Two journalists discuss our attraction to royals!

 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2021

Cable star discusses herself: We promise! Before the week is done, we're going to let you know about Joe Manchin's sexist racismthe sexist racism put on display when he failed to support Neera Tanden for head of the OMB.

Also, we plan to address the punditry which has welled up around Oprah's attempt to conduct an interview with the current pair of extremely hot royals. It was the greatest TV interview ever, top reporters and professors said.

Basic questions arise from that punditry, questions such as these:

To what extent is the antiracism widely seen in Our Town a type of performative virtue? Also, to what extent can modern journalists evaluate the reliability of imprecise, unverified, extremely high-profile claims? Do major journalists in Our Town possess any such analytical skills  at all, especially when pleasing performance beckons?

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our species' rational skills are known to be quite limited. Few episodes have displayed this fact quite as plainly as pundit reaction to Oprah's attempt at an interview with a rather strange pair of royals. 

(Before they got married, they didn't discuss what life in the palace was like?)

For today, we'll praise a pair of journalists who have begun to push back a tad. At the New York Times, Farah Stockman is wondering why people here in Our Town are so attracted to royals. 

We thought her sardonic reaction was reassuring and morally good.

Meanwhile, at the Washington Post, David Von Drehle says it has always been thus in popular journalism, dating all the way back to the early days of William Randolph Hearst. We thought his piece was reassuring and quite informative.

We stand in praise of Von Drehle and Stockman as they fight to hold back the tide. For ourselves, we can offer a scholarly answer to the question they're poking at:

Why are we the people so drawn to silly, unreliable chatter concerning various royals? Sadly, it's deeply bred in the bone, major top scholars have said.

It's the way our human brains are wired. Or at least, so these top experts insist.

To their vast credit, Stockman and Von Drehle are discussing our peculiar attraction to royals. Last night, a certain major top cable news star started out, once again, with her latest discussion of self.

The major star will go unnamed, but her latest song of self began three minutes into her program. Our analysts shrieked and covered their ears, then ran about the room. 

"I I I I I I I," the youngsters reflexively said. It's what the analysts always say when the star launches one of her digressions, selling the car as she does.

We understand their vast annoyance. Here's how they were triggered last night:

The star was discussing the $1,400 checks a tiny number of us the people will soon be receiving by mail. (Almost all of us get our free money by electronic transfer.)

She noted the fact that President Biden's name won't be on those checks. She said that it was "petty" when the previous commander-in-chief put his name on similar checks.

After that, it happened again! As she so reliably does, she launched a discussion of self:

UNNAMED CABLE STAR (3/9/21): But honestly, as I get older, as I live through more and more years of Republican governance, I'm getting more and more petty all the time

[HA HA HA HA HA] 

—about stuff like this.

Only because Republican presidents put their names on everything. Democratic presidents are the ones who are all modest, right?

If I was a Democratic president, I would put my name on this check, and like a big hologram on it too, so that it like glowed when you open the envelope. I'd make it like one of those gift cards  that plays a song when you

[HA HA HA HA]

It would bling at you and sing at you. I would do anything. I would put sequins on the thing. It would be all about remembering which party made this thing happen and which party voted against it.

But like I said

[HA HA HA HA]

As I develop an increasingly severe case of the O-L-D, I'm getting cattier and pettier with each passing day. And Biden is not. It's why somebody like him is president, and nobody asks my advice on these things.

She ended with a humblebrag, explaining why she isn't president.

The star wound down from there. Along the way, she had said that if she were president, she'd put her name on the check (with sequins) and make it sing at recipients.

"We're completely sure that you would," one of the horrified analysts cried. "I I I I I I I," her colleagues continued to wail.

Is the star "getting cattier with each passing day?" We can't say that she is. We would say that years of massive stardom seem to have damaged her work. 

The rewards are too damn high, we frequently tell the young analysts. Star status, and undisclosed millions of dollars, often lead to bad work.

For whatever reason, it seems to us that the star is also becoming more openly Catholic. (Did you catch her remark last week?) Obviously, there's nothing wrong with being Catholicwe were raised Catholic toobut a certain strain of older-school Catholic culture has possibly played a negative role at the cable channel in question, dating all the way back to the formative days when it was run by Jack Welch.

After her requisite song of self, the star dreamed of locking them up for terms of "life without parole plus twenty years." During last evening's  10 P.M. hour, Lawrence was even more weirdly locked in to dreams of locking them up.

Our profit-based, corporate "news channels" serve us all rather poorly. On balance, we don't seem to notice or mind this blatantly obvious fact.


