, (because the network was calling the judge a "ringmaster") and they were actually asking this circus ringmaster legal questions! Once more, the "coverage" of this whole event looked like a 24 hour thing.
This is about a B list actress who was largely out of the public eye until she inherited a ton of money from an aged husband. And now she gets round the clock coverage. Anybody remember seeing any movies she starred in? Or memorable TV episodes? I didn't think so.
It 's rather obvious that Fox really doesn't have anything encouraging to report from a conservative perspective, so it's a case of "Let's find something sensational to keep the audience from thinking" time. Sort of a variation of the old "damsels in distress" ploy, only this time the damsel is so distressed she's deceased. And oh brother, are they ever playing this to the hilt.
This is a news network?
When the news broke about Anna Nicole Smith's death -- believe it or not -- I had no idea who she was. Someone had to remind me that there had been quite a brouhaha about her inheritance a while back there. Then I dimly remembered that there had been some bimbo with a similar name who started out as a Playboy playmate or something and went rapidly downhill from there. Anna Nicole Smith? Who? You ask if we remember what movies or TV shows she was in. Was she ever in any? I thught she was just a no-talent wannabe.
But leave it to Fox News to distract us from what the Congress or the President or the Supreme Court are doing to further discredit the Constitution as a somewhat quaint and passe document. We don't need to know all that. Bread and circus, that's the ticket. But don;t worry -- as soon as Ms. Smiths brief sojourn in the spotlight passes, we'll get right back to analyzing Brittany Spears' recent haircut. Another stop-the-presses world event.
kw
To be fair, all the networks other than PBS (so far as I've seen) have spent a considerable amount of time covering this "story". But Fox has been the frontrunner. One phrase you'll hear them use (as Hannity used it last night) is "...this important story..." (the chap is incapable, it appears, of saying anything sane or truthful...last week saw him agreeing with Neil Boortz that "the teachers' union is much more dangerous than al quaeda")
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/20/boortz-teachers-terrorists/
PBS and NPR have reported the Smith story, Bernie, but only as a back-page one-sentence filler when something actually happened, e.g. the judge's decision (without any reference to the judge having tears in his eyes or any other bullshit) about what to do with the corpse. It's why I listen to the news primarily on NPR.
Thanks, Merry. I never almost turn on a radio so NPR and I are not well acquainted.
Radio is my primary source of non-published news. I avoid the tv set like the plague.
Whoya kiddin'? Everyone KNOWS that there is no cable service in the swamp!
gustavratzenhofer wrote:Radio is my primary source of non-published news. I avoid the tv set like the plague.
Fourteenth century vaudeville gag... "I avoid the plague like ______."
Yeah, the "snobs" who are unsatisfied that the death of a woman who was barely in the public eye for her whole career should take up two whole days of continuous, unrelenting coverage on a "news" station.
I thought that gambit was over when Fox was busy pushing that Holloway incident. People were sick of it then, let alone now.
You may well be overestimating the Fox audience (which would surprise me after all the experience you've had here on a2k with that network's admirers). "Willya look at the size of those tits!" really ought to replace "fair and balanced" as network motto.
Perhaps Fox is just not the network for you? Instead of sounding like a whiny *itch, why not simply turn channels?
McGentrix wrote:Instead of sounding like a whiny *itch, why not simply turn channels?
Because, FurFace, I was in a diner and I didn't have access to the remote control. As I said in my post. I'm not going to walk out a place which gives me a decent meal at a good price just because they have stupid FOX NEWS on the TV set.
Try READING something before you respond to it.
Yet, here you are, complaining about it like a child.
McGentrix wrote:Yet, here you are, complaining about it like a child.
Funny, when you complain about things McG, is it childish?
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:McGentrix wrote:Yet, here you are, complaining about it like a child.
Funny, when you complain about things McG, is it childish?
Cycloptichorn
I rarely complain about something as insignificant as what Fox airs on it's news channel.
McGentrix wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:McGentrix wrote:Yet, here you are, complaining about it like a child.
Funny, when you complain about things McG, is it childish?
Cycloptichorn
I rarely complain about something as insignificant as what Fox airs on it's news channel.
So what? It's still childish for you to be complaining.
The fact that you find other's complaints to be insignificant is immaterial; they could just as easily find your complaints to be 'insignificant.'
Hypocrite
Cycloptichorn
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