YOU people apparently think a supposedly credible TV News operation is just fine allowing air talent to act and sound like pirates.YOU deserve the product you get. It's worse than mediocrity because mediocrity means just OK and it's far worse in the fortress.
Stupidity and banality rule. Talk like a pirate. Fools.
Maybe there's a better word: moron comes to mind.
Here I thought the Bay Area was supposedly much more sophisticated than the rest of the country.
What a fool I am.
Ahhhhr! Mate.
Disgust among the rank and file at KTVU. Yeah, I know. You're hiding. Show your face. Hey Somerville? Why not get the hell off Facebook and voice your complaint out loud or have you become certifiably FOXified.
Disgust? No. I'm not really surprised anymore. The country as a whole is in deep shit. More people voted for the winner of American Idol than the General Election. So go talk like a pirate.
Go to Facebook and post a picture of your aunt's shitty lasagna.
Turn on KGO and listen to a moron substitute that goes by "Copie" and who is only on the air because of his skin color. The same guy that defended Bill Cosby before his enabler told him to rethink that opinion.
Yes, moron and stupid are too easy. I have more choice words but breakfast is being served. Don't want to offend the innocent.
All of 'yous? Go talk like a pirate.
And don't forget your latte and IPhone.
Morons.
You get what you deserve.
Have a nice day.
I worry about Sal and Steve on MO2: the only two good ones left. Steve seems to be impervious to FOXification so far. Sal seems to be Fox's newly anointed Golden Boy, taking on extra duties and more airtime. It will be interesting to see what happens to these two professionals when more Foxification occurs. Will they stay or will they go?
ReplyDeleteAny one of those pirate-talkers could have instead not participated and said something like, "I'm sorry, but I'm not doing this." THAT would have been the story. A news director I worked for years ago pounced on me when I used a term like "this reporter" during a story. The lesson was a reporter never puts him/herself in the story. Another example, heard in this market, would be the story on "how Mick Jagger snubbed me when I tried to interview him while he was eating lunch." Pathetic. It's all connected to the pernicious encroachment of entertainment into news.
ReplyDeleteVeiled shot at Mike Sugarman?
DeleteBravo! Wonder how many of those who spoke of pirate-talk in the positive sense are Fucks2 asskissing tool handlers in disguise.
ReplyDeleteYou speak of the truth. And it hurts, but it's the truth. If you can't handle it, get lost.
Well, they could just be the kind of folks who work in HR and come up with wacky off-site crap for "team building"...
DeleteI, honestly, cannot decide whether I'm pleased, or sorry that I missed the "pirate talk" episode.
ReplyDeleteIs it really worth all of the fuss that it has generated on this blog? I dunno.
Have you ever considered that Somerville would love to tell all those folks to go FOAD but he has considered that doing do would be toxic in the local market for any future work? He's got a family to raise, works in an industry where conditions aren't going to get better at his pay grade, and he'd like to sock enough dough away that when the poopoododokaka hits the fan so hard that he can no longer take it, that he and his family won't be needing another job.
ReplyDeleteRadio isn't dead, except here in the bay area. I've been down in LA a lot lately and the radio there is generally much better. There is a lot of it and it has lots of variety. There's some crap too, but it's not everywhere like here. Their public radio station KPCC is so good I stream it up here instead listening to KQED.
ReplyDeletewas curious about KPCC vs KQED so I took a look at their program schedule and except for the SoCal centric film, culture, local stuff it looks an awful lot like KQED's programming. I do like that KQED has the Commonwealth Club + World Affairs Council + City Arts & Lectures. but otherwise they look really close - very heavy on the NPR + APM but that is ok by me. btw - just like KQED they do a lot of repeats - interesting that they put science friday late in the evening. And they are not subscribing to the TOTN substitutes Here + Now [ugh!] and Hockenberry's program [2 thumbs up].
DeleteI shall grab my pearls and fall on the fainting couch, I feel as if I have the vapors.
ReplyDeleteYou tell 'em, Rich!! Tell it like it is!! KTVU is no longer what it used to be. Now, you have the Traffic Tard & The Dumb Fucken Monkey Show in the morning, then This Ain't Fucken Pat McCormick & Friends at 4:00pm, hosted by Keba "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" Arnold. Then to add more misery to the turdpile, it's Horseshit at 5:00 with Frank "I'll kick your Ass 'Krav Maga' Style!!" Somerville as your host. Keep up the good word, Rich...Hmph, you're all a bunch of Tards!!
