Day: 3/9/2008

Tucker Carlson Canceled!

Posted by on March 9, 2008 at 7:37 pm. 12 Comments :

I finally made it happen! In the post just prior to this one, I asked “Seriously, when is this low-life, ratings loser going to be canceled?” I got my answer.

You can all start thanking me now. I have been making the case for canceling Tucker Carlson’s show for two years. He has consistently had the worst performing program on MSNBC’s schedule. He was a drain on resources as well as the performance of his network colleagues. But it’s all over now.

News Corpse readers know that I have been working tirelessly to get this twit axed. I produced slick presentations, with eye popping graphics describing why this show was bringing down the whole network:

Tucker Carlson: The Biggest Loser
There was also my signature pitch for Tucker’s banishment from TV. This analysis proved unequivocally that there was no business case for carrying this load of broadcast waste.

Tucker Carlson: A Ratings Black Hole

It was a long slog, but now I can say with confidence that it was all worth it.

Look out Glenn Beck – You’re next!


 
 Glenn Beck’s Ratings: Headline Snooze

Glenn Beck poses the same problem at CNN’s Headline news as Tucker did at MSNBC. He is a reliable under-performer and an albatross around the necks of the shows adjacent to him.

The only reason to give Beck a stay of execution would be fealty to the brand of caveman conservatism that he espouses. If CNN doesn’t cancel this stinker they will have settled, once and for all, the speculation as to whether they are a compromised media lapdog with an agenda aimed at placating the powerful and debasing journalism.

Tucker Carlson’s Ethics Education

Posted by on March 9, 2008 at 1:09 pm. NO Comments :

In the thoroughly overblown controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, there is no shortage of hysterical lunacy.

Power, in a momentary lapse of judgment referred to Hillary Clinton as a “monster.” Clinton’s campaign then proceeded to act like one, calling for Power to be fired. It seems like an oddly inapt sanction for the first truly viable female presidential candidate to banish from the political theater another women who is a Pulitzer prize winning author, historian, lawyer and foreign policy expert. Clinton continues off the deep end by saying…

“I think that it is important to look at what she and his other advisers say behind closed doors…”

Presumably this means that Clinton will shortly release the transcripts of her private meetings and those of her advisers. Obama, for his part, should never have accepted Power’s resignation. It would be shameful to lose the talents of this brilliant woman over a trivial campaign dust-up.

But the supreme idiocy is, as usual, reserved for the media. On Friday, Tucker Carlson interviewed Gerri Peev, the reporter who published the fateful Power story. In the course of the discussion, Carlson inexplicably asserts that reporters have some obligation to grant all requests to take a subjects comments off the record. He then disparages the whole of British media by stating that their standards are “dramatically lower” than those in the U.S. Here’s the clip (and the full interview):

Tucker February 2008Hearing Tucker Carlson elucidate on journalistic ethics is like having Dick Cheney tutor you on honesty and open government. It was, however, nice to hear Peev put Tucker in his place. To cap it off, after Carlson insults Peev for doing her job, he has the gall to chastise her, saying…

“People don’t talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them…”

You mean like when you declare that they, and all of their nation’s journalists, have low standards? I can’t think of many examples of American journalism’s standards that sink as low as Tucker. Seriously, when is this low-life, ratings loser going to be canceled?