Television

I've mention here a time or two, in reaction to stories about the "death of print" or the "end of newspapers" that the problem is much, much deeper. What we are actually seeing is the demise of the whole mass-marketing phenomenon in which news can ride on the back of advertising. That end is almost upon us:

Add CNN's Chris Cuomo's name to the list of progressive thinkers who get the business of rights all wrong. His thoughts were expressed as he interviewed Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore over his efforts to defy federal courts by blocking same-sex marriage in his state:

“Our rights do not come from the Constitution, they come from God,” Moore opined.

"The CBS Morning News" today had a tribute to Bob Simon, the CBS foreign reporter and longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent, who did Wednesday night in a car accident in New York City. It featured news clips from his long career, and it was impossible not to appreciate how fearless he was in pursuit of a story. He had reported from just about every war zone there was, starting with Vietnam and including Iraq, where he was captured and tortured for 40 days:

When science and religion collide. Or maybe it's when they intersect:

In a moment of weakness or temporary insanity yesterday, I found myself watching "Reliable Sources" on CNN (I know, I know, what the hell was I thinking?) and discovered a panel of news "experts" talking about the Lyin' Brian scandal. (It is a measure of their cluelessness that, three-quarters of the way into a show devotedy exclusively to the Brian Williams sagay, one of them wondered how such trivial stories become such hot topics today.) To a person, the panel members espoused some version of this theory: We should be careful not to judge him hastily.

Sometimes the lameness of an apology tells us more about someone's character than the transgression being apologized for does:

WASHINGTON — NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.

Yeah, I saw it, that jaw-droppingly dumb play that ended the Super Bowl:

I don't quite get this:

In the media capital of the world, however, the howls are loud after predictions of 30 inches or more fizzled into somewhere closer to five or six. Meteorologists are even apologizing for their somewhat overblown predictions.

A friend texted me on Saturday: "Bill Cosby? Rape allegations? What a world . . ." I share her sentiments.

Here's another reason why you shouldn't let politics guide your entertainment choices. I have enjoyed "Start Trek" and all its iterations so much that I could surely be labeled a Trekkie. But it turns out to be the most anti-libertarian show in history: