Marketwatch's Jon Friedman is always interesting, providing insider commentary on the media and the media market.
And sometimes Friedman gets really interesting--and maybe a little bitchy, never a bad thing in The Cable Gamer's book-- as when he jibes, in the wake of Larry King's dull non-interview interview of the vacant-eyed Paris Hilton, "CNN: The most trusted name in fluff." With that play on CNN's threadbare slogan ("The most trusted name in news") Friedman is going right at CNN prexy Jon Klein, who has presided over the decay of CNN as a legit news outlet.
Here's the good stuff from Friedman:
This has to be the quote of the week, if not the millennium, courtesy of Paris Hilton:
"I am thrilled that Larry King has asked me to appear on his program to discuss my experience in jail, what I have learned, how I have grown and anything else he wants to talk about," the hotel heiress said in a torturously constructed statement. "Larry King is not only a world-renown journalist, but a true American icon. It will be an honor to do his show." …
For all of Hilton's adoration, King was hardly her first choice. The starlet's beleaguered but wily publicist, who probably crafted that bit of fluff, could have inserted King's name where he had crossed out the likes of Meredith Vieira of NBC's "Today" and Barbara Walters of ABC.
After competing for the cheap "get," many journalists pulled back when word leaked out that the Hilton camp was going to rake in big bucks from someone. Hilton's handlers began to resemble rug merchants in an Istanbul market, desperate to unload their wares.
Enter CNN, and Larry King.
Has anyone noticed that "the world's most trusted name in news" isn't exactly covering itself in glory these days? Don't forget Wolf Blitzer's meltdown during the Anna Nicole Smith saga. The news network's decision to replace morning anchor Soledad O'Brien with "Fox and Friends" fixture Kiran Chetry was questionable.
Maybe we all should accept that news and entertainment have become so intertwined that there's no distinguishing between them.
At this rate, I half-expect CBS to get it over with and finally shove Paris, Britney, Lindsay and God knows who else into a house for a breathless installment of "Big Brother: The Hollywood Apocalypse."
Of course, it would be written into the contract that, as each person is booted out, Larry King gets first dibs on the interviews.
