Hardball swings for the bleachers while NBC serves leftovers

Things over at NBC must really be bad. I'm sure that parent company GE is screaming that the bills need to get cut down a notch or 3. This has to be the reason why NBC will be replaying the Olympics this weekend.

2 hours of competition that everyone who cared has seen already. All on Saturday. Because Saturday Night Live may be getting better ratings that in several years, but they still suck overall.

If you ask me it's just a way to save money. It's far easier to put on a rerun than to have paid original programming. And since America loves to win a night of the wins of Michael Phelps should bring in as many viewers as they normally would get. At half the cost.

But things are not all gloomy. MSNBC's Hardball lead Chris Matthews might not renew his contract. That's an extra $5 million a year that can stay in the bank.

I really would enjoy if he gets off the air. I can't imagine 4 years of Matthews discussing his erection everytime that President Obama speaks. Seriously, he needs to stop sharing. Not that anyone really noticed his bluster. The naysayers will polispeak all they want but Hardball is hardly a ratings winner.

Though the program is up huge in percentages, MSNBC and Hardball still trail badly in total viewers - which is the only thing that really matters. And that is with massive amounts of selling-out to Democrats and rallying for Obama like political cheerleaders.

Now the real question is if Chris Matthews does leave it will be to run for Senate in Pennsylvania. So could he win? I can imagine his slogan now, "I just want to be closer to Obama, please elect me."

Representative Murtha, and various polls, may state that much of Pennsylvania is redneck, but Matthews is still unpleasant, a sellout, and liberal. I can't imagine him winning. But I will say this in his favor, he is more qualified than Caroline Kennedy. Yet that isn't saying much.

So GE is looking forward to a couple of Christmas gifts. And we the public get a retread and a worn old tread at best. Must see TV, I think not.

Major news media irritation - 9.11.2007.1

There are so many things that the major news media just forgets to follow up on, or deems unworthy of more than a fleeting mention. Yet in either case they have no difficulty in rushing news out at the initial stages of the story. It just pisses me off. I mean what happened to the days of getting the full story and reporting ALL the facts without personal or corporate prejudices.

I’ve mentioned the slipshod reporting on Wesley Snipes, and in the past the one-sided actions of the major media in reference to the Sean Bell murder, or even the rush to quiet the Michael Richards tirade of degradation. But there are so many more items, and you might want to check them out.

How about the fact that Barnes & Noble has now decided to sell the supposed-to-be renamed OJ Simpson book If I Did It. If the major media was really interested in telling a complete story, and going by the facts there might be a couple of questions that this now raises that should be asked. One question might be, if the outrage in the nation was so bad in November 2006 that HarperCollins would not release the book and fired an editor over it, why is anyone releasing it now? If the Goldman and Brown families were so angered and inflamed that a ‘fictional’ book describing the deaths of their loved ones was to be published, why are they publishing it themselves now?

If this is not about money, of which a lot of time and effort has been made to ensure that the respective family will get paid, and it was ‘criminal and insulting to the memories of the victims’ less than a year ago, what is the reason that changed the book besides the fact that OJ will not be receiving any money? Where is the outrage at this book being published that was openly expressed by all the major media networks in November and now has completely dissipated? REMEMBER, not a single word in the book has changed, just who gets paid. So is it about money, continued persecution of a man the used the legal system the way it’s been used for decades or more, or just a blatant statement about race in America?

What about the limited amount of coverage on the DVD’s and videos targeting babies to improve their minds. You might have missed the news that in fact these developmental items may actually slow brain development in babies. Perhaps as important is that these devices provide no help to children over 16 months old.

Think about that. A multi-million dollar industry that has parents spending their hard earned money in an effort to help their children get a head start, and I doubt more than 25% of the population is aware of the news. How many parents are hurting their children instead of helping them? Does this not require more media coverage? What is the difference between lead poisoning, which affects the brains of children and DVD that can have the same effect? Yet there is so little said about this news. Do you even know what else was worth more attention on the 9th or 10th on the major news media networks? The Notorious BIG got a movie deal though he is dead, and a ban on tattoos got 30 minutes of coverage. They may not sound like a lot of time, but how much time did the potential health of babies get in comparison?

Perhaps I’m overly concerned. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood. But I dislike the tendency of major news media to spend their time wasting mine with the latest Britney Spears update, and ignoring the full story on serious news. Or at least just the full story.

This is what I think, what do you think?