September 5, 2018--Boooooring

Mika got it right yesterday morning.

I dosed off Morning Joe for a couple of weeks, needing respite from all-Trump-all-the-time, but with the onset of the new season (the "year" starts up again the day after Labor Day) I felt the atavistic compulsion to reconnect to what is going on. Including trolling for subjects to write about that do not have anything to do with Trump.

Lots of luck with that I realized on Tuesday as early as five-after-six, with the first five minutes of MJ devoted to Joe and Willie exchanging barbs about the crumbling fate of the Yankees and the Red Sox's historic run.

Just two minutes into their joshing you could see Mika cringing. Up to their old schtick. If looks could wound her look would draw blood.

"Can we get on with things?" exasperated, she said. They ignored her. "There's lots going on and we need to talk about that."

"Yes, John McCain. His funeral," Joe said without enthusiasm, still more interested in baseball gossip.

"It's over," Mika said, cryptically.

"Not until it's over," Joe said, he thought slyly, quoting Yogi Berra, winking at Wille, with baseball still more on his mind than McCain.

"Not the funeral, but the presidency."

"Over?" Joe said, paying attention to his cohost and fiancée for a rare moment. 

"This show is so boring," she said. 

I grew excited, expecting a family spat. Mika pops off a few times a year and videos of her meltdowns usually go viral. I thought--what an inventive way for her to launch the year. Trashing her own show.

Having the floor she pressed on. "Nothing is new. In fact, nothing can be new. Everything is predictable. We know exactly what he is going to say. Or tweet. His whole presidency depends on a steady stream of surprises. In there own way, excitements. Engaging outrages. He's the producer of his own reality TV presidency and it's about to be cancelled."

"You know, Mika's half right," one of their panelists, off camera, said. You could sense he was worried that the "half right" could be misinterpreted, come off as patronizing. Which it did. Though smacking of enough truth that she and the others let it go. She was happy just being paid attention to.

As a result there was no more sports talk. They were off and running, making being boring interesting. 

"If his people start to get bored with him," Sam Stein of the Daily Beast said, "he's cooked. Don't mishear me, they believe him, more important they believe in him. They are also there for the show. If you live in some, forgive me, godforsaken place like Fargo, North Dakota, where the most exciting thing is the Charley Pride concert, it doesn't get any better than going to one of his rallies after standing in line for hours to get a seat for his political standup spritz. But before we get giddy about this, at the Fargo rally Trump people claimed 6,000 turned out, though the local press had the number much less than that."

"Like the ongoing numbers game about the size of the crowd at his inauguration," MSNBC's Kasie Hunt chimed in.

"One thing Trump knows for certain," this from WAPO columnist and editor Eugene Robinson, "Is how to pay attention to ratings. The Apprentice didn't go off the air because Trump was running for president but because the ratings were heading south. If the ratings and demographics had continued to be strong NBC would probably still have it on the air. I don't believe the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution forbids that. Making money from a TV show. Look, he's still getting away with making a killing from his hotels and resorts. I'm not hearing about anyone giving up their Mar-a-Lago membership or the Trump hotel in Washington offering weekend discounts."

Willie said, "There are reports that attendance at his rallies is declining. It's not such a hot ticket anymore. And more than a few who show up appear to filter out before his act is over."

"You're right," Joe jumped in,"politics is all about numbers. And enthusiasm. He could be slipping in both realms. If he is, as Mika said, it's all over."

"Well," Mika said, now all smiles, "at the beginning of being over."

Glancing at the clock, also smiling, Joe said, "We made it to six-thirty without being boring. I think we're off to a good start for the year."

September 25, 2017--Megyn Kelly's Joy

If like me you occasionally enjoy indulging in a little schadenfreude--taking pleasure in the misfortunes of the rich and famous--there is an opportunity awaiting Monday morning at 10 a.m. on network TV when NBC launches "Megyn Kelly Today."

In case you have been living off the grid for the past two years you may not know who she is and why this is sort of a big deal.

She was doing pretty well on Fox News as an anchor and talk show host when her aggressive questioning of Donald Trump in August 2015 during the first Republican primary debate brought her national attention and subsequently propelled her career forward into the media  stratosphere.

She witheringly pressed Trump about his many misogynist comments. Her opening comment to him included--

"You've called women you don't like 'fat pigs, 'dogs, 'slobs,' and 'disgusting animals.'

She added--

"Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks. You once told a contestant on 'Celebrity Apprentice' it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees."

His response three days later was to attack Kelly, saying--

"You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever."

The rest is history--

While a normal candidate would have been disqualified as the result of this, Trump went on to be nominated and elected and Megyn Kelly got Fox and NBC to bid for her on-going services. NBC made an offer she couldn't refuse--a weekly show, "Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly" and now the daily "Megyn Kelly Today."

And of course her deal includes a big payday--at least $20 million a year. Almost as much as Alex Rodriquez earned annually as the New York Yankee's third baseman.

But the ratings of the Sunday show have been, well, a disaster and so there is a lot of pressure on her to deliver a successful morning show.  

And as a result there is this opportunity for some guilty-pleasure schadenfreude.

