Recently in TV News Category

NBC News' Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert died of an apparent heart attack this afternoon after collapsing at work in Washington DC. This is for sure a great loss, as Russert was a straightforward and well-respected journalist and the longest-serving host of NBC's Meet the Press, itself the longest-running US television program in history, having been on the air since November 6th, 1947.

Russert was a consummate newsman (and attorney) and his voice will be greatly missed during this most critical of election years. NBC anchors Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams are telling some great stories about Russert on MSNBC right now.

One of the great ones came from Williams who mentioned that facade of the Newseum in Washington D.C. is inscribed with the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Whose idea was that? Tim Russert.

In this time of a flaccid White House press corps and dwindling ethics and excellence in news, Tim Russert will be sorely missed.

Links about the story at Mahalo.

This is one of Mr. Olbermann's occasional "special comments" from his week-nightly program Countdown with Keith Olbermann and you need to watch it. It aired yesterday and it's brilliant. It's truth spoken to power (albeit indirectly) like it is rarely seen on television in the United States (or anywhere else, for that matter) and it is genius. It's a bit long (12 minutes) but completely worth it. If you're even a little bit like I am, it will have you clapping, laughing, scowling and whooping at the ceiling. It's the news commentator's version of a beautiful jazz riff. It's goes, man! You just wish you were in the corner of a dark and smokey Greenwich Village bar, yelling "Go man, GO!" at the top of your lungs.

Yes, it's that good.

And while you're at it, if you like this, send an email to letters@msnbc.com and tell them that even if the barbarian hordes of the FCC, the GOP or Cheney himself descend on 30 Rock, the truth must be told and Keith must remain on the air.

Oh. My. God.
Jane Fonda says a very bad word.....

And the remix....

Today Pakistan's president General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan, suspending the constitution and declaring martial law, claiming that Pakistan is at a "critical and dangerous juncture," according to cnn.com. The same report says that the supreme court declared the state of emergency illegal leading Musharraf to expel the chief justice, sending troops into the court building. Pakistan is arguably the most critical nation in the world (apart from the US, of course) with regards to the attempts to control Islamic terrorism, is controls a nuclear arsenal and is constantly in tensions over India, another nuclear power.

There are also news reports that opposition leader Imran Khan has been placed under house arrest after calling for Pakistanis to take to the streets to protest the action by Musharraf. According to Adelaide Now, most private TV news channels in Pakistan were taken off the air as Khan was making his appeal.

This all happened several hours ago and only now is CNN breaking into regular programming. Fox News ran a small segment and as far as I can tell, MSNBC and CNBC are largely silent on the developments.

Am I overreacting or is this a major news story that deserves a little more coverage?

The film blogosphere is abuzz today with the news that legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman has passed away at the age of 89 and rightly so. I have to admit that I don't have much to add. I am hardly an expert on the man and his work, though I do tend to use him as proof that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a much cooler show than some people give it credit, to wit: In an episode where Buffy was going up against a monster that might possibly be Death itself, her friend Xander remarks: "And if he asks you to play chess, don't. The guy's, like, a whiz." Get it?

No, I'd rather post a little bit about Tom Snyder who passed away on Sunday at the age of 71, due to complications from Leukemia. A newsman and raconteur, Snyder loved the broadcast business and was a news anchor, correspondent and most famously, a talk show host on both NBC and later, CBS. From 1972-1983 he was the host of Tomorrow, which aired after The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This was a legendary show in which the unapologetically un-hip Snyder interviewed everyone from Muhammad Ali to Howard Cosell to Charles Manson to, in one excruciating interview, a petulant John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten). U2's first appearance on American TV was on Tomorrow, as was John Lennon's last TV interview. Constantly surrounded by cigarette smoke and reveling in his deep-throated laugh, Tom was unlike anyone else on the tube.

Here's a great tribute segment with clips from Elton John, Cosell, Ali and others.

A brief bit of history regarding my feelings for Christopher Hitchens:

Brilliant drunk--->Crackpot drunken hawk--->Partially redeemed brilliant drunk

There you have it. Why the redemption? How about this clip, for starters:

(BTW, I do not use the word "drunk" pejoratively. I adore some drunks and have myself been one, on occasion.)

You might have varied negative opinions about Hitchens, including his extremely pig-headed and wholly incorrect position on the war in Iraq (he's for it...still) and his arrogant posturing indicating that he is certain that he is the smartest person in any room.

That all said, he is very smart and, some might say to a fault, honest.

