The Paris terrorist attacks and subsequent aftermath --a massive story, not just an international story but a story that hits close to home, here, still living in post-9/11 America.
We viewed it on our smartphones and laptop--watched it live on CNN and Fox News. It was in our conversation and made for perfect fodder at the office and near the water-cooler and why wouldn't it? After all, it was at the top of the masthead and only brought back those disturbing images of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. We never forget.
Only here in the Bay Area the only talk show on the radio, hosted by some silly fill-in named Brian Copeland, they were talking about the Olympics and SF's failed bid. And twenty minutes later, something equally doofus and out of place, out of mind. This time I won't fault Copeland because he was only following orders from the infamous handbook --KGO's manifesto--that you people are really dumb and that it's good and vital, hosts, to keep it dumb, dumb-it-down.
Yes, they think you all are dumb. Dumb and dumber. Imagine that. Those 12 of you left that actually give KGO any of your time, well that's some serious stuff. That's some serious business. It doesn't shock me anymore because nothing shocks me anymore.
The events in France --three days of hell in the heart of Paris and beyond --with over 12 people being murdered and ambushed; with images of the Jewish grocery store and its "Kosher" customers running out of the market as machine-gun fire rang forth--well, we know what happened.
This sort of incident made for red meat discussion and reaction on radio stations like KGO. Nowadays they tell their hosts to talk about American Idol. "Lifestyle issues" --Paris is too complicated and fraught with that nasty undertone, so frightening, so not worthy of the discussion.
Keep it dumb. That's what KGO and Cumulus thinks of you.
I'm supposed to not talk about this. It's old hat. If it were KGO's way, I wouldn't be surprised had they not called in Chef Ryan Scott during Ronn Owens time slot to talk about arugula cheese omelets as the bodies were being counted in Paris. After all, you listeners are incapable of dealing with such trivial matters as the Paris massacres and international reaction and consequences. As a reader of this site mentioned, 9/11 would have been relegated to a news update on KGO/Cumulus--after all, you people are just plain dumb. Got it?
Fortunately, we had alternatives. We had the cable channels to turn to--something that CNN, even in its Don Lemon-era ways, can do right by providing a first-hand look at what's taking place. It's not perfect by any means but at least it's there and live for all of us to decipher.
We have other radio. Thank God for KCBS too which provided up-to-the-minute reports and whose anchors interviewed experts about the goings-on and how and what France faced; how the US and the West would react to what transpired. Fortunately, KCBS and others have respect for their audience and don't think they're dumb.
It would be easy and convenient to dismiss the dumb-it-down dictum at KGO because it's so farcical to even contemplate as semi-serious only it's true. The 20 topics-an-hour, the PPM-era is KGO being kgo--that's how much they take you all seriously.
If it weren't all so serious it would be laughable.
Now, here's Chef Ryan Scott with a great muffin recipe.
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