It’s awfully nice being referenced as a source in a national news story—except when you’re MIS-referenced. The Miami Herald ran a piece about William Levy’s rehearsals for ABC’s Dancing With The Stars, referring to a story posted here on The Smoking Nun. The dumbass cub reporter referred to us as The Smoking GUN… that other website that reports celebrity arrests. Thanks for nothing, Herald! I sure would appreciate you adding your two cents to the story’s comments, informing them that as a Smoking Nun reader, it would be nice if they credited the correct source. See story here.
bad journalism
I read an intriguing if not frightening post on Daily Kos—that has appeared in similar form on a number of webbies—illustrating how Time magazine cover stories differ on a regular basis in the U.S. versus its three other markets: Europe, Asia and the South Pacific.
Overseas, the news mag devotes coverage to pivotal global stories impacting the world at large. Here in America, 
however, we get such vapid, self-absorbed nonsense as this week’s “How Anxiety Is Good For You” or recent stories prattling about “Chore Wars,” “Why Mom Liked You Best” and “Who Needs Marriage?”
The critical question that Kos asks: “Do these moments of marketing reveal more about Americans or about the state of American journalism?” I suspect the latter… With the majority of veteran writers laid off years ago, the average “professional” journalist simply doesn’t have depth or experience to report on much beyond what they see on E! or Bravo. For example…
December 5, 2011: U.S. “How Anxiety Is Good For You” (Trust me, it’s not) vs. “Revolution Redux” about new post-military Egyptian political rule.
August 8, 2011: U.S. “Chore Wars” in the banal battle of men against women and their bratty babies vs. “Travels Through Islam,” examining a historical look at the region.
October 3, 2011: The asinine U.S. “Why Mom Liked You Best,” the Science of Favortism (get over it) vs. “Why Germany Can’t Save the World.”
November 29, 2010: U.S. “Who Needs Marriage” vs. “The Lady Returns,” about the Burmese Opposition politico.
Oh, who gives a shit? Green, green, green… Do you really think I’d hesitate to join the iPhone revolution because it might harm the earth’s carbon footprint? Get real, tree hugger!
Um, sure that’s the best choice of words? For some reason, it makes me think of the image below.
This is one Celine Dion interview you’ve got to see—naw, not because of anything Celine says… but because The Insider‘s Christina McLarty is such an embecilic bubblehead. Come on, when you send a staffer to interview Dion, it helps if they have half a brain. (Interview is here.)
ADENDUM: Interesting, what was shown on TV Thursday evening was cut and chopped without ever showing the interview that is posted online… apparently producers recognized that McLarty was too idiotic for pre-prime time…)
The half-wit opens the by saying, “Without blowing your head up, you’re one of the greatest singers 
in the world.” Yowsah! McLarty then asks, “How do you do it all (giggle giggle). You are a multi-tasker, talented singer, mother, you have a fragrance [uh, Celine has an empire comprising 14 best-selling perfumes, nitwit]… how do you do it all?”
Celine responds that it’s great to be a mom and have a career, etc. etc. and the nincompoop responds, “That’s so sweet.” Good god, almighty, do you think you’re interviewing a 13-year-old? There comes a point in the segment where Celine stops maintaining eye contact with McLarty, likely thinking, “Rescue me, Rene!”
A little research reveals that McLarty is the niece of Bill Clinton’s former White House chief of staff Mack McLarty, thus her nepotistic connection to having a job. She previously worked as a show biz reporter at L.A.’s CBS2/KCAL9, and in her free time “enjoys cooking, reading, checking out the local farmers markets and tending to her 4-year-old Basset Hound.” I have a feeling she reads about as much as Sarah Palin.
Meanwhile, Celine graces yet another magazine cover: Canada’s Hello!, featuring her outfit from the recent Andrea Bocelli concert in Central Park.
This is perhaps the one day of the year where I’d love to read nothing but nonsense about Justin Bieber. 
