Sunday, April 26, 2009

When You Start Believing Your Own Press...

Those of you who know me, know that, for a long time, I was a huge fan of Shepard Smith.

I say "was" because, I simply can no longer watch this man.

I noticed it a while back...around the time he signed his big cushy contract. He'd started changing a little before, in fact. Maybe bolstered by the idea that networks were perhaps interested in him? Whatever the case, I started to see a change in him early on. He'd already ticked me off with his continually referring to himself as "a New Yorker" while bellowing how he was a proud Mississippian. No, you are one or the other. You are not both. At least not in THIS city, bucko.

I can't even put into words what it was. Perhaps an attitude, an arrogance.

It seemed that, suddenly, Shepard Smith thought that HE was more important than the story.

Before that, I would tape both his 3pm and his 7pm broadcasts, and watch with interest each night. Shepard was bright, funny and interesting. He did what he said he would do: read the news without bias. No editorializing there!

This was why I liked Shepard Smith.

But as soon as I saw the change in him, I knew it. It was the same change I'd seen years earlier, when MSNBC anchor, and my favorite newsman at the time, Brian Williams, was tapped to replace Tom Brokaw. There was a sudden air of arrogance, a conveyance that he was better than I was.

The same change that I sadly saw in Shepard Smith.

It started out small...Shepard editorializing this small story or that. Jumping in over other reporters, yelling to get his voice heard first. The way he'd talk over the car chases he is so fond of showing.

But then it started to escalate. Shepard began to editorialize and give his opinions on THE NEWS.

How can you sit there, and say you deliver the NEWS, fair and balanced, when you are interjecting your opinions, be it a sarcastic snicker, or a scoffing laugh.

It got so that I would turn him off midway thru the broadcast.

And it really shone thru during the elections.

I realized that Shepard Smith was no longer a NEWS man and had moved on to news ANALYST when, during the election he made a statement about how the South was going to show how far it had come by electing a black man. THAT, Mr. Smith, is YOUR opinion, not a news fact.

It got particularly bad during the election, when Shepard continually allowed his partisanship to show. We got it, Shep. You were for Obama. Your point was driven home.

After the election, he actually stated that he saw absolutely no media bias during the election.

Huh?

I'm guessing he never picked up a copy of the New York Times during those months, of flipped on any of the major networks newscasts or snuck a peek at his cable counterparts. I guess that, during this past election cycle, Shepard Smith lived in a bubble.

I knew it was completely over for me where Shepard was concerned when I heard him mocking Glenn Beck. Now, I don't watch Glenn. I'm sure he's a nice enough fellow, and from what I've seen of him, he has said some things I can agree with~and plenty I can't, but that is neither here or there. It's the idea that he was openly mocking the man, in front of him, right on television. That's just cruel.

Now comes word of Shepard dropping yet another expletive live on the air, this time on the Strategy Room, FNC's internet based show. Shepard, opposed to the 'torture' that is waterboarding, had a melt down. Too bad Glenn Beck wasn't there to mock him...odds are good old Shep wouldn't like it very much once the shoe was on the other foot.

(And this brings me to one other point...waterboarding. By the definition of torture in the Geneva Convention, waterboarding is NOT torture. I think that everyone screaming that it IS torture (and citing the Geneva Convention while doing so), including that dim bulb in the chandelier masquerading as our Commander in Chief, fails to realize this. Or perhaps our new clueless administration doesn't want them to realize it....kind of like the old fable about the Emperor's New Clothes...once they opened their eyes and actually saw what was in front of them, they failed to believe. I think that is a huge fear of this administration and the reason our new President has been campaigning for reelection for the last 100 days. No one out there screaming that waterboarding is torture has ever been thru waterboarding. They are calling it torture because they are being told that it IS torture, so they blindly believe and follow...independent thought is a dangerous thing to a naked emperor...but I digress...)

Back to the post at hand...

When you are so fond of saying that "this is the news, fair and balanced" and want to brag about how you DELIVER THE NEWS, then perhaps you should DELIVER THE NEWS, not your opinions. Sadly, you'll no longer get THE NEWS from Shepard Smith. Sad, really. He was the last evening broadcast I could get actual NEWS on. Now, I'll have to try to catch Trace Gallagher for the news.

I'll end my rant here, and also note here that I reserve the right to edit or delete any posts that are made in this blog.

1 comment:

newsjunkie said...

Ugh I've been feeling the same way. When I first started working later hours I was excited I'd be able to listen to Studio B on my XM Radio before leaving work--but after a day or two of having to turn it off very quickly I gave up. I can't remember the last time I turned FOX Report on.

It is sad, you're right. He was one of the last true "newsmen" who did hard news as well as the lighter stuff. Now he's just another analyst posing as a journalist.