Another video after the jump, this time from the Fox "News" show Hannity & Colmes:

So apparently I had the junk filter on my blog set a little bit too high and several legitimate comments were deemed junk by the filter and thus were not emailed to me for approval. If the comment is by a legitimate person and not a spam ad for viagra, xanax, online poker, etc. I am generally of a mind to publish them and then respond to them, if needed. Thus, I apologize to Claire, Tully, Dickmac, Manohla Dargis, Richard Schenkman and others whose comments were inadvertently left off the blog. As a bit of a "make good," I will post them all in full here, complete with links to the original posts and I will, over the next day or so, reply to some of them on the original posts, themselves. Even the following insane, moronic and anti-Semitic rant by "Claire" (whose email address I was extremely tempted to post...):

You stupid kike, CNN was NOT celebrating Castro's illness, the cubans [sic] in Miami were. Why? Castro has tortured and killed thousands of Cubans during the past 40 years, that is why. CNN was just reporting their joy over that dictator's possible death. Don't you dirty jews [sic] have dozens of hollocaust [sic] movies coming out every year? should [sic] people feel happy about concentration camps? should people mourn Hitler's death? get real asswipe!
From a post entitled: CNN International - Offensive Ghouls

Well Claire, you're wrong, stupid and a bigot and really, I shouldn't waste my time responding to anyone who starts a comment with "you stupid kike" and includes the insane ramblings that you do....so I won't. Engaging people like you in debate is like trying to convince a chair that it's a butterfly. It's just not going to happen. Just crawl back into your hole and please...don't breed. Out of curiosity, does anyone else see the inherant contradiction in someone attacking Castro's perceived human rights violations while at the same time calling me a "dirty Jew?"

Which brings us to our next comment. Click the link below to see Richard Schenkman's far more rational, eloquent, educated, reasonable and intelligent response to this post: It's Time To Go, Joe: An Open Letter To Senator Joe Lieberman and the rest of the comments I missed over the past 6 months or so....

In yet another brilliant, scathing and completely warrented dissection of Fox News, Chris Wallace ("a monkey posing as a newscaster"), president George W. Bush and the rest of his unholy cabal, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann recently laid into the aforementioned groups regarding, among other things, Wallace's absurd attack on Bill Clinton (part one and part two). Dig it:

I love this man!

In a piece of commentary ranking with the best ever produced by a journalist, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann excoriates President Bush and the rest of his unholy cabal, while plainly exposing the "patriotic" platitudes regarding the anniversary of 9/11 uttered by the White House as simply so much lip service. I say "Huzzah!," Keith Olbermann and keep holding their feet to the fire, my good man! While I am at it, congratulations to MSNBC for, so far at least, sticking by their man.

I used to turn to CNN International as an almost BBC-like respite from the mostly conservative, blandness of major US news services, but no more.

CNN are an offensive bunch of ghouls.

I just got home and was shocked and offended to see CNN glorifying the illness of Fidel Castro. When changing from 12:00am EDT program to the 1:00am hour, CNN Internationals anchors said something like: "We leave you now with scenes from Miami where they are celebrating the news about Fidel Castro" and they showed a jubilant crowd in Miami, dancing and singing. SHAME on them! Politics aside, celebrating the illness of such an important world figure is pretty disturbing and highly unprofessional.

Would they show a group of Muslims celebrating a Pope's illness? Would they "wrap out" of a segment on the downturn in the health of Ariel Sharon with scenes of a Palestinian party? I think not. Showcasing a group of fundamentalists being happy because of the illness of someone they oppose is just sick.

Michael Linder of KNX radio, Los Angeles, a witness of the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams referrred to the process of execution as a "medical procedure." He did not seem to be particularly callous or unfeeling, however and it just seems a very, very poor choice of words.

Of the countries that most Americans might consider "developed," the only ones that permit the death penalty are: Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and China. I would guess that most Americans would consider 3 or 4 of those 5 countries less than "enlightened" with respect to human rights. A few other countries that have the death penaly: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Kuwait, Rwanda, Sudan and Syria. Not the most developed, fair countries in the world. I'd like to think we're better than that as a nation.

Aparently not.

In Good Night, And Good Luck, writer-director-co-star George Clooney and writer-producer Grant Heslov, along with a stellar cast and financiers not averse to risk-taking, have combined to create one of the most original and important American films in recent memory. Overtly political without being preachy, Good Night, And Good Luck is arguably the most important American film since Warren Beatty's Bullworth.

I just clicked on a link on cnn.com that read "Is this America?" a sentiment that has been invoked over and over again this past week. It's a 3 minute, 49 second long video clip with the description and dateline of: CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on international reaction to Third World conditions in New Orleans. (September 4). The thing is, before I could see the clip, I had to sit through a 30 second clip for the U.S. Army, extolling the virtues of the training a young man would receive in the Army National Guard.

But for the fact that large portions of the Missippi and Louisiana Army National Guard are in Iraq and thus unable to help save their neighbors' lives, this would be funny.

Ha Ha Ha.

Here are a few quotes I heard tonight that I thought needed repeating.

On Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday, Anderson Cooper recounted a conversation he had with a man on the Gulf Coast about the politicians who keep saying that they understand the frustration felt by people affected by the storm when aid had taken so long to get to them and the man said:
"We're not frustrated. People aren't frustrated here. People are dead. "

A more chilling and honest assessment of what people are going through down there I have not heard.

Earlier today, CNN's Wolf Blitzer was wrapping up a segment in which he had interviewed former presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush about what they were doing for the relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Blitzer mentioned something I had not seen anyone on a major news outlet point out. While speaking over footage of New Orleans residents waiting so futilely to be rescued, Blitzer commented how those left in New Orleans were: "so poor and so black."

I might not have gotten the quote exactly right, but the sentiment is still there. I'm very happy Blitzer made the comment but the fact that it's so notable, 3 days into this tragedy, is telling. We are going to miss Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather for a very long time.