| Topic Name: |
an open letter |
| Message Name: |
I hate "Open Letters" |
| Date Posted: |
05/26/2005 |
| In Reply To: |
I??m over and done with.
I have spent seven years in this town, working in network news, and earning rewards and ratings by dint of creativity and nose to the grindstone work. I??m a successful news broadcast veteran with worldwide experience.
I thought my skills would serve better in this market, where talent is critical, but numbers are paramount.
How wrong I was.
I recently read Mr David Westin??s op-ed in the WSJ with amusement.
He cries out for quality news, creatively packaged, presented and produced. He abhors the tabloid and cable mentality. He espouses a return to real journalism, no fear and no favor, and wants us to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable as the saying goes.
Well, I tried that.
I spent seven years trying to right wrongs, harangue liars, question assumptions, and smoke out hypocrisy and idiocy where I found it. I asked difficult questions about the roundup of "terror suspects" and the manipulation of the color-coded threat level system. I demanded my reporters get answers about phantom WMD??s, well before the war started, and well before it became safe and popular to do so.
I savaged Mr Kerry for his focus-grouped personality.
And I developed provocative programs and I grew ratings.
But my uptown superiors didn??t like the way I ruffled feathers with my unpatriotic questions, so I was tossed.
I left the building as the runaway bride moved in, and I watched as virtually every cable and network newsroom obsessed on it. It was the high water mark for the surreal deterioration of quality.
Now, both network and cable alike are racing each other to the bottom where irrelevance and oblivion lie.
They can get there without me. I??m going back to program news for a smaller audience, but a keen and skeptical one. A viewership that is demanding, and actually responds and expects real debate, real journalism and real creativity.
I thought New York was the place to exercise those skills. Sorry to say, Mr Westin and his bunch like to talk the talk, but they don??t have the guts to walk the walk.
They??d be very, very surprised at the results if they did.
So, I??m off to do my thing off-shore. And when my newly-designed news program begins to overwhelm my audience and set new ratings records, you??ll come knocking, wondering how you can copy it. Wondering why you didn??t think of it first, wondering why you couldn??t have done it here.
I??m leaving in a week. If anyone has a better offer, try me at Hawtreyandthedeafaids@yahoo.com
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| Message: |
They're so pretentious.
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