If one wanted to see evidence of the shallowness of the US news media and its incestuous relationship with politicians and the way reporters (I use the term loosely) get gooey-eyed when they meet film and TV stars, you need look no further than the annual White House Correspondents Dinner that took place last Saturday. I am amazed that the event didn’t shrivel up and die after the brutal roasting it got in 2006 from Stephen Colbert when the organizers made the mistake of inviting him to give the keynote speech and instead of the usual pandering they expected to get, he took the opportunity to tell them to their faces that they were nothing better than star-struck stenographers who suck up to the powerful and famous. Incidentally, there is a new documentary titled Nerd Prom that gives an inside look at this event, if you have the stomach for it.
But alas, the event still goes on and of course since the news media personalities love nothing better than talking about themselves, they covered it like they would the Academy Awards, gushing over celebrities and who was on the red carpet. Unfortunately for them this year, there was a riot taking place in Baltimore that very moment but even a genuinely newsworthy event taking place just 50 miles away couldn’t get them to shift the cameras from themselves.
The Daily Show documented the atrocities.
(These clips aired on April 27, 2015. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
” the brutal roasting it got in 2006 from Stephen Colbert”
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Ya know, I STILL roll that footage when I’m feeling hopeless and blue…It is STILL holds up as a jawdropping piece of cultural perfection…sigh
(:
Just checked out the trailer for ‘Nerd Prom….You’re right. I didn’t have the stomach for it…And when did THESE awful people get to be referred to as ‘nerds’..I know the definition has changed somewhat over the years as has the lessening of the stigma once attached to it…But c’mon….NERDS? REALLY? THESE people?…uh. no
I agree. These people are giving nerds a bad name. Being a proud nerd myself, I do not want to be associated with them.
Yeah, nerds is a bad term. A more accurate term would be one that actually describes them: the losers that the “cool” people allow to hang out with them, at least as long as they’re useful. Is there a slang word for that?
@Chiroptera(#4):
How about sucker or mark?
Hangers-on, toadies, sycophants. Dingle berry.
I’d mock your shitty news programming, but here in Australia most of our own on the commercial channels is headed the same way.