It has definitely been a week for people watching. Not people watching in the traditional sense, I am not sitting outside watching all of the pretty girls walk by, but rather people watching via the internet. Sure I have already thrown Sharon Stone and Susan Sarandon on the blog this week, but if only they were the only two worth watching.
First, tonight is Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final and once again the city used Friday as an opportunity to have a Penguins pep rally. Mind you, they did the very same thing last Friday, before the Penguins and the Red Wings played Game 1 in Detroit. I am just curious how many pep rallies are actually needed before the faithful are properly enfrothed. Plus, from, a superstitious point of view, the Penguins had exactly zero pep rallies for the first three rounds of the playoffs and lost a sum total of 2 games (12-2), yet after the first pep rally they promptly went out and lost two consecutive games to trail in the best of seven 2 games to 1. Obviously if the pep rally results in another two game losing streak, this series is over, and if that is the case, I am not blaming the team, I am blaming the pep rallies.
Also of note, Oprah Winfrey has stated that she is going to go vegan for 21 days to see if she feels better on a vegan diet. I know who will feel better, all of the animals who have seen their threat level drop from red to green. Carrots, on the other hand, may become endangered.
Earlier this week, the NY Daily News reported that the British media were ridiculing Princess Beatrice for having, as we in the west might say, a little too much junk in the trunk. I don't know, she looks fine to me, nothing wrong with a few curves on a female, plus she is a red head and any former Dungeons & Dragons player would know, being a redhead is a +2 on the saving throw versus ugly. Of course all of us former Dungeons & Dragons players are also secure enough in our manhood that sometimes we do escape our parent's basements.
A local story that picked up some national coverage (I know I saw it twice Thursday morning on MSNBC, and some national newspapers picked up the story as well that I saw) was the firing of sports talk host Mark Madden from ESPN 1250 here in Pittsburgh. Mark had been warned in the past by ESPN management in Bristol CT that he needed to tone down his act if he was to stay employed by them. In the past he had talked about how he would have sex with callers wives, was critical (and sometimes insulting) of local sports figures here, and during one show said something along the lines of "having sex with a stripper would be like throwing a hot dog down a tunnel". It was an act for acquired tastes to be sure, yet what he said last week led first to an apology on the air and when the suits in Bristol caught wind of it, his dismissal. After word of Sen Ted Kennedy's brain tumor came out last week, Madden went on the air and said that he was sorry to hear about the brain tumor and that he thought the Senator "would live long enough to be assassinated". Mind you, two of the Senators brothers, President John F Kennedy and Robert Kennedy (who was running for President at the time) were both assassinated. The comments are indeed in poor taste, but what does it say of us, in a society where we covet freedom above all else, if the censoring isn't done by the government, but by its own citizenry. Madden has a right to be offensive, and yes, his employer has a right to dismiss him over it, but what does it say about us. Are we so thin skinned that we can't help but be offended to the point of censorship simply because we don't like what we hear. The obvious solution would have simply been not to listen, let Madden offend his audience away if that was the path he chose to take and move on, and find something more agreeable to listen to in his place. I often hear people chatter about the Patriot Act and how Americans are losing their freedoms, trust me, the person next to you will a cell phone camera waiting to take your picture the next time you screw up is a far greater threat to your security than the government is.
The problem with me making lists is that I always forget something that should have went on them. In my last blog I listed the 10 worst TV shows of my lifetime. I can't believe I forgot "America's Funniest Videos" which is about as unfunny as a show that purports to be funny could be. Mind you, it was also one of the first of the "cheap" shows that have come to dominate TV these days. How much does it cost when the public is submitting the video work for you and you are just arbitrarily picking the funniest of teh group, and then giving the winner $10,000. Hell, that is one commercial break, I imagine the profit margin on that show is outstanding, even if the programming was god awful.
Cool, my dinner has arrived. I ordered online while sitting in front of the computer doing this, so my food would get here before the hockey game. No, I am not glogging it, that is too long a project for me this evening, I would rather work on finishing off Kenopop. I got me a steak wedge, fries and onion rings. Indeed a tasty bachelor style treat. I plan on taking it easy tonight because I have a long day tomorrow, as I will probably be overnighting at the radio station. I also have a couple of applications to drop off and some shopping to get out of the way, so I am expecting to leave my apartment tomorrow morning and get back some time Monday afternoon.
Well, I am going to get all settled in, hockey in a bit, for now it is Family Guy and feasting. Nite everyone!
Well I applaud the actions of the radio station for sacking that jerk. In my opinion freedom of speech does not mean you have the right to make nasty insensitive comments like that. It's there to allow citizens to openly challenge govt policies without fear of retribution.
ReplyDeleteSure you can make insensitive comments, I do it all the time. As long as nothing is theatening or puts the public in danger, what's the problem? If we base everything solely on sensitivity, then who gets to serve as the sensitivity police? If I crack a Polish joke, is that okay, or is it insenstitive to Poles? If the public (or corporations, since he was fired by ESPN, whose parent company is Disney) are going to play the role of sensitivity police, then I stand by what I said, we have more to fear from the public in the role of censorship than we do the government because we are all just one or two spoken words away from offending someone.
ReplyDeleteThis man was employed by the Corporation to provide a service to the public on their behalf. Of course they have every right to determine what he said he was insensitive. When you are at work you are representing your employer - it's as simple as that!
ReplyDeleteYes they may have based their decision on public complaints/opinion. But the public are their clients & what business is successful when it doesn't produce something it's clients want?
That is a falsehood of radio, the public is not the client, they are the product. The client is the advertiser, the job of a good host is to deliver the product (the public) to the advertiser (the client), which Mark did fairly well in a key advertiser demographic, M 18-34. Part of the schitck was that he was going to be offensive, and some would tune in just for that reason, not unlike an audience for Howard Stern and ESPN knew this when they brought him on board. The question isn't whether or not the public in general were offended by the comment, the public in general didn't listen to him, the question was did it offend his audience. Did actual listeners turn away because of the remark, because if so, then he isn't obviously delivering the product (the audience) to the client (the advertiser) or were advertisers going to walk away, in which case he would be losing clients, but if the complaints are coming from people that didn't listen anyway, who cares, you weren't targeting them as products to deliver to your clients. For ESPN to complain that his comment is insensitive, while at the same using that same insensitivity over the years to line their own pockets seems a little disingenuous to say the least.
ReplyDeleteMy analysis of the product/client relationship may seem backward, but just look at Don Imus. He wasn't fired until advertisers started walking away, it had nothing to do with his audience. He was let go more because his comments were hurting the company's bottom line than they were offending people who had grown use to Imus saying offending things over the years.
Mind you, in the long run I doubt this will hurt Mark all that much, his firing is also going to be the hook that gets him in the door in his next radio gig, should he continue to pursue a radio career. People will tune in to hear the guy that got fired over the Kennedy remark, if for no other reason that to see if he will say something equally insensitive again, just as Don Imus was able to get back on the air again, after a hefty settlement from his last employer for letting him go.
Actually I'm well aware of how it works. I just don't use all of the in-house terms lol
ReplyDeleteI probably have more to say on this one later......