Tyro journalist demands that no journalists ask him questions at his award banquet. Two guesses as to which network employs him:
Ronan Farrow’s team is trying to protect the precious new MSNBC host from probing questions about his dysfunctional family. Reporters are being ordered to sign a form pledging they will not ask Farrow, the son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen (or possibly Frank Sinatra), personal questions if they want to attend a benefit where he will be honored Wednesday night.
Farrow — who has publicly stood behind his sister Dylan’s accusations that she was sexually abused by Allen when she was 7, and tweeted about the abuse allegations during the Golden Globes — is receiving the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Exploration and Journalism at Reach the World’s 14th annual benefit at the Princeton Club. Reporters have been issued a tip sheet that includes stern “conditions” not to ask anything about Allen.
“The theme of the evening is global education and service,” it says. “All press are required to stay strictly on message. Any press who ask guests or Mr. Farrow about off-message topics will be immediately escorted out of the event.”
The New York Post’s Page Six ends on this unintentionally Orwellian paragraph:
Yale grad Farrow has an impressive résumé that includes work for UNICEF and Hillary Clinton. But while journalists are banned from asking questions as praise is poured on Farrow for his own excellence in journalism, would he submit to such rigid interview stipulations from guests on his own fledgling show? We doubt it.
Hillary Clinton, you say? I’m sure she’s very sympathetic to women taken advantage of by a man in a position of power…
And would Farrow “submit to such rigid interview stipulations from guests on his own fledgling show?” Depends on how powerful the guest is. This is the network that has voluntarily read real-time “corrections” from the Obama White House on the air; these are the blinders that everyone at MSNBC dons when discussing President Obama. Why wouldn’t someone whose show began there a week ago assume that the same rules apply to him, when receiving an award for his “journalism?”
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Related: “Ronan Farrow Debuts New Show in True MSNBC Fashion,” Austin Ruse writes at Big Journalism:
Ronan Farrow, best known as the estranged son of Woody Allen, debuted his new show Ronan Farrow Daily on MSNBC Monday by praising news heroes he “watched growing up,” including Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
Walter Cronkite left the CBS Evening News in 1981. Edward R. Morrow hosted See It Now from 1951 to 1958 and Person to Person from 1953 to 1959. He died in 1965.
Since Farrow was not born until 1987, he must be thinking of others he might have seen growing up.
Not to mention, Cronkite and Morrow each knew how to tie a necktie, and to wear one on the air, unlike Farrow, who looks and sounds like a 15 year old in a high school journalism video production, while dropping improvised “you guys” clangers as he reads the text on his teleprompter in the clip at Big Journalism.
Update: Do not miss the photo of Ronan’s set in a post today by the Daily Caller’s Christopher Bedford, who writes, “No one really knew who he was until October, and we still haven’t met anyone who knows why he’s on TV. But pasting the school you went to on the wall is best reserved for the home office.”
Say what you will about Keith Olbermann — at least he waited until Ann Coulter gave him the vapors before displaying his diploma on the air at MSNBC.
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