Limbaugh Loses Rams Bid, Rick Perry Possibly Covering Up Execution Of An Innocent Man, Jaycee Dugard Pictures, and A Sweat Lodge Tragedy
Hi everyone. I found the show pretty uninteresting tonight, so this is going to be short and sweet. Well, short anyway. I make no promises on the sweet part. Your mileage may vary. We begin with the news that the NFL has spoken and their message to Rush Limbaugh is: no Rams for you! Actually, he wasn't going to be the sole owner, and there's this whole process involving three-quarters of NFL owners approving a bid, but I could really care less about the details.
This news would have been quite enough for me. However, this is 360, so yeah, here come da panel. Al Sharpton is back and he's joined by Stephen Smith and McGraw Milhaven from KTRS here in St. Louis. There's nothing of note, except maybe McGraw calling what happened to Limbaugh a "high tech lynching." He actually does an excellent job of being even more annoying than Sharpton, which usually is a hard feat. Impressive! I love it when they have on people from my city...and then they act like idiots. Thanks for representing.
We next move on to Randi Kaye in studio to talk about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man executed in Texas for the arson deaths of his daughters. But now fire investigators are stating that it wasn't arson and Governor Rick Perry seems to be doing some shady things in regards to the investigation. I've missed some of the prior reports 360 did on this case, so I'm not really on top of it, but I'm glad they're doing the digging. After Randi, Anderson Cooper talks with Cameron's stepmother via phone and Colleen McCain Nelson, of "The Dallas Morning News."
On now to their week-long series "Politicians Behaving Badly." When I first heard Anderson preview this series a day or two ago, my first thought was, "dude, you are going to need way more than a week." Anyway, tonight's contestant is Nevada Senator John Ensign. The requisite panel includes Joe Johns, Candy Crowley, and Stan Brand, former general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives. I appreciate the effort, but a lot of this just feels like retreading. Even the overall topic seems overdone. Why not do a series on something like legislation that's not getting much coverage?
Transitioning now to Erica Hill talking about Jaycee Dugard. I figured this was coming. No way 360 wasn't going to jump on this story. For the first time we get to see Jaycee (she's on the cover of "People" and looks very pretty), and I actually don't mind hearing about the facts of that. But why oh why did they have to follow it up with Ed Smart and psychiatrist Judith Cohen? I sympathize with the Smart family, but what Elizabeth went through is simply not comparable to Jaycee's situation, and I don't think he has any right to act like he knows what she's going through. As for Judith, good lord, she actually resorted to body language analysis. Embarrassing.
Our final piece of the night is from Gary Tuchman, regarding the deaths of two people at a Sedona, Arizona sweat lodge. The owner of the lodge, James Arthur Ray, is apparently one of those self-help guru people. You know, he's ready to help...provided you pay thousands of dollars. The concept of the sweat lodge actually came from Native Americans and they operate them to this day. The difference between them and Ray is that whole capitalism run amuck thing. They don't charge for their services. It's their belief that Ray packed in too many people and didn't use the right materials to cover the lodge--no doubt all in the name of profit maximization. Nice.
There was no "shot" tonight, as was the case last night. I really hope this is simply a coincidence (it wouldn't be the first time without the segment), and not a reaction to the Daily Show segment that ripped CNN a new one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly a huge "shot" fan, but I'd find it pretty disturbing if they chucked it over that and my reason is two-fold. First of all, wow, that would be some massively thin skin. It's bad enough it's virtually impossible to get a critical comment posted to their blog. I mean, seriously, man-up a bit, guys.
But even worse than that--and again, this is all just reaction to a hypothetical and not confirmed situation--it completely misses TDS's main point. The "shot" is not CNN/360's problem. Jon Stewart's gripe--and where he is totally on point--is that CNN consistently lets their guests spew complete BS and does not hold them accountable in any way. Look, I don't think anyone expects the anchor to be an information superhero. They can't always fact-check on the fly during a live segment. But there's no fact-checking after-the-fact either. If CNN were to really react to the TDS segment, they should brainstorm a way to do this. Of course, that would mean actually holding their own contributors accountable, and we all know that's not going to happen.
So anyway, like I said, maybe the "shot's" absence is just a coincidence. In any regards, the show wasn't that great tonight. I don't understand what's happening with them lately.
This news would have been quite enough for me. However, this is 360, so yeah, here come da panel. Al Sharpton is back and he's joined by Stephen Smith and McGraw Milhaven from KTRS here in St. Louis. There's nothing of note, except maybe McGraw calling what happened to Limbaugh a "high tech lynching." He actually does an excellent job of being even more annoying than Sharpton, which usually is a hard feat. Impressive! I love it when they have on people from my city...and then they act like idiots. Thanks for representing.
