When Katie Couric’s five-year, $65 million contract with CBS News expired earlier this year, one of the reported reasons that the network elected to part company with its nightly news anchor was that Couric simply had become too expensive to keep. Her “Evening News” replacement, Scott Pelley, is said to be earning less than $5 million per year.
Meanwhile, some of Couric’s other colleagues in the television news business appear to be doing just fine.
According to TV Guide’s upcoming salary issue, Matt Lauer’s new contract with NBC earns him $17 million a year--a well-deserved figure, given the exotic bird hazards that Lauer has to face on the “Today” show set. Brian Williams, host of NBC’s “Nightly News,” earns $13 million annually–$1 million more than ABC’s “World News” host Diane Sawyer. (more…)
Faux-pression: Racism and the Cult of White Victimhood
by tim wise
Tue Jul 20, 2010
Here is Tim Wise’s response to the phony reverse racism claims made by the right, re: the New Black Panthers and the Shirley Sherrod/USDA story that broke yesterday.
To hear conservatives tell it, there’s a one-sided race war going on in America, and white folks are the targets. From President Obama’s secret plan to use health care reform as a way to procure backdoor “reparations” for slavery, to his equally secret plan to wreck the economy as a way to pay white people back for centuries of racial oppression, to his personal responsibility for a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois, in which two black kids beat up a white kid, it’s open season on white America. And of course, in case you weren’t convinced, surely that tax on tanning bed customers that was part of the health care bill should suffice to make the case: after all, it’s a clear slap at white folks and the result of the President’s deep antipathy towards those of us lacking sufficient melanin. (more…)
It has a star studded cast of white and Latino actors/actresses but the film Machete‘ has fallen into a racial controversy, and it’s still months away from its September release. 20th Century Fox. The Arizona immigration law has made things worse but a special “Cinco de Mayo” message created a storm of controversy and fueled attacks, including one from its sister subsidiary Fox News.
The film, originally based on a largely satirical mock-trailer inserted into Rodriguez & Taratino’s Grindhouse, has expanded into full production, and developed a message that many have criticized as glorifying a race war. (more…)
Wow – when will Barack Obama get the message on FOX news ? I mean one day they not doing interviews with FOX & next day they are subjecting themselves to let no name reporters consistently talk over the President.President George W. Bush would have never allowed that.
The Associated Press reported just a few of Baier’s interjections.:
Several times Obama chided Baier for breaking into his lengthy answers with follow-up questions.
1.”Bret, you’ve got to let me finish my answers,” Obama told Baier, the news channel’s White House correspondent during the Bush administration.
2.”Sir,” Baier responded, “I know you don’t like to filibuster, but …”
“Well,” Obama said in cutting him off again, “I’m trying to answer your question and you keep on interrupting.”
3.Bret, let me finish,” Obama said.
An unhappy Obama completed his answer, repeating his familiar reasons why (more…)
The battle began when Beck took exception to Ratigan’s statement that “these ‘snowpocalypses’ that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming.”
“Apparerntly, the hotter it gets, the colder it becomes,” Beck commented mockingly, drawing a thermometer on his chalkboard that appeared to be twisting around to eat its own tail.
The next day, however, Ratigan offered his own response to Beck’s “massive storm of misinformation,” explaining with a chuckle that “in addition to that being completely wrong on so many levels, it’s also a total misrepresentation of the climate change theory that I was attempting to explain.” Pulling out his own chalkboard for dramatic effect, Ratigan repeated — appearing to use simple language for Beck’s benefit — that “the theory basically states that the warmer climate will cause higher ocean temperatures, which means more ocean water evaporating. … More water in the air results in more precipitation on earth.
