by Benn Ray
Congratulations to Z-man, David Zurawick - The Baltimore Sun's television "critic" and blogger at Z on TV. Finally, someone else besides me has called him out for his inane hackery and stupidity.
Seriously, whenever I hear him on our local NPR affiliate I groan. Not particularly because of a political agenda but because of the sheer stupidity of his media critique.
I remember getting out of the car one time and shaking with frustration after listening to his boomer-centric whining about how it's a shame that television isn't going to be made for a Baby Boomer audience any more, and that of course means the dumbing down of the medium (which let's face it, ain't too bright to begin with). Right, it was the Baby Boomer audience who kept the bar high on TV shows. And what, 50 years of cultural domination are not enough for you? I wanted to scream, "We do not need more Matlock, Z-man!" Instead I shook it off and would rail against his inept criticisms at parties whenever his name came up, and people would look at me shocked that I would have such a strong opinion about a television critic.
Well, his during his self-serving appearance on CNN's Reliable Sources this weekend, Z-man told Howie Kurtz:
I don't want to overstate this, Howie, and you know from time to time I do -- risk that. But it's really that path lies fascism.
I mean, what we need as a democracy is reliable information. This is the opposite of it.
And by the way, that clip of Olbermann just really, I think, encapsulates it. This is a bizarro world or cartoon version of Edward R. Murrow with the cadence and this arch rhetoric and all this, but he is saying madman stuff.
...
It's not therapeutic. They really target people, their opposition.
Even Rachel Maddow, who is the nicest, with her snide smile and arched eyebrow and mocking, they target people and hold them up for ridicule. It's exactly what happened in propaganda in the '30s in Europe. I'm not kidding you.
Hm. MSNBC (and FOX) leads America down a path to "fascism"? Sort of like "the '30s in Europe"? So basically Zurawick is saying MSNBC = Nazi Germany. See? Brilliant! Top notch thinker! (Psst - hey, Sun, maybe you could add this guy to the list of your next round of buyouts?)
His comments were enough to get him ranked as the #3 Worst Person in the World on Tuesday night's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, who said:
No, more accurately, he's kidding
himself.
Instead of analysis of tv news or insider information, his
blog is, time after time, simply a louder and louder version of the
previous one based on what he does and does not like politically.
Mr.
Zurawick's screams about this network and its hosts have been so many
and so hysterical that he must either be a blind ideologue or on the
take.
There's also something embarrassing here, he's also offered
recent critiques of what stories MSNBC should and should not be
covering and how it should make other editorial and newsroom and even
financial decisions which is somewhat ironic considering Mr. Zurawick
is among those who have turned the Baltimore Sun from the finest
newspaper south of Delaware into the wards of a bankruptcy referee.
Ouch.
And on his blog yesterday, he went on to defend himself by saying:
I have to admit, it is a great business moldel [sic]: Don't cover the news. let [sic] someone fulfill that expensive task. We'll just put on ideologues like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and let them mock our opponents as we opine about rthe [sic] news that others like CNN went to trouble [sic] and expense of gathering and verifying.
For you folks counting at home, that's 4 mistakes in one paragraph made by the Z-man.
