lumigan tramadol tadalafil

What About Bob? Good Reporter Gets Run Over By Katie’s Bus

2006-09-01
By

In New York City, the front of just about every single city bus is adorned with a giant picture of Katie Couric, promoting her ascent to the throne recently vacated by Dan “they are too real!” Rather. Indeed, taking over for Dan Rather after the fake National Guard document fiasco takes some of the pressure off. It’s kind of like being Captain Hazelwood’s replacement.

Watching the buses go by while standing on the corner of 43rd and 8th and shoving a hot dog into my face, I watched the buses going by knowing that stepping in front of one would mean the last thing you’d see before meeting the maker was Katie’s perky mug. That thought appeared oddly appropriate in a figurative sense as far as the evolution of the mainstream media, particularly in it’s relation to Bob Schieffer, the anchor in between Rather and Couric.

Bob has stepped in front of the Couric-adorned bus. Why wasn’t Bob kept around as anchor? The reasons could be many, but one might be that Schieffer seems a bit uncomfortable with the way things are done in the news biz these days. There is a self-congratulatory nature in the MSM that has just about eclipsed your average Hollywood awards show.

In short, network suits know Bob’s not nearly as likely as Katie to do this on command:

Bob Schieffer, like so many others, is no doubt uncomfortable being the focus of the attention, believing that the attention should be on the story, and reporters should never be the story.

So much of the news nowadays is about the people who are supposed to deliver the news, and the trend is growing. Reporters & photographers get in trouble for faking stories, which turns into a story. Reporters switch networks, film at eleven. Reporters retire, watch the retrospective of his/her career tonight at nine. Heck, reporters are even kidnapped — “tonight’s lead story…”

At some point in the near future, the “Evening News” will consist of the anchor’s home videos along with a quick throw to the Jerusalem bureau so the Israel reporter can be congratulated on the birth of his son and to pitch his new primetime investigative show called “Damn, I’m Handsome — Live!” Then they’ll promote the upcoming podcast of their colonoscopy.

The Katie Couric network switch is setting a new standard in MSM grandstanding. Watch the video on this page of Katie Couric narrating a retrospective of the career of Schieffer.

It was Bob’s last night of anchoring, after a year-and-a-half stint, and he was moving over to make room for Couric. I can’t watch that video without seeing Bob as feeling a bit out of place — like a Little Rock fireplace mantle without a bowling trophy on it. In the video, Schieffer kind of looks like a guy who who’s nervously, and with extreme trepidation, handing his 18-year-old daughter the keys to his Mercedes.

I’ve always liked Bob Schieffer. Though liberal as the day is long, he seems old-school, genuine, honest and not showy. I guess that’s why when I watch that video I get the impression that Bob knows what the direction of media all about now, and it has little to do with “the story” – whether tainted by bias or not – and everything to do with who tells it.

The catch is if a reporter such as Schieffer would ever make known an opinion that news is becoming too much about who delivers it, this would get turned into an “Eye on America” segment devoted completely to — you guessed it — a story about a reporter.

——–

Note: If you’re seeing only this post, the entire blog can be accessed at DougPowers.com

9 views
Didn't make Oprah's Book Club. And Ronnie doesn't care. Man up. Buy the book now on Amazon.com. Or listen to Ronnie tell a story at escaping-from-reality.com.


  • Pingback: BlogWonks: Your Alternate Daily » Fox News Reporter Beaten, But Not In The Ratings

  • tonysprout

    Katie “Castration” Couric, and whatever network she whores herself to, can go eff themselves silly. If she had an exclusive interview with the planet’s first alien visitor, it would not be seen by me.

  • tonysprout

    Katie “Castration” Couric, and whatever network she whores herself to, can go eff themselves silly. If she had an exclusive interview with the planet’s first alien visitor, it would not be seen by me.

  • tonysprout

    Katie “Castration” Couric, and whatever network she whores herself to, can go eff themselves silly. If she had an exclusive interview with the planet’s first alien visitor, it would not be seen by me.

  • DadWithGirls

    Was there ever a time when “news” was not a “commodity?” (Since the printing press?)

    Aren’t we just arguing about whether the journalistic tarts are dressed well like D.C. insiders or look like skanks on the typical D.C. street corner?

