News Messiah

The other day I was speaking to an old friend, a talent agent I hold in high regard.  He reps some of the biggest names in TV news.   We were talking about how we believe the country is fed up with cable TV’s hyper-partisan, ever-angry, nattering nabobs of negativism (props to Bill Safire). 

We talked about the need, the necessity, for someone who will arise and tell it like it is, no matter if the it is a Republican or a Democrat, liberal or conservative.

So I thought it’s about time for friendwithoutbenefits.com to interrupt my regular programming to reveal my news wish for the New Year.  

Cable TV news makes millions off of its prime-time, polarizing talking heads, hell bent on pandering to their left or right wing audiences.  They rely on extremists for ratings and allow them to spout their half-baked ideas and theories with fawning head nods, softball questions or no questions at all.

Here’s one example.  After the presidential election, Fox News’ Sean Hannity allowed Trump’s attorney, Sidney “release the kraken” Powell, to expound her mad theories about the Dominion Voting System machines and how they allegedly, mysteriously changed ballots from Trump to Biden.  He let her go on and on, unchallenged.  But in a sworn deposition in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News, Hannity admitted he “did not believe it for one second.”  He didn’t believe screwy Sidney, but he gave her a national platform on his highly rated program.  The irresponsibility of it all.  

MSNBC and CNN are just as guilty of, in their cases, allowing progressive partisans to proffer their meshugas.  They give credence to the crazies and their crackpot theories.

Why? It’s the Benjamins, baby. Too much money is at stake to change course.  And, there’s too much pressure from within and from outside to keep their networks tied to the fringes, not the center.  

I gave you an example from Fox News, here’s an example from the other side of the political spectrum, MSNBC.  

The network’s head honcho, Rashida Jones, herself an African American woman, had to contend with a ton of crap after she fired her weekend host, the bomb-throwing, race-baiting activist Tiffany Cross. Cross, who called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “Justice pubic hair on my Coke can.”  Cross, who called Florida the “dick of America” that should be castrated.  Cross, whose show on MSNBC was predominantly about white supremacy and how it is embedded deep within American society.

It was a thoughtful and difficult decision to fire a host who violated network standards, but it was immediately pounced upon by the progressives.  The Washington Post chimed in, calling Cross’ firing a “cancelation” and a “chilling signal.”  Like, who asked them? 

More than 40 prominent Black political leaders demanded a meeting with Jones.

Jones even went backstage at The View on rival ABC to reportedly get buy-in from hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin.

But you know what?  Corporate media have created their own Frankensteins.  They’ve stocked their lineup, not with journalists but with partisans and ideologues.  They’ve kowtowed to advocacy groups that threaten to blackmail them in the court of public opinion.  They prefer to polarize the populace so they can keep counting their cash.  I don’t feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for us, we are the victims of their greed.

We desperately need something else, someone else. It has to be someone who can separate truth from b.s. but who also needs the right platform to succeed, where the pressure for profits is secondary to the pursuit of truth. Where positions are intelligently probed, not simplemindedly praised.  Someone who is unafraid to speak truth to power, no matter who holds the power.

That person exists, I know it.  

So, dear friends of friendwithoutbenefits.com, let us all link our virtual hands and pray that in 2023 a messiah will arrive.  Someone who will deliver us from the depths of our news despair. Someone who will lead us to the promised land where common sensibleness will reign. And when he/she/they appear, let’s make sure we give them the sustenance to survive, because we’re already half way to hell.