About the morning show, last week Kelly said--

"I don't feel this is a risky proposition because I know myself and know what I can do. I'm about to launch the show that I was born to do. This is what I was meant to do."

 Let's hope so. Actually, let's hope not.

In an interview with the New York Times she said much more. I will share some of it as an appetizer in anticipation of the new show itself--

Though her show on Fox had good ratings, she said-- 

It wasn't bringing me joy anymore. You're going to see the Megyn we know. For me, it truly is all about pursuing more joy. That's the reason we are here . . . . This is my dream job because I am a person who is searching. And always have been. I am searching for my joy and more love and more wellness. Always have been. Finally, my job is going to align with my soul, with my heart, with my reason for being."

Oprah couldn't have said it better.

In the interview with the Times, Megan Kelly said "joy," "joyful," and "joyous" nine times. I will restrain myself from sharing the full list because I am writing this Sunday evening before dinner and don't want to further spoil my appetite.

February 11, 2105--Built On Lies

The problem at NBC is not that Brian Williams is a lier.

He admits now that he sexed up a 2003 report about a foreign-correspondant-trip of his to war-ravaged Iraq--that his helicopter was hit by incoming enemy fire. And there may be evidence that he did a version of the same thing while reporting about Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans (he claimed then that he saw bodies floating by his hotel though there was apparently no significant flooding where his hotel was located); and, who knows, he may have stretched things in a similar self-aggrandizing way during the other assignment that put him on the map, reporting knee-deep in water from South Asia about the tsunami of 2004.

The problem is that the real lie is that he and his anchor colleagues are no longer reporters and that the shows they star in are not about the news. They are exhorbitantly-paid news readers. Reading the script like the actors they are and blow-dried to attract viewers, especially those from coveted demographic groups, all to keep sponsors happy and buying commercials.

All the anchors, with rather thin journalistic backgrounds, but telegenic, Brian Williams, extra-youthful David Muir at ABC, Scott Pelley at CBS, Anderson Cooper at CNN, Megyn Kelly of Fox, and who knows who at MSNBC, all are more in the entertainment business than the news business. Thus their favorite things are to report on events that will garner the highest ratings--natural disasters (hurricanes, blizzards, and tsunamis), terrorist activities (if there is video of beheadings to accompany their reports), and plane crashes. How many hours and days and weeks did CNN devote to the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 307?

Now in paroxysms of schadenfreude, TV colleagues, print journalists, and people calling in to talk shows are asking for William's head. (Not literally of course. But who know.) And as of last night they at least had a taste of blood--NBC suspended him without pay for six months.

Some rue the "fact" that he isn't Tom Brokaw or, even more distressing by comparison, "the most trusted man in America," Walter Cronkite, both of whom presided over TV news when it was still news, not profit centers. Neither Tom nor old Walter, I have been reading in the blogs, ever would have participated in such unprofessional behavior. What is not noted is that Cronkite and Brokaw did not live and work in a world so pervaded by social networks and Internet sites where hyper-scrutiny of anyone famous' missteps go viral and thus magnified beyond proportion.

I cannot claim for certain that Tom and Walter were on the full up-and-up. Can anyone?

When Roone Arledge, who headed ABC's remarkably successful sports operation was asked to also take on responsibility for the network's news division, it was with the assumption that he would turn what had been the Tiffany Network's unprofitable news division into a profit center. He managed to do so by softening up the reporting, getting the hard news out of the way in the first few minutes and then turning to the up-close-and-personal stuff that had been his signature in ABC's Olympics coverage.

The rest is history. Now even NBC's fading Today Show and widely-watched CBS's 60 Minutes make hundreds of millions and are those networks' most profitable shows. And Brian Williams spends more time on the Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live than he does in Syria.

But this TV news environment also contributes to the success of so-called "fake-news," with entertainment and fun unabashedly at the heart of Jon Stewart's Daily Show and the Colbert Report. More young people who even bother to watch TV get their "news" there than on the three networks and cable news outlets. And often that news is real news.

Meanwhile, desperate, isn't it the Today Show that is now raising a puppy on the set?

January 17, 2014--15 Seconds of Fame

Everything-is-speeding-up.

From Andy Warhol's brilliant perception that the new media age will assure each of us 15 minutes of fame, we are now seeing evidence that that 15 minutes has shrunk to 15 seconds.

Case in point is work-product of the company, NowThis News, recently acquired by NBC's news division.

They specialize in producing news clips that run for 10, 15, and 30 seconds. So, last week, they produced a 30-second micro-documentary about "Chris Christie's Least Presidential Moments" and another one--my favorite--a 15-second clip that "summarized" the life and times of former prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, who died on Saturday.

Fifteen seconds for someone who lived an over-full like stretches even my cynical notion about the limits of young Americans' shrinking attention spans.

And shame on NBC, the network of Huntley-Brinkley, for pandering to this want-to-know-nothing generation, for whom 15 seconds is about as long as they can sit still.

I know, I know, I'm sounding like and old-codger.

 Guilty as charged!

But-I-need-to-stop-since-I-used-up-my-175-word-limit.