Now it's poor Juan Williams. Off with his talking head. O wait, on with his talking head now that he's a bona fide member of Fox. Cut his mike on NPR. (He's got such a cute overbite!)
Let's see, there was Rick Sanchez the other week. Helen Thomas, don't forget Helen. Anyone remember Jimmy the Greek and what he said? How about Howard Cosell? "Look at that [...] run!"
The Juan Williams firing is not so much about NPR as it is about the nature and structure of news these days. Like the following...
Here's my bottom line: the cable news channels offer a minimum of news and a maximum of talking 'about the news'.
Despite the explosion of 24 hour news coverage on any number of cable channels, it's still pretty clear that the news we need on a daily basis can fit on the front page of an old fashioned newspaper. There's generally only that much that's really "new" worth knowing and the constraints of network budgets also make it so.
But, what about all the rest of that time that has to be filled? Ah, let's see, we'll get other news people to come on and talk about the news. Yeah, that'll do it. The public will think they're getting more news, but we'll do programs just like at the corner cafe. Guys getting together over coffee and a bull session. Women getting together for talk.
THAT'S NOT NEWS! And you know what, when a bunch of yahoos get together in front of a t.v. camera and really have nothing to say that's worth listening to, guess what? They're gonna say stupid things from time to time. The law of averages, statistics, demand it.
So, Juan Williams, Rick Sanchez, and Helen Thomas all said something stupid on camera or in an interview. Big whoop! I'm just so surprised. Maybe if they stuck to reporting the news, instead of making themselves the news by becoming self-appointed editorial pages, we wouldn't have these snafus.
For my money, we were better served by a solid half hour of t.v. news per day backed up by a few good newspapers. What we've got now is just "The View" writ large over the entire media landscape.
And if that's the way it's gotta be, I'd rather have my coffee while checking dKos.