My Friday post is about two of my real life heroes and that isn't said with a sarcastic tongue. The first one is Anderson Cooper. He's the host of the CNN show Anderson Cooper 360 which is a brilliant show. He's suave, debonaire (if you will), loved to play Dungeons & Dragons as a kid (same as me), and has a fantastic job where he gets to talk about important issues of the day and does so with intelligence. There's speculation that he's gay but I'm not going to go into that because in his own words, "I want to talk about the news and not be the news." I think that's good enough for me just as long as he keeps up the good reporting.
Please Please Please click on this link. It goes to an incredibly funny "Ridiculist" episode in which he totally tears apart the Dallas County G.O.P. campaign message for a Debbie Georgatos. When I first saw it air on CNN on Wednesday night while working out at the gym, I laughed my ass off and people started peeking around me to see what I was laughing at. You'll especially love it if you live in Detroit (Mutt!).
Now...onto my other hero...Jon Stewart. On Bill O'Reilly's show, he completely owned that flapping lip for the Right. Furthermore, he explains perfectly why I hate FOX News. People that say CNN is just as left as FOX News is to the right, are completely wrong. FOX News is so incredibly polarized, so incredibly right, that everything in comparison looks like it is on the left. FOX News is a "selective outrage machine that petty fogs the narrative only when it suits them." The part I linked is only part one. Bill O'Reilly actually gets upset and raises his voice because he can't think of anything else to say. Anyway, awesome job Jon Stewart.
Please Please Please click on this link. It goes to an incredibly funny "Ridiculist" episode in which he totally tears apart the Dallas County G.O.P. campaign message for a Debbie Georgatos. When I first saw it air on CNN on Wednesday night while working out at the gym, I laughed my ass off and people started peeking around me to see what I was laughing at. You'll especially love it if you live in Detroit (Mutt!).
Now...onto my other hero...Jon Stewart. On Bill O'Reilly's show, he completely owned that flapping lip for the Right. Furthermore, he explains perfectly why I hate FOX News. People that say CNN is just as left as FOX News is to the right, are completely wrong. FOX News is so incredibly polarized, so incredibly right, that everything in comparison looks like it is on the left. FOX News is a "selective outrage machine that petty fogs the narrative only when it suits them." The part I linked is only part one. Bill O'Reilly actually gets upset and raises his voice because he can't think of anything else to say. Anyway, awesome job Jon Stewart.
It's sad there isn't a real left-wing TV network to counter Fox "News"'s propaganda machine. They need to get Stewart, Colbert, Olbermann, etc. all on one network that's even fairer and balanceder!
ReplyDeleteIt should be illegal for a pure propaganda machine to be called 'news'. You are exactly right about it being so far right that anything seems left next to it.
ReplyDeleteFox News often makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
ReplyDeleteI want to know why someone's orientation (gay or straight) needs to be part of the story anyway. I so don't care. And those that insist that they need to know...well, some people need to find other interests.
ReplyDeleteSome people say...
ReplyDeleteIt's been overheard in...
Ah the Silver Fox. They recently showed Andy Cooper (to use Kathy Griffin's nickname for him) 's office on CNN 360. He's a fascinating person well before he landed that show.
ReplyDeleteSteph: I love Kathy Griffin. I follow her on Twitter and I went to see her comedy show when she came her in 2008 (Salt Lake City).
ReplyDeleteI'd have to say I have these two men as heroes... but I also place Rachel Maddow in the same category of amazing, honorable, tell-it-like it is, brilliant. Friday is better for honoring these people. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteBias isn't a problem in the news unless it is taken to the level that Fox takes it; Stewart is clearly biased, too, but that doesn't interfere with his reporting/discussion the way Fox does -- for example, bias is a problem if (like Rush did) you take the OBL death and make it a down for Obama because "Obama made it about himself." That's where reporting (on the death of OBL) takes a back seat to personal attacks, and makes it less of a news source than an opinion piece.
ReplyDeleteBut the blurring of opinion and news may not be a bad thing; I love watching Stewart and Colbert for my news because it's entertaining. NPR is entertaining (to me) and I get news from them, so I have to allow for the possibility that people could be entertained and educated by O'Reilly. As farfetched as that might be. What would be nice is if people could remember that the opinions aren't always facts.
I just watched the video. It was funny, but going after local GOP videos is pretty low-hanging fruit.
ReplyDeleteBriane: You're right, it is pretty low-hanging fruit. However, it's still funny as hell. I just cannot imagine how someone put that piece on the air and thought, "hey, this is good." Additionally, I don't know how she managed to get the 95 votes that she did (maybe they were all friends with her on Facebook).
ReplyDeleteI love NPR and I was really upset with our Republican House that attempted to take away funding for NPR this spring in the budget talk. That whole debacle with the leadership at NPR was in no way a justification for taking away the federal funding for national public radio. We NEED NPR...it's one of the greatest sources of news but is under attack by conservatives who feel it is too liberal. Personally, I think NPR presents a fairly unbiased perspective on the events of the day. In the least, they never participate in selective outrage and have journalists who actively seek out conflicting points of view.
My favorite Jon Stewart rant on FOX:
ReplyDeleteYou're criticizing me for not living up to YOUR tag line! And you dismiss any criticism as further evidence of how the rest of the media persecutes you. You like to pretend that the relentless conservative activism of Fox News is the equivalent of the disorganized liberal influence you find at NBC, ABC and CBS. You may be able to detect a liberal pathogen..in the bloodstream.. however faint. But Fox news is such a crazy overreaction to that perceived threat, you're like an auto immune disorder. I'm not saying the virus doesn't exist in some small quantity. But you're producing way too many antibodies.
Fox News. You're the Lupus of news.
Michael, I've given you an award here: http://brookerbusse.blogspot.com/2011/05/im-on-fire.html
ReplyDeleteOK you all sound like you know much more than I do about the political orientation of the world. As for me, I think Anderson Cooper is really cute in a Richard Gere/Mark Harmon kind of way. And thinking about that on our last day on the earth gives Rapture a new meaning...lol
ReplyDeleteAnne Coulter went to Uconn and they boo'ed her out. That was not right. Uconn students should have shown some decoram.
ReplyDeleteMichael, there is an award for you at my blog. I hope you like it. It is called Straight from the Heart Blogger Award.