MSNBC's "Daily Rundown"

MSNBC’s Daily Rundown is hosted by Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie, two charming, smart people.

But they both are obsessed with the word, “quickly” and use it to try and speed up guest’s monologues when time is running out.

They actually mean briefly.

Moreover, no one really speeds up. Guests usually end up speaking more slowly and at considerable length.

Guthrie and Todd have been apprised of their meaningless dictum (or advice) to guests but still insist upon using “quickly” as a panacea for longwindedness.

(They are not alone in using “quickly” to try and get guests to wrap it up but they are more obsessed with the word than other TV anchors and hosts are.)

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The Worst Show on TV?

ABC’s The View – a Barbara Walters creation – is quite possibly (not arguably) the worst show on TV.

The group of harpies who host the hour-long show example the lowest common denominator in human intelligence and sophistication.

Whoopie Goldberg dresses like the proverbial slob, and looks, everyday, as if she needs a bath and a good shampoo. (And when she adopts her “Valley Girl” persona, sensitive viewers reach for a barf bag.)



Sherri Shepherd is a woman devoid of common sense and or any I.Q. whatsoever. Her tendency to interrupt any conversation on a roll goes to her lack of awareness, about what is going on. (She’s the archetypal nobody, but The View likes her – uses her – because she brings a black demographic that Goldberg’s messy visage can’t.)



Elizabeth Hasselbeck is the white honky of The View – an egotistical loaf of white-bread ignorance, whose sensibility about women and politics is the nadir of intellectualism, and human decency.



Joy Behar may not be the most ingratiating personality on television but she is a comedienne and often provides surcease from the rafts of putrid bon mot by her co-host partners.



The View is representative of just how far television as sunk as a medium to enhance humanity. The dream of television’s pioneers – Philo Farnsworth and William Paley (among others) – for a medium that would provide culture and learning for the great unwashed has turned into a veritable nightmare with shows like The View.

Of course ABC won’t cancel such a show; it has an audience of stay-at-home women while their husbands sustain them and a raft of gays who are attracted to the likes of a Goldberg or Behar.

Sure, there are and have been other disgusting shows – The Jerry Springer show comes to mind – but those shows don’t pretend to be modes of enlightenment, which The View thinks it is.

Ms. Walters should be sent into exile for foisting such an abomination on the viewing public. She has substituted her clout and cachet for a nerve-rattling confluence of ignorance and ego.

(Give us a moment to puke.)

The Yin-Yang of Morning TV

Good Morning America lags The Today Show in viewers, and Robin Roberts is one of the reasons this is so.



Ms. Roberts is a caffeinated co-host of the ABC a.m. effort, and is one of the worst “interviewers” on all of television.

Roberts is always over-the-top and topically irrelevant, but she is a cancer-survivor, which is why ABC is loath to put her on the back-burner. Moreover, she’s African-American and everyone knows that firing blacks raises all kinds of problems for firers.

If viewers want jalapeno waffles for their morning repast, Roberts is their dish. She spices up GMA but a little goes a long way, and her professionalism as a journalist is nil.

On the opposite side of the a.m. coin is The Today Show’s Meredith Vieira, who comes to the early hours as a wet mop, lacking sparkle and journalistic acumen.



Ms. Vieira always appears somnambulistic, and her interviewing technique is – to be kind – vapid at best.

Ms. Vieira is the archetypal, tired mom. As a morning dish she isn’t an egg, sunny side up or even a hard-boiled version. She’s poached.

These two women make morning newspapers a viable option for those interested in news and societal gossip. The national print press should be delighted.

The Erroneous, Sexist Katie Couric Flap



Katie Couric is doing just fine.

Her anchoring of the CBS Evening News is as good as that by Charlie Gibson at ABC and Brian Williams at NBC, and sometimes better, as Ms. Couric allows viewers to be empathetic about many stories.

Peter Osnos wrote a piece [7/17] for The Century Foundation, wherein he suggests Ms. Couric should resign, and thus save face as it were:

http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1630

Mr. Osnos is a quitter apparently, and would hope others might emulate his loser attitude about the vicissitudes of the news business.

Katie Couric knows what the news business is all about – not news entirely, but style over substance, ratings, backbiting, jealousies, ego, hubris even, and sexist declamations when a woman presumes to be better than her colleagues.

(Harry Reasoner’s not-so-subtle skewering of Barbara Walters when she joined him as co-anchor was archetypal sexism.)

We who are news junkies admire Katie Couric, especially now, while she keeps a stiff upper lip as those around her slink away from support and cower behind the “bad ratings” rubric.

That CBS News is in third place is no big deal. Lots of CBS entertainment shows are in third place, and they don’t have an ounce of the cachet that Couric and her new newscasts have.

Ms. Couric is an aesthetic pleasure, and her professionalism remains intact no matter what content she’s forced to imbibe.

NBC’s Brian Williams is a nice guy, and it shows on-air. Charlie Gibson is a nice guy we’re told but his dismissive responses to some ABC reporters portends otherwise.

Ms. Couric is civilized, classy, sophisticated, and more importantly she exudes credibility. What’s not to like, or admire?

We who are in the news business, and those of us who are not, like Katie Couric. We like her newscasts, and we receive, almost every night, useful, practical information from her broadcasts.

That’s more than we can say for most cable news show, where the number of viewers are miniscule compared to what Ms. Couric and CBS garner.

So, take it easy Osnos, et alia. Couric can prevail, and will prevail, so long as her bosses don’t run for cover when fellow sexists get riled up over her stamina and grace under fire.