Boy, that’s a headline I never thought I’d write. I detest Jimmy Kimmel. I loathe him. He is the most revolting of all the Left-Licking late night and cable progressive comics, worse than Colbert, Maher, Samantha Bee, all of them. All of them combined. He is an ongoing blight on the ethics of American society, and yet he is self-righteous in the process. I long ago decided that the Emmys were even more rigged and less ethical than other award shows, so I never watch the broadcast. Kimmel was the host this year, so that made the show even less appealing, if indeed that is possible. Thus I missed an incident which, had I witnessed it in real time, would have ensured that I wrote this post before this one, from yesterday: “A Case Study Of How Race-Baiting And Race-Bullying Undermines “Diversity” And “Inclusion”: The New Yorker’s Cartoons.”
For they are essentially about the same phenomenon.
What happened was this: Will Arnett, before presenting the nominees for best writing in a comedy series, dragged a supposedly unconscious and drunken Kimmel onto the stage with him. Arnett told the audience that Kimmel had lost again as a nominee in the late night comedy category, and “he just got into the skinny margaritas back there.” The host who is chagrined at not getting a award in the show he is hosting is an old, old joke: Bob Hope used it every year at the Oscars. Kimmel was just adding a new wrinkle. Continue reading →
Yes, it’s time again for Gene, Debbie and Donald to begin the day with the level of enthusiasm that I wish I could muster. A Jack Russell Terrier would also help.
1. “Nah, there’s no news media bias!”The New York Times costs the Marshalls $80 a week. The last two editions were essentially anti-Trump campaign brochures, front to back. Even the sports sections had gratuitous anti-Trump vibes. The Washington Post is worse than the Times, but it’s much cheaper, being a home town paper. Nonetheless, I feel badly enough paying Jeff Bezos for digital access. At least the Times didn’t smear Catholic school boys because an established Native American propagandist told them to.
Yet these are, really and truly, the best newspapers in the country. Think about that. One close relative of the hard-left persuasion subscribes to no papers, and the holes in her basic knowledge of what’s happening would fill the Albert’s Hall. (She relies on MSNBC.)
Newspapers… can’t live without them, can’t have a functioning democracy any more with them. And progressives still tell me to my face that I’m imagining it: the claim that the news media is partisan and biased is a “conservative conspiracy theory.”
2. Fact check! I saw this “fact check” of Barr’s testimony two days ago in my Times today, knew what was coming, decided I didn’t feel well enough to have my temperature raised, and then commenter Dr. Emilio Lizardo was cruel enough to send me a link and a precis.
As with so much of the news media’s fake news and biased analysis, I’d assume that savvy readers can smell the stennch of these things, but maybe not. The good doctor writes,
“This is misleading” – 4 occurrences “This is exaggerated” – 2 occurrences “This is false” – 1 occurrence “This lacks evidence” – 1 occurrence
Nothing like using subjective terminology to demonstrate your objectivity.
Here was my favorite:
What Mr. Barr SAID: “According to statistics compiled by The Washington Post, the number of unarmed Black men killed by police so far this year is eight. The number of unarmed white men killed by police over the same time period is 11. And the overall numbers of police shootings has been decreasing.”
This is misleading. Mr. Barr accurately cited adatabase of police shootingscompiled by The Washington Post. But the raw numbers obscure the pronounced racial disparity in such shootings. (The statement was also an echo of Mr. Trump’s technically accurate, but misleading claim that “more white” Americans are killed by the police than Black Americans.When factoring in population size, Black Americans are killed by the police at more than twice the rate as white Americans, according to the database. Researchhas also shown that in the United States, on average, the probability of being shot by a police officer for someone who is Black and unarmed is higher than for someone who is white and armed.Nationwide, the number of police shootings has remained steady sinceindependent researchersbegan tracking them — declining in major cities, but increasing in suburbs and rural areas.When Representative Cedric L. Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana, took issue with Mr. Barr’s presentation of the data, Mr. Barr responded, “You have to adjust it by, you know, the race of the criminal.” But some research has shown that even when controlling for the demographics of those arrested, there are still racial disparities in the use of police force.
In other words, “misleading” means “contrary to the narrative Democrats and activists want to push.” Got it. Continue reading →
Quick, now…and no cheating: Who is this recently deceased TV legend?
Three separate organizations present the Emmy Awards: the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), and the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Each is dedicated to the television industry, and the award the organizations collaborate to hand out for excellence are intended to serve multiple objectives. Prime among them is to honor and promote the professionals who bring—in theory, at least, quality entertainment into the homes of Americans. The show itself that broadcasts the awards only exists because of their larger mission, which is to say that the Emmy show exists to support the Emmys, not the other way around. The program’s producers, not for the first time, managed to forget their priorities this year, and are getting well-deserved scorn for it both in and outside the entertainment community.
The offense occurred during Sunday’s live telecast, when the show reached its annual “In Memoriam” segment. The Oscars have botched this crucial part of its own show in recent years by failing to recognize the deaths of important Hollywood figures who deserved their final bow and a last ovation. Emmy found a new and different way to insult its own. The Oscars’ omissions were negligent; the Emmys insult was, incredibly, intentional. It’s just that either nobody realized it was insulting, or, more likely, they knew but had other objectives. Continue reading →
“The rule that newer shows need a break should be bent in one case: Conan O’Brien’s ill-fated stint as the host of “The Tonight Show” wasn’t the best of the year, by a long shot. His nomination for outstanding variety, music or comedy series is a little like President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize — political, premature and meant mostly as an affront to his predecessor.”
—New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley, properly tweaking the Emmys for nominating “The Conan O’Brien Show” for reasons that have nothing to do with its quality, which was spotty at best. Continue reading →
The Muslim extremist threat that cowed the Comedy Channel into censoring South Park has certainly spawned a bumper crop of unethical attempts at protest. First we had the juvenile “Let’s Insult Islam Because We Can Day” protest, better known as “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day,” which made a lot of completely innocent and law-abiding Muslims upset without accomplishing anything else—not even a good laugh. Now the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, admittedly never a bastion of fairness, honesty or integrity, has made its incoherent protest by nominating the two “South Park” episodes that were censored for. Neither has been viewed intact on Comedy Central, nor are either viewable online. Nonetheless, the Academy says these episodes are among the “best animated programs,” despite the fact that the programs, in the forms that supposedly warrant the honor, have never been seen. Continue reading →
Ethics Alarms 