National television personalities are monsters of narcissism, it being something of a prerequisite for the job, hence the various montages and retrospectives of "The world as seen through our eyes!" and "The year in review as reflected off us!"
There's a current "Aren't we important?" promo spot for the today show that features snippets of the the cast members doing Serious Journalism with very serious looks on their face. It includes Savannah Guthrie asking President Obama back in April "Is this the closest we've come to war...on your watch?"
I'm hoping that the stutter-step half-beat pause was an editing cut where they excised "...with North Korea..." to make it better fit the 30-second spot, because as it sits, it makes Ms. Guthrie (and, by association, NBC) sound a little thick. I'm not saying an RPG goes off in Afghanistan every time they roll that commercial but, you know...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
I was enjoying (for given values, etc.) the Baby Boomer recounting of how they (by which I mean we, alas) invented turning 50.
Why the surprise?
The same industry that told us that the Spanish blew up the Maine, or that Hitler was "Man of the Year"? Of course they are in it for themselves...it is all about themselves, not us.
Way back in caveman & campfire times, the story teller performed an important sociological function...but often, the lesson and importance was in the story, not the story teller. This has been perverted now to the story tellers themselves being the important thing...mostly because they say so.
I wonder about the effect upon Mr. or Ms. Narcissist Newscaster of actually meeting Obama, whose well-reported self esteem is like unto a whole fleet of icebergs versus their own titanic egos.
mikee,
"whose well-reported self esteem is like unto a whole fleet of icebergs versus their own titanic egos."
Oh, nice!
*golf clap*
But Tam, don't you know that the war in Afghanistan has been memory-holed now that Obama is president?
I mean, he'd really, really have ended it by now if he could. So he obviously can't for some reason. Poor thing. Having to deal with someone else's war.
You know, that war that he's actually presided over almost as long as that other guy, at this point, during which time more soldiers have died than underr that other guy's watch.
But still. Totally not his fault. not his war. So it doesn't even exist at this point.
I'm still reeling from the level of stupid of asking a scientist if the big asteroid that passed us was caused by global warming. Nothing surprises me now.
....
Lo these many years have passed, yet nothing has changed ..... The Marines are still at War, and America is still at the Mall, and despite all the blood and treasure spent, Iraq is still a hellhole, and Afghanistan still a backwards backwater, both ruled by various warring warlords with different stripes of the same 7th century mentality.
On the bright side, it is not the same America I grew up in..... I don't know that I could stomach these things if it were.
Americans dying in foreign shitholes don't count when a Democrat is President.
Speaking of "icebergs versus their own titanic egos", I recently read a squib on Fox News, about Kate Winslet IIRC, which implied that the public hadn't heard of the sinking of the Titanic until the 1997 film. IOW, the author was a self-absorbed gen X idiot who somehow didn't learn of most hyped shipwreck ever, until they made yet another film - not about the sinking, but placed on the ship.
Post a Comment