ReplyDeleteRich, this is what happens when Liberalism spreads and Democrats get into power. The complete dumbing down of America.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right! Very few people know that pirates were well-known liberals and Democrats. That goes for Somali pirates too! Remember, Arrr! does not stand for Republican. Not sure what it stands for ... but definitely not Republican.
DeleteLooks to me like the staff was having fun doing it, and I seriously doubt Somerville or anyone else at KTVU is in an uproar. Maybe they were trying to get a box of Krispy Kremes.
ReplyDeleteI bet Dennis Richmond would have talked like a pirate if he was still there.
Hi Rich, happy New Year, and I hope your observance yesterday brought you peace, insight, and renewed purpose.
ReplyDeleteThe Pirate thing. I'm remembering back- the late Pete Wilson doing his show on KGO radio. On 'talk like a pirate day,' he uttered a heartfelt "aarrrhhh" or two- and genuinely broke himself up-- pretty much for the rest of the show. Pete was not often giddy on air, but this was an exception, and a memorable one. It only made him more relatable. No big stories were missed. No one was harmed. It was o.k. Maybe the charm of that occasion was that it was so unplanned. A natural, well-done silliness.
Way to get people to contribute to this media column.
ReplyDeleteTell us we're stupid. I happen to like Frank Somerville and his facebook posts. I agree with a lot of what you publish Rich, but this column is coming off as sour grapes, rather than criticism. This may not get published, but you will see it and know this is coming from a good place - a person who genuinely enjoys your column most of the time.
KTVU might as well be KRON.
ReplyDeleteWhen KRON's Stanley Roberts recovers, and is back to work, he should do a segment: Local News Behaving Badly...wait
ReplyDeleteRich, your faux outrage is tiresome. You love stuff like this, it allows you to beat the particular dead horse for weeks on end.
ReplyDelete> Here I thought the Bay Area was supposedly much more sophisticated
ReplyDelete> than the rest of the country.
Oh, man, don't make me laugh that hard when I'm drinking a coffee.
And Somerville hasn't spoken out because he has a wife and a nice East Bay home in the hills to support and he's adopting little brown children faster than Charlize Theron and Madonna combined.
Speak pirate talk or lose the weekly pay check. I will speak pirate. I may not like it. Speaking pirate is a lot better than being unemployed.
ReplyDeleteI agree about all that pirate talk just being a bunch of BS presented by a bunch of fools. It would have been much more interesting and newsworthy for the staff to have been doing Donald and Daffy Duck voices. That would have separated the true professionals from the never-were's.
ReplyDeleteWish I could disagree with you on this, but I can't.
ReplyDeleteEspecially when I see so many shitbags texting in traffic during fucking RUSH HOUR...
I really have a problem saying anyone who isn't white is deemed to only have a job because of their skin color. There are plenty of mediocre or worse white broadcasters who have jobs and nobody makes the same accusation about them. Criticize Copeland all you want, but when you start bringing his race into it - it's suggesting that all white broadcasters are there on merit and all non-white broadcasters are token hires.
ReplyDeleteCopeland may not be your cup of tea, but he's no token hire: he is earnest, he works hard, and he consistently and diligently preps his show and lines up solid guests for it. Which is to say he's putting a lot more juice into his radio gig than some other names in the cluster that I could pull out, who happen to be white.
ReplyDeleteEffing relax, people. Rich is right to point out Copie being black since Copie himself brings it up EVERY 2 SECONDS. He made a career out of it. Damn, SF. So butt hurt about everything.
ReplyDeleteyes 10:34 am..Brian decided to be born black as a career move. Got it.
DeleteWell at least it's better than making them weewee on the floor.
ReplyDeleteRich, why are you berating your readers? Most of us didn't like the unprofessional pirate crap either.
ReplyDeleteI did Google it (since I missed the actual production, PSA, time killer, filler...whatever you want to call it), and found a link to it via Facebook. Now, most of the Facebook posters loved it...shows their age, or perhaps education-level thinking it's "cool" for a news channel to be engaging in.
Please direct your disgust to the actual group it should be directed towards.
Thank you.
"Stupidity and banality rule. 'Talk like a pirate'. Fools."
ReplyDeletelol. that line is Gold.
and shows how we're one step closer to the movie Idiocracy.
Just after 8am 9/29 - Did Steve Paulson really just call her "Gasia Babe?"
ReplyDelete8:23 AM - someone noticed. Paulson was not on the air 9/30. Back on 10/1 though.
ReplyDelete