    It’s all about the “presentation of verisimilitude,” right? The artifice of authenticity? The spinning of facts?

    News today is like a sad, rain-soaked newspaper toosed onto your porch with a rubber band around it and when you open it, all the ink has run together and you just know you’ve been conned.

    I had a mentor once who liked to lecture about how “the best guarantee for a Free Press is to OWN it!”

    He was murdered.

  • DadWithGirls

    Was there ever a time when “news” was not a “commodity?” (Since the printing press?)

    Aren’t we just arguing about whether the journalistic tarts are dressed well like D.C. insiders or look like skanks on the typical D.C. street corner?

    It’s all about the “presentation of verisimilitude,” right? The artifice of authenticity? The spinning of facts?

    News today is like a sad, rain-soaked newspaper toosed onto your porch with a rubber band around it and when you open it, all the ink has run together and you just know you’ve been conned.

    I had a mentor once who liked to lecture about how “the best guarantee for a Free Press is to OWN it!”

    He was murdered.

  • DadWithGirls

    Was there ever a time when “news” was not a “commodity?” (Since the printing press?)

    Aren’t we just arguing about whether the journalistic tarts are dressed well like D.C. insiders or look like skanks on the typical D.C. street corner?

    It’s all about the “presentation of verisimilitude,” right? The artifice of authenticity? The spinning of facts?

    News today is like a sad, rain-soaked newspaper toosed onto your porch with a rubber band around it and when you open it, all the ink has run together and you just know you’ve been conned.

    I had a mentor once who liked to lecture about how “the best guarantee for a Free Press is to OWN it!”

    He was murdered.

  • whraglyn

    And thanks for your courteous explication, Sir.

    I agree with your perception, but the person typifying it best in my memory is David Brinkley.

    Remember the ‘Huntley – Brinkley Report’ on NBC in the 1960s?

    THAT was news presentation with class and dignity.

  • whraglyn

    And thanks for your courteous explication, Sir.

    I agree with your perception, but the person typifying it best in my memory is David Brinkley.

    Remember the ‘Huntley – Brinkley Report’ on NBC in the 1960s?

    THAT was news presentation with class and dignity.

  • whraglyn

    And thanks for your courteous explication, Sir.

    I agree with your perception, but the person typifying it best in my memory is David Brinkley.

    Remember the ‘Huntley – Brinkley Report’ on NBC in the 1960s?

    THAT was news presentation with class and dignity.

  • Doug Powers

    Spot on analysis. I certainly didn’t mean by “good reporter” to imply that Bob isn’t a typically liberal one. As far as that breed goes though, I like Schieffer in comparison to the new flashy, empty liberal MSM.

  • Doug Powers

    Spot on analysis. I certainly didn’t mean by “good reporter” to imply that Bob isn’t a typically liberal one. As far as that breed goes though, I like Schieffer in comparison to the new flashy, empty liberal MSM.

  • whraglyn

    Great post as usual, Sir.

    One point though:
    While Bob Schieffer may take a position on the state of MSM as you outlined above, to assign him any degree of honor in newsfeeding to the masses is a major error.

    Bob has been, and is, among the most virulently partisan Democrat hacks in the media for his entire career.

    He has spoken publicly many times of his near-worship of the lying thug and thief LBJ, and of his devotion to Great Society goals and ideals.

    During the ’80s it was Bob who, in my memory, most vociferously ‘denounced’ Ronald Reagan for all the ‘evil’ done by Reagan’s implementation of his own vision for America and for the world.
    His ‘on the street’ ‘exposes’ of the supposed rise in the ranks of ‘the homeless’ in the ’80s were inflammatory in presentation, outraged in tone, and clearly fabricated on many points.
    (Remember the claim that ‘all of us are only a paycheck away from the streets’?)

    During the ’90s and beyond, Bob accepts second place to none in his conviction that the fall of the USSR was a bad thing for the world.

    He regularly and clearly expresses his disdain for the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and openly yearns for the days of FDR, LBJ, JEC, and WJBC-style expansions of government power.

