It's been a surreal week; really, if they were to make a movie about what's transpired the past few days Hollywood wouldn't believe it. There'd be this reasoning that would emphatically state, no way! But fate said otherwise. It's really kind of shocking actually.
It began with the semi-tragic takedown of embattled and embarrassed Brian Williams who has probably lost a career in TV news journalism, at least at NBC. It too, while not involving life issues still leaves many thinking, "Could this have really happened? Why?!" Did we miss something? No, we didn't and haven't--matter of fact there's more to come, apparently.
In the same time and place, a late-night satirist; the genius Jon Stewart--who most of us take for granted, said he'd be leaving his post at Comedy Central. We all knew it was happening eventually, nevertheless the fact that it was official sent shockwaves over the entire media culture landscape. That it happened on the same day that Williams was sent packing made for ripe truth is stranger than fiction metaphors.
Then came back-to-back stunners. Real-life human tragedies. Bob Simon survived the Middle East battleground but couldn't survive a NY car accident. One of the most gifted and incredibly-talented media writers of our time, David Carr, collapsed inside the NY Times newsroom and died soon after at the hospital.
I was reading the print edition of the Times; Carr's piece on the bizarre confluence involving Williams and Stewart and I noticed a CNN headline crawl on my computer that Carr was dead. Unreal. Surreal.
This has been a tough week for American media. In a spate of a hundred or so hours we've lost four heavyweights in the industry; some due to no particular rhyme of reason, others; victims of the unknown and un-yielding entity called fate. It can be unkind too.
