My idea is based on a comment you, Emily Rooney, made today, Jan 1, on the year end review show: I'd like to see more of an exploration of the following concept (quoted, but I can't remember who...
Hot air
posted by Emily Rooney on October 19, 2009
Well, okay, I broke my own rules when it comes to believing the unbelievable.
Rule #1 "Everyone is lying and everything is intentional." Not that I wasn't always skeptical and cynical, but I adopted this hard and firm position in January of 1990, the day Charles Stuart jumped off the Tobin Bridge after convincing law enforcement and the media that he and his wife were victims of violent crime committed by an unknown black assailant.
Rule #2 - "It's always the boyfriend or husband." Same goes for the Denver balloon boy episode. The story was concocted by the husband and father but it was carried out by the whole clan, including the wife.
While everyone is targeting Richard Heene, I actually have a fantasy that I'd like to make chicklets of Mayumi Heene's smile. Just listen again to that 911 call where Mrs. Heene stereotypes her own nationality with her broken-English inability to articulate to an operator what's happening to her own son - even going so far as to tell the woman that her son is "in a flying saucer."
By the way, the unspoken hero of this whole affair is the 911 operator who stuck with the call despite her own skepticism.
As for referencing "Gawker" as the news outlet complicit in this sorry affair; since when is Gawker a news outlet?
Comments
Hi Emily,
ST: A Family Affair
ST: Where are the Interviews? / The New Reality Show?
Well this one looks like it included everyone in the family. Of course that is why the case broke so easily for the good yet frustrated police. I mean they felt like egg in their face, YET should not..
My wife has already predicted the future.
Some media group is going to buy this story and they are going to be celebrities. Remember that lady with 8 babies, and Jerry Springer, and o - o
BTW, I thought you were rather reserved and cautious about this on B-t-Press and noted mostly that it had to be covered.
Hi, Emily: The Associated Press, the BBC and NPR are among the news organizations that referenced the Gawker report. The current editor of Gawker is Gabriel Snyder, a terrific journalist who's worked for the New York Observer and The New Republic.
Not sure who was referencing Gawker as complicit in the affair. For sure they paid an acquaintance of Heene for his story, but there is (unless I just haven't been keeping up) ostensibly another media outlet out there in the business of reality shows who just might have known something about this in advance.
Or perhaps that's just what the reptilian shape-shifters want us to believe.
Welcome Emily, Dan, Donna, Harry,
ST: The Fugitive and 1990 Emily.
I am not sure if this was the story or it was another that came out when Emily, the older B-t-Press Gang, and I were much younger than we are today. Yet I do remember my thinking at the time.
At the time when the media was making a fuss, all I could think was Hey that Guy got the plot from the Fugitive and reverse engineered his crime with a twist. The Fugitive was on rerun and the crime story line sounded quite concocted and a copy. Just like the story line from our Harvard Prof Louis Gates. (Yes, Yes he is still ours since we can't run away from Harvard on some of their often bad days)
I was surprised to hear you and Mr. Kennedy saying you believed the story on Friday--not because I'm so smart and knew all along--but because it seemed so totally out of character for you and you even said that it was out of character for you on the broadcast. I think the acting the Heenes did--kicking the ground, tearful phone calls, tearful interviews--made this much more revolting than it might otherwise have been.
I was aghast last Friday when everyone on the panel endorsed the media coverage of the balloon story (although Dan Kennedy did note that most weren't broadcasting much better anyway, so why not). This was the media at its worst: lemmings following a story that even if were true wasn't worth all of the attention it received. Unfortunately the producer's job is to deliver ratings no matter what drivel the public wants. And we wonder why the traditional media is in trouble...
That this story was even reported in the first place, was discussed on Friday, and is being over-analyzed now only supports my long held positions on the scourge of Nepotism and its byproducts of conformity, laziness, and a complete absence of any and all common sense that, all too sadly, define the media in today's America.
Game. Set. And Match.
And, correct as I am, it does not, with all due respect, mean a damn thing.
Don't you worry. The media will cover another worthless, imbecilic story for the bumbling masses and their own personal bank accounts before Halloween.
Bank on it.
Offshore, of course.
I'm more than a little concerned about Emily's fantasy of violently attacking the wife, not to mention Emily's apparent characterization of the wife as somehow playing up (or fabricating) her poor English skills. Seems like a rather unfortunate statement for a person in any news organization, let alone one such as WGBH. Is management bothered by this at all? The viewers? Anyone here?
Personally-- not that anyone asked-- I'd have found it disgusting and embarrassing no matter whose mouth or blog that type of evil came out of, but it's truly appalling that it's happening here. Then again, it's always good to know the character of news professionals when choosing who, and who not, to listen to. So, thanks! Now I have one less channel to check at 7:30.