    IMHO, the major reason Bob has any problem with the modern MSM focus on the reporter rather than on the story, is that such focus has led to the rending of the veil covering the Big Lie of ‘reportorial objectivity’ and exposed the MSM for the libfemgreenieweenie fascists they truly are.

    And that would seem to be a more fundamental cause of good ol’ Bob’s discomfort with the NewMSM, than his concerns about professional presentation of objective facts so we can make up our own minds.

    His bio on Wikipedia, as with any googling of his speeches, classes, and public comments, will plainly show the depth, breadth, and length of his hatred for mass liberty, and for the US.

  • whraglyn

    Great post as usual, Sir.

    One point though:
    While Bob Schieffer may take a position on the state of MSM as you outlined above, to assign him any degree of honor in newsfeeding to the masses is a major error.

    Bob has been, and is, among the most virulently partisan Democrat hacks in the media for his entire career.

    He has spoken publicly many times of his near-worship of the lying thug and thief LBJ, and of his devotion to Great Society goals and ideals.

    During the ’80s it was Bob who, in my memory, most vociferously ‘denounced’ Ronald Reagan for all the ‘evil’ done by Reagan’s implementation of his own vision for America and for the world.
    His ‘on the street’ ‘exposes’ of the supposed rise in the ranks of ‘the homeless’ in the ’80s were inflammatory in presentation, outraged in tone, and clearly fabricated on many points.
    (Remember the claim that ‘all of us are only a paycheck away from the streets’?)

    During the ’90s and beyond, Bob accepts second place to none in his conviction that the fall of the USSR was a bad thing for the world.

    He regularly and clearly expresses his disdain for the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and openly yearns for the days of FDR, LBJ, JEC, and WJBC-style expansions of government power.

    IMHO, the major reason Bob has any problem with the modern MSM focus on the reporter rather than on the story, is that such focus has led to the rending of the veil covering the Big Lie of ‘reportorial objectivity’ and exposed the MSM for the libfemgreenieweenie fascists they truly are.

    And that would seem to be a more fundamental cause of good ol’ Bob’s discomfort with the NewMSM, than his concerns about professional presentation of objective facts so we can make up our own minds.

    His bio on Wikipedia, as with any googling of his speeches, classes, and public comments, will plainly show the depth, breadth, and length of his hatred for mass liberty, and for the US.

  • whraglyn

    Great post as usual, Sir.

    One point though:
    While Bob Schieffer may take a position on the state of MSM as you outlined above, to assign him any degree of honor in newsfeeding to the masses is a major error.

    Bob has been, and is, among the most virulently partisan Democrat hacks in the media for his entire career.

    He has spoken publicly many times of his near-worship of the lying thug and thief LBJ, and of his devotion to Great Society goals and ideals.

    During the ’80s it was Bob who, in my memory, most vociferously ‘denounced’ Ronald Reagan for all the ‘evil’ done by Reagan’s implementation of his own vision for America and for the world.
    His ‘on the street’ ‘exposes’ of the supposed rise in the ranks of ‘the homeless’ in the ’80s were inflammatory in presentation, outraged in tone, and clearly fabricated on many points.
    (Remember the claim that ‘all of us are only a paycheck away from the streets’?)

    During the ’90s and beyond, Bob accepts second place to none in his conviction that the fall of the USSR was a bad thing for the world.

    He regularly and clearly expresses his disdain for the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and openly yearns for the days of FDR, LBJ, JEC, and WJBC-style expansions of government power.

    IMHO, the major reason Bob has any problem with the modern MSM focus on the reporter rather than on the story, is that such focus has led to the rending of the veil covering the Big Lie of ‘reportorial objectivity’ and exposed the MSM for the libfemgreenieweenie fascists they truly are.

    And that would seem to be a more fundamental cause of good ol’ Bob’s discomfort with the NewMSM, than his concerns about professional presentation of objective facts so we can make up our own minds.

    His bio on Wikipedia, as with any googling of his speeches, classes, and public comments, will plainly show the depth, breadth, and length of his hatred for mass liberty, and for the US.







Right.

Man up.

Buy the book now on Amazon.com. Or listen to Ronnie tell a story at escaping-from-reality.com.

Search

RSS Amy Alkon

RSS Donna Laframboise