LA Times "Channel Island" columnist Scott Collins, writing on the possibility of a "pants-off dance-off" for Tucker "Dancing With The Stars" Carlson, is a cheekier monkey than even that:
The "Dancing" gig could boost his audience by nearly 100 times. But Carlson insists he's not gettin' down as a PR stunt for "Tucker."
"That played no role in my decision, actually," Carlson said by phone Friday from Maine, where he's vacationing and, as he admitted, not rehearsing dance steps as he should be. "If I really wanted to improve ratings for my show, I'd do true crime stories every day."
He explained that he simply views "Dancing" as an interesting life experience. "I am a person of good cheer, and I'm not a coward. I'd like to do so many things. I'd like to do bonefishing on Christmas Island. All the things that add up to a rich life."
No one wants to deny a rich life to a person of good cheer, but it's worth asking whether TV journalists are going a little too far in their endless cha-cha with Hollywood. This fall, Tucker busts a move on ABC. What's next, Katie Couric taking a shower with Flavor Flav on VH1?
Please...not that. Anyway, it's not just a funny piece, but hits close to the bone, fairly or unfairly, by comparing CNN HLN's Nancy Grace to a knitting, guillotine-monitoring, Dickensian villain:
Headline News (formerly CNN Headline News), which features news updates all day but has built its prime time around former prosecutor Nancy Grace, the Madame DeFarge of legal TV...
Kind of mean, I think, but I think there's a larger point here...that cable news can and will tend to be a large and expensive carnival, if no responsible adults are running the show. Jon Klein and Dan Abrams.