We next move on to Randi Kaye in studio to talk about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man executed in Texas for the arson deaths of his daughters. But now fire investigators are stating that it wasn't arson and Governor Rick Perry seems to be doing some shady things in regards to the investigation. I've missed some of the prior reports 360 did on this case, so I'm not really on top of it, but I'm glad they're doing the digging. After Randi, Anderson Cooper talks with Cameron's stepmother via phone and Colleen McCain Nelson, of "The Dallas Morning News."
On now to their week-long series "Politicians Behaving Badly." When I first heard Anderson preview this series a day or two ago, my first thought was, "dude, you are going to need way more than a week." Anyway, tonight's contestant is Nevada Senator John Ensign. The requisite panel includes Joe Johns, Candy Crowley, and Stan Brand, former general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives. I appreciate the effort, but a lot of this just feels like retreading. Even the overall topic seems overdone. Why not do a series on something like legislation that's not getting much coverage?
Transitioning now to Erica Hill talking about Jaycee Dugard. I figured this was coming. No way 360 wasn't going to jump on this story. For the first time we get to see Jaycee (she's on the cover of "People" and looks very pretty), and I actually don't mind hearing about the facts of that. But why oh why did they have to follow it up with Ed Smart and psychiatrist Judith Cohen? I sympathize with the Smart family, but what Elizabeth went through is simply not comparable to Jaycee's situation, and I don't think he has any right to act like he knows what she's going through. As for Judith, good lord, she actually resorted to body language analysis. Embarrassing.
Our final piece of the night is from Gary Tuchman, regarding the deaths of two people at a Sedona, Arizona sweat lodge. The owner of the lodge, James Arthur Ray, is apparently one of those self-help guru people. You know, he's ready to help...provided you pay thousands of dollars. The concept of the sweat lodge actually came from Native Americans and they operate them to this day. The difference between them and Ray is that whole capitalism run amuck thing. They don't charge for their services. It's their belief that Ray packed in too many people and didn't use the right materials to cover the lodge--no doubt all in the name of profit maximization. Nice.
There was no "shot" tonight, as was the case last night. I really hope this is simply a coincidence (it wouldn't be the first time without the segment), and not a reaction to the Daily Show segment that ripped CNN a new one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly a huge "shot" fan, but I'd find it pretty disturbing if they chucked it over that and my reason is two-fold. First of all, wow, that would be some massively thin skin. It's bad enough it's virtually impossible to get a critical comment posted to their blog. I mean, seriously, man-up a bit, guys.
But even worse than that--and again, this is all just reaction to a hypothetical and not confirmed situation--it completely misses TDS's main point. The "shot" is not CNN/360's problem. Jon Stewart's gripe--and where he is totally on point--is that CNN consistently lets their guests spew complete BS and does not hold them accountable in any way. Look, I don't think anyone expects the anchor to be an information superhero. They can't always fact-check on the fly during a live segment. But there's no fact-checking after-the-fact either. If CNN were to really react to the TDS segment, they should brainstorm a way to do this. Of course, that would mean actually holding their own contributors accountable, and we all know that's not going to happen.
So anyway, like I said, maybe the "shot's" absence is just a coincidence. In any regards, the show wasn't that great tonight. I don't understand what's happening with them lately.
Labels: death penalty, Jaycee Dugard, NFL, Rams, Rick Perry, Rush Limbaugh, sweat lodges, Texas
posted by eliza at 11:59 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Eliza,
I took a look at allthingsanderson blog. Boy, there's some backlash there which is line also with your observations of the last two nights of AC360. Last night should have been called the panel show. CNN is doing AC no favors, it's a shame to waste his talents like this. I wouldn't be surpised if he moves over to 60 minutes full-time and ditch 360 once his contract is up with CNN. Anne D.
@Anne: Yeah, talking to my friends, it seems like most of the fans aren't happy with the show lately. But honestly, I don't think this is specifically a show problem--this is a network problem.
They promote Anderson the person, yet the show could essentially be anchored by anyone. I've always been one who rolls my eyes when I hear fans say that they want to see more of Anderson's personality. I watch for news; not to see some guy be cute.
BUT I do think it's a shame and frankly odd, that they don't tailor the show to his strengths. When he's passionate about a subject it really shows. That's why all those shows on the economy were such duds.
I think it's cool if they opt out of certain stories--as long as they replace them with something equally newsy & not the latest sensation.
When there were rumors Anderson was taking over for Regis, I told someone that even though I knew it wasn't true, that gig coupled with a higher profile at 60 Minutes seemed like the perfect setup for him. But what do we know, right? We're just random chicks on a blog. :P
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