Monday, August 22, 2005

Cruel, Cruel Copy Editors

Here's an awesomely insensitive headline from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune:

Twin Cities turning deaf ear to political talk radio shows

So, of course, the first talk radio host they discuss is Rush Limbaugh. You know, the guy who has two deaf ears.

Locally, conservative-talk icon Rush Limbaugh's show has lost 43 percent of its audience among 25- to 54-year-olds in the past year. Sean Hannity's show is down a whopping 63 percent.

Man, this article rules! It has awesome statistics about how less morons are tuning in to these right-wing GOP-funded assholes, and as if that wasn't enough good news, it has the taste to mock the disability of one of the hosts. [I'd like to note that, even though this may read like sarcasm, it's totally not sarcasm. Fuck Rush Limbaugh. I wish he had gone deaf because something fiery exploded right next to his head, rather than natural causes, but I'll take what I can get.]

Now, I know what you may be thinking...Maybe the Star-Tribune didn't even consider Rush's hearing problems when they were writing the headline. Maybe it's an innocent mistake.

But I don't know..."turning deaf ears" isn't the most common expression nowadays. (Nor is "nowadays," for that matter.) And his deafness ranks among the first things I think about when I consider Rush Limbaugh. (The others? The fact that he's a pillhead and the fact that he's fat and Al Franken had the good taste to write a book about it.)

Imagine if Stevie Wonder held an impromptu concert in the middle of Minneapolis and only a few people actually showed up. Would the paper the next day run a headline like:

Twin Cities turn a blind eye to Stevie Wonder

Or:

No crowds visible at Stevie Wonder concert

Maybs...but probs not.

Anyway, I think that as long as our newspapers are worthless as information sources, they might as well provide some cheap laughs at the expense of newsmakers. Maybe the New York Times should just forego having a News Section at all. Just bring back the old-timey Society page and add a shitload more comic strips...people wouldn't even notice!

Oh, and someone over there, please, as a personal favor to me, fire Tom Friedman and rough him up a little. Don't actually kill the guy, but, you know, teach him a lesson. Show him who's boss.

3 comments:

  1. What did Friedman do? I mean other than write a book that says what 5000 people have said already, and then give it a retarded name like, "The World is Flat".

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  2. Friedman's one of these NYT assholes who's really getting on my nerves these days with the constant defense of Judy Miller. She's not a brave journalist fighting to defend her profession's right to exist like Tom wants us to think...she's a political operative who is doing some time to protect Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby, the two Americans least deserving of protection.

    Here's Tom:

    FRIEDMAN (7/12/05): You know, there’s something just to me, you know, nutty about the fact that my colleague, Judy Miller, is the only person in jail right now—and she didn’t even write a story! And for the life of me, I just can’t quite figure that out.

    Well, Tom, allow me to explain...She's in jail because she was integral to the leak of confidential information about an undercover CIA operative, which is a crime. And, yeah, she didn't even write a story about it! How's that for quality journalism!

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  3. And, Jon, I'm genuinely surprised you don't remember this from a few years back (just before the "Rush is on drugs" meme spread). He very publicly announced that he had been having hearing problems for years, and that he was now almost totally deaf.

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