18 comments:

  1. “If I was a Democratic president, I would put my name on this check, and like a big hologram on it too, so that it like glowed when you open the envelope.”

    This is actually smart political advice. Think about it, if you can get past your hatred of Maddow.

    There was a reason Trump did it, aside from his narcissism.

    It advertises what you have done for the people, many of whom are rather low-information. Heaven knows the Democrats could use a little positive branding.

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  2. "Do major journalists in Our Town possess any such analytical skills at all, especially when pleasing performance beckons?"

    The question is moot, dear Bob, because your zombie town doesn't have any journalists. If one accidentally entered your zombie town, he would've been torn to pieces and eaten immediately.


    "It's the way our human brains are wired."

    Tsk. No, they are not, dear Bob. It's the way you brainless zombies are conditioned, by your cult's liberal-hitlerian propaganda.

    ReplyDelete
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    2. Mao, then there is your own constant utterly boring and repetitive goebbelsian/hitlerian propagannda that you, perhaps due to a psychological condition known as being a 'nut', appears on a daily basis (except for the two months after Trump lost).

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  3. Bob notes that the number of people who get physical rescue checks rather than electronic deposits is much smaller. However, everyone got a letter from Trump telling you all about them, whether it was a check or an electronic transfer...

    ReplyDelete
  4. "To what extent is the antiracism widely seen in Our Town a type of performative virtue?"

    If you cannot even talk bout antiracism, what is the likelihood you'll do something about it?

    Somerby appears to be anti-antiracism. It is unclear whether this is just performative or whether he actually does anything to prevent the assault on racism and preserve our way of life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Anti-racism" has characteristics similar to Orwellian mind control.

      Delete
    2. That's silly. For one thing, mind control relies on some method of enforcement. What would that be in our society?

      Delete
  5. "Also, to what extent can modern journalists evaluate the reliability of imprecise, unverified, extremely high-profile claims?"

    Is Somerby suggesting that Meghan and Harry cannot tell when someone has aimed racism in their direction? Does he think Oprah should have verified their claims by interviewing each of the other royals, or by asking to see their bodycams? It is hugely unclear what would constitute verification in this situation. But I doubt they resigned their royalty and moved away from Great Britain for no reason.

    Being some sort of skeptic in this situation makes Somerby look very foolish.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Farah Stockman is wondering why people here in Our Town are so attracted to royals."

    Yes, no one has ever wondered that before!

    "(Before they got married, they didn't discuss what life in the palace was like?)"

    Being white, it seems unlikely that Harry would have understood what it is like to be on the receiving end of motivated bigotry. Meghan is from California and has grown up in a more inclusive, multicultural city with less overt racism, especially aimed at attractive movie stars. Harry may have reassured her -- "Don't worry, they're going to love you!" and not understood the depths people can sink to.

    But it is almost as if Somerby is blaming Harry & Meghan for their mistreatment. That hardly seems fair. It is more of the "sit down and stop complaining" approach that believes there will be no problem if people would just suck it up and tolerate whatever is happening to them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "The major star will go unnamed"

    Why? Is Somerby afraid of giving her publicity? Hard to see how this would have any impact on her numbers.

    This coyness is one of Somerby's silliest affectations. We all know who he hates.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Somerby is forgetting that Trump delayed issuance of those checks in order to put his name on them.

    It may be that Biden didn't want to waste any time getting the money into people's hands.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "She ended with a humblebrag"

    Actually, I don't see the bragging part. She calls herself old, petty and catty and says no one asks her opinion on things. Where is the brag in that?

    Yes, she set up that whole sentence in order to praise Biden, but it still doesn't qualify as a humblebrag unless it has some brag to it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "We would say that years of massive stardom seem to have damaged her work."

    And yet the criticisms that Somerby aims at her are no different today than they were when she first started on TV. If she were getting worse, shouldn't his complaints reflect that?

    ReplyDelete
  11. "the star dreamed of locking them up"

    We are ALL dreaming of locking up Trump and his cronies, the insurrectionists and wrong-doers of the past administration. I'd say Maddow and Lawrence are in step with the hopes of their Democratic viewers. And who is to say we are all wrong, when those people have committed obvious crimes in public, with impunity, and not been held to account for them. A half-million people are dead because of Trump, but Maddow is wrong because she wants those who commit crimes to be locked up?

    ReplyDelete
  12. "Two journalists discuss our attraction to royals!"

    Somerby doesn't seem that interested in the royals, but he assumes the rest of us are? I'm not. On what basis is he using the word "our" in that sentence?

    ReplyDelete