Dead or in Serious Trouble

I’ve been a reluctant fan of The Today Show for a few years now.  I went through a long phase watching CNN’s Headline News with the delectable Robin Meade, then suffered through a shorter phase where I exclusively watched Fox News’ Fox & Friends.  Just like I figure one day I need to read the Bible so I’ll know exactly what it is I don’t believe in, I thought it was important to watch Fox News for a while just so I could validate my bitching.

At some point, though, I drifted to NBC and, against my better judgment, got hooked on The Today Show.  I liked Matt Lauer’s dry sense of humor and Al Roker’s dorky irreverence.  And for whatever reason, I was a huge fan of Meredith Viera, who always struck me as the bawdy, sassy, kinda dirty aunt I never had.  It was a kick to watch her slip double entendres into her commentary and openly flirt with Russell Brand.  There was always the sense that this trio knew they were doing something that couldn’t be taken seriously, and I appreciated the glib tone that seemed to creep into their stories.

It wasn’t all roses, though.  Watching the show meant gritting my teeth as Ann Curry fumbled her way through the headlines.  Then there’s the ghastly Summer Concert Series, where every Friday during the summer months I’d mute the TV as Rascal Flatts or Maroon 5 or Ke$ha subjected the lower Manhattan area to the audio equivalent of the Ebola virus.  And then of course there were all the stories geared toward the largely female viewing audience.  In the roughly three years I’ve watched the program, I’ve learned more about yeast infections and breastfeeding than I ever thought possible.

But I just can’t do it anymore.  First there was the show’s Education Nation showcase – a series of episodes focusing on education reform that somehow managed to ignore teachers, parents, and the role that poverty plays in students’ performance in lieu of appearances by bureaucrats, administrators, and businesspeople.  It was shockingly obtuse and wrongheaded, and simply parroted all the talking points from the crowd that would like nothing more than to see public education privatized.

Then Viera retired, to be replaced by Curry.  This is a decision that has never made sense to me and, as far as I can tell, had to be based on seniority (as the face of the news desk, Curry was clearly next in line for anchor).  Where Viera seemed relaxed and genuine with the guests – and was never above poking fun at herself or her co-hosts – Curry is condescending and overly serious.  I’m consistently reminded of William Hurt’s character in Broadcast News, who forces himself to cry in an interview so he’ll look like a serious, empathetic journalist.  I sincerely can’t bear to watch her work.

But this morning was probably the tipping point.  In the space of 45 minutes, I was subjected to the following atrocities:

1) Kris Jenner – Kim Kardashian’s mom – justifying and defending her daughter’s marriage.  It was a ridiculous spectacle, and yet more evidence of the celebrity-obsessed nature of our culture.  Jenner claimed that any money Kim made from the wedding was reinvested in the ceremony (even if it’s true, it’s disgusting), but the most irritating thing was the umbrage she took at reports that her daughter’s ring cost $2 million.  “Poppycock,” Jenner said (and I’m paraphrasing; I know poppycock has three syllables). “It cost less than half that.”  In other words, the now-useless ring still cost more than I will make in twenty years.  And, newsflash, Mrs. Jenner: if you and your daughter have made your career out of being media whores, you can’t complain when that same media misrepresents things. If you don’t like it, get off the air and get a real job.

2) Bill Cosby, ostensibly interviewed to promote his new book, made some asinine comment about how you’d “have to be dumb” to be an atheist.  I don’t care that Cosby’s only relevance in the last twenty years has been in the area of jokes about Jell-O Pudding Pops and ugly sweaters.  It’s still a boneheaded comment to make.  The last time I checked, the burden of proof is on the people who believe, not on the people who disbelieve.  And when you take that comment in conjunction with the sheer number of guests who thank God for saving their kid’s life/sparing their limbs/causing their hair to grow back, it puts the lie to the supposedly ultra-liberal, atheistic nature of the media (more on this in a moment).

3) Susan Boyle sang some stupid song.

4) Arizona governor Jan Brewer, on-air to pimp her new book (in case you can’t tell, The Today Show exists largely as a promotional tool), got to defend her state’s racist immigration policy.  This was the most infuriating thing of all.  In the span of her interview she got to talk, over and over again and generally unchallenged by Curry, about how the Arizona law is apparently doing God’s work by preventing all the Mexicans from mingling their precious bodily fluids with those of the true, God-fearing Americans.  And then, in the same breath, she complained about how the liberal media is twisting her words and making the policy out to be something it isn’t.  Jan darling, a word of advice: you can’t fucking do that.  You can’t show up on a “liberal media” outlet that you claim to despise, promote your book, laud your policy, and then bitch about the very outlet that’s letting you do this.

I’ve written about this elsewhere, but this is just another example of how the right-wing myth of the liberal media ranks right up there with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  On the #1-ranked morning show, in less than an hour, viewers heard A) one of the most-beloved voices in comedy insult atheists, and B) a governor make the unchallenged claim that her state’s immigration law is just the everyday average sort of law where Mexicans have to prove they’re here legally, no big deal.  I didn’t hear anything in that same time period about how the Occupy Wall Street movement is a truly brave populist movement that wants to bring attention to income inequality in this country.  And I didn’t hear about how a group of Democratic senators introduced a Constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  I heard a lot from the other side, though, on a supposedly ultra-liberal media outlet.  Funny how that works.

So, Today Show, clean up your act, you’re on notice, etc.  There are better things I could do with my time in the morning.  I’m allowing you to clutter my brain with unwanted minutiae and fill me up with news about talentless pop culture hacks.  Don’t abuse that privilege.

*****

Current listening:

New Model Army – Eight (2000)