Sat 30 Jun 2007
Interested in Paris Hiton? You are reading the wrong blog.
It was Peter Finch, in the 1976 movie Network, who first played a newsreader suffering an on-air breakdown. Driven to madness by poor ratings, Finch’s character snaps and tells viewers to shout: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”
It’s hard not to think of Finch, who won an Oscar for his performance, when watching a similar implosion by the newsreader Mika Brzezinski on the cable news channel MSNBC on Wednesday morning.
Despite goading from her co-hosts, including the former Republican congressman turned rightwing talkshow host Joe Scarborough, Brzezinski stood her ground and refused to read her segment’s lead news item on Paris Hilton.
After a media frenzy that saw even arch-publicist Michael Moore elbowed off CNN’s Larry King show to make way for Hilton’s first post-jail interview, Brzezinski has become a cyberspace star. Clips of her shredding the script were the lead item on the Technorati search, while the blogosphere was alight with praise. “I have a new hero, and her name is Mika Brzezinski,” wrote one.
Mika Brzezinski, daughter of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, is class of 1989. Her brother Ian is class of 1986. The video is fun.
Staged or spontaneous? Anyone who knew Mika back in the day will go with the latter. (Thanks to a reader for the tip.)
UPDATE: Class information added. Thanks to alert reader DHT Kane.
2007-06-30 08:25:17
“knew Mika back in the day”? If there’s a Williams connection here, please spell it out. Thanks.
2007-06-30 11:36:59
Are Mika’s professional prospects now damaged? Cooked? Improved? Is there a willing commentator here who is currently in touch with her on this score and is sufficiently industry sophisticated?
2007-06-30 14:21:57
Yeah, I’m not going to lie, when all the networks care more about Paris Hilton than anything else, I get pretty pissed off.
Seriously, who cares that much?
2007-06-30 15:47:31
(d)HTK,
Didn’t “Mika Brzezinski, daughter of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, is class of 1989. Her brother Ian is class of 1986,” spell out the Williams connection pretty clearly?
2007-06-30 16:15:44
Anon: Didn’t the “Class information added. Thanks to alert reader DHT Kane” explain the comment pretty clearly? Read the entire post if you’re going to criticize people.
2007-06-30 16:19:12
anon @ 3:47: If you had read carefully, you would have seen that specific “connection” information was added after the 8:25 AM post noting the lack of such information was acted upon.
2007-06-30 17:28:45
Mea culpa, missed the update. Sorry for the snark.
2007-06-30 17:39:39
Did that really have to be said three times?
2007-06-30 21:55:54
Repetition in defense of Eph fathers is no vice.
2007-06-30 23:15:45
Structurally, looks planned, they interrupt her and set up for this, tell her she should do what she does, mimic and model, and then play Stooges to the gender issues to the hilt. And then there are the well-positioned props, from cigarette lighter to paper shredder… well done!
2007-07-01 03:03:44
In this, it remains true that the ultimate proposition is that one’s interest (if any) in receiving the “news” is merely bait to attempt to entice one into contributing toward ratings, irrespective of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of all or any part of the whole. Caveat emptor!
2007-07-01 15:28:22
obviously staged. strategically positioned paper shredder says it all.
2007-07-05 11:25:59
I’m just loving the fact that Dan Abrams has taken over Joe Scarborough’s primetime slot while Scarborough’s covering the morning show.
We’d have been treated to none of this, of course, had Imus not conveniently necessitated a new morning show on MSNBC.