Our former neighbor and colleague Maria Shriver took a quite a stand for journalism when she announced that she won't return to TV news because of media coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death. "It was then that I knew that the TV news business had changed and so had I," she said. "I called NBC News and told them I'm not coming back." Ha! Maria was hired on a network level in the first place because she was a "Kennedy," back in the day when TV news suits thuoght it a feather in the cap to have hired a Kennedy of any stripe (see Tabloid Baby-- take our word). We'd say she might have thought of throwing in the towel in wake of the media coverage of the death of her cousin David, her uncle Teddy's involvement of her cousin William Kennedy Smith's rape case, Willie's trial, the death of her cousin John-John, the boozing decline of her auntie Joan, cousin Pat's drug foibles, or in the days before her bodybuilder husband's election as governor, the coverage of his heavy-handed ass-grabbing and infidelities. Real brave that she waited til her 52nd birthday, when young Ben Silverman and Jeff Zucker are surely gagging for her return.
Scorching and insightful, TB.... those extra comparisons really drive it home.
ReplyDeleteI liked John Kennedy Jr. and thought he was a pretty decent fellow, but the media overload back in '99 was a bit much.
You may not win friends but these little media morsels are delicious good fun.