Along with the political grandstanding, the endless tearing off of the scab from a terrible event 10 years ago and the fact that the impossibly politically strangled World Trade Center site has yet to come close to resurrection, September 11 is a day I dread.
One year ago, I wrote here that it’s time to “acknowledge quietly, privately.” But instead, as The Village Voice reports, on this 10th anniversary of 9/11, in addition to Presidents Obama and Bush, “Governors Cuomo and Christie, among other politicians, have been jockeying with the mayor for pride of place at the Bloomberg-run ceremony to score valuable camera time at a charged event that’s valuable to politicians—much as the 40-plus TV specials, complete with ‘investigations’ of twins lost in the twin towers and endless ads featuring terror porn of the planes striking the towers are somehow supposed to be in the ‘public interest’.”
Ten years ago, from the rooftop of my Brooklyn Heights apartment building, I saw the Twin Towers fall first-hand. Today, I am so very weary of watching them collapse again and again under the guise of “news” or “special reports.”
This year’s onslaught of “anniversary” recollections has drenched the point of dignity, instead drowning in absurdity: I don’t really care what the now-10-year-old children of 9/11 remember; the “unborn of 9/11” have nothing to do with the actual events of the day; “the women of 9/11” are no less relevant than the men. It’s niche upon hyper-niche… nothing but ratings and hype and sensationalism. September 11 has become little more than an issue of OK! magazine, with the added indignity that it is all “based on real events.” 
Now… can we please stop reading the names of the deceased? For god’s sake, let the dead rest in peace (along with the rest of New York). Might we stop calling it Ground Zero? And pray tell, what reason is there for an “official 9/11 Memorial Flag”? Only those selling souvenirs could possibly find that relevant.
Then there’s the on-site memorial—an outrageously large hole in the footprint of the original Twin Towers—the most gruesome, distasteful remembrance of those who lost their lives I can imagine. I find it a monumental overstatement that overshadows hope this nation has for looking toward a fearless future at the site of the Freedom Tower and its alleged someday sister buildings (not to mention the primarily taxpayer-funded $1 billion price tag for the waterfall memorial and accompanying underground museum).
Until we treat September 11 as a personal remembrance, sans the tirade of headlines and replays of photographs and video clips, America—and more so, New York—is being forced to relive the past over and again.
My grandmother’s only son (my mother’s brother), an Air Force pilot, was killed in WWII—the uncle I never knew. I imagine she mourned his death for the rest of her life—but without demanding national fanfare or his name shouted out on TV every year or certainly a gargantuan pit “to remember”—or more troubling, to visit his remains.
It is time to move on.
Until he was savvy enough to canoodle with Kim Kardashian, Kris Humphries was just your 
run-of-the-mill overpaid pro athlete, tossing a ball around for the New Jersey 
Nicks (basketball, I’m told). But now that he married professional celebri-not Kim Aug. 20, I’m sure we’ll be seeing Kris oinking across every B-level media outlet, until their inevitable D-I-V-O-R-C-E eight or so months from now.
After all, Kardashian is a master at whoring her big toe if it brings in cash: She collected a half-million cool ones for pawning pics of her wedding and honeymoon to newsstand rags. So much for pop culture.
In fact, the former hairdresser/trust fund daddy’s girl’s net worth is estimated at $35 million, including $40,000 an episode for her E! “reality” show, perfume and clothing lines, weight loss products, 
public appearances and other endorsements. All that for being Paris Hilton’s one-time gal pal and having a fat ass. What a wondrous world we live in!
And now it’s Kris’ turn. Case in point: He’s featured in a June 2011 GQ swimsuit shoot (and about as expressive as a paper towel). In addition, photos are making the rounds of Humphries and his boyz having a homoerotic hoedown at his poolside bachelor party in Las Vegas.
It’s just a shame that Kris is only minorly hot: That pig nose, a la Justin Bieber, is a sizable problem… Kim, you’re a plastic surgery veteran… Girl, can’t you fix that? Odds are his window of opportunity won’t last long. New nose, tighten those abs and let your love flow ($$$$$$$$).
