Television journalist so brilliant he received the Cronkite Award after only three days on the air is now out of a job:
It was hardly a surprise Thursday when ratings-challenged MSNBC announced the cancellation of the poor-performing afternoon programs hosted by Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid after less than a year, with veteran news anchor Thomas Roberts stepping in to preside over the two-hour block from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Until a permanent replacement is named for Roberts’s 5:30 a.m. program Way Too Early, the 6 a.m. Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski will temporarily take up the slack by starting a half-hour earlier.
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In an interview with The Daily Beast, [Phil Griffin, MSNBC president] was clearly smitten with Farrow, the son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen (or Frank Sinatra, depending), then a precocious 26-year-old who was largely untested on camera.
“Within 20 minutes, it was ‘Holy Cow!’ I knew,” Griffin said, describing their first meeting. “I’d wondered, is this guy for real? Is he a freak? And he walked in and we had the greatest conversation about where media is going—and that is critical. We’ve got to be at the forefront of it, and if we’re not, we’re going to lose.”
Yes, it’s true, America as a nation has failed to grok the sagacity of the second coming of Mencken, Edward R. Murrow and Fielding Mellish all rolled into one staggering talent, who like Charlie Parker or John Coltrane in the 1950s, was laying down riffs so brilliant, they were simply far beyond what our meager intellects could grasp.
Either that, or, the vast majorities of lefties already get their news from the CBSNBSABC evening news, NPR, the Times, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and aren’t looking for Air America with pictures. Nahhh, can’t be.
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