Who is the most obnoxious news or talk show personality on TV? Who is the best?
My vote for worst: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who can’t keep his mouth shut long enough for guests to get a word in edgewise. I like his energy, but shut your piehole, Chris!
Best: Aaron Brown recently got canned at CNN, but he had a kind of anti-anchor everyman appeal for me with his sad-sack face, and the way he delivered disastrous news with a kind of fatalistic grimace, the corner of his mouth screwed up. As he bravely plodded along, musing on the invariably rotten news, you sensed the existential despair eating a hole in his heart.
And as a print journalist, I also appreciated his nightly rundown of newspaper front pages — OK, maybe it didn’t make for riveting TV, but at least it didn’t condescend to viewers.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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28 Comments
Nancy “Dis”Grace gets my vote for the most obnoxious. (Does she actually know what she is reporting on before getting in front of her teleprompter? I serioulsy doubt it.) The best? Jon Stewart – oh but that’s not necessarily the news. ;0) Maybe that is why he is my fav.
I agree VC, Nancy gets on my last nerve with her hysteria and over emotional approach to eveything.I love Jon Stewart, his wit is refreshing.
I watch the boring anchor, Jim Lehrer on PBS NewsHour.
How about lets make it really interesting and discuss who is the most annoying in our local newscast lineup. ;)
Randy loves CNN? Shocking ;-)
We libs have called Chris Matthews “Tweety” for quite awhile . . . he used to have bright yellow hair before he went platnium.
His take on Al Sharpton–”who’s responsible for the crazy negro?”–was so wrong and vicious, I don’t care to ever watch Tweety again. Sharpton seemed to me one of the few that could speak from the dignity of his convictions.
But as far as absolutely worst, I think I’d have to go with Bill O’Reilley. The guy not only lies and then flipping lies, but he lies with such MORAL SMUGNESS. That’s the unbearable part of it.
“I was in combat. I know what it means to see friends die in combat.” He was a reporter in Central America during some little dust up down there.
“I won two Peabody Awards.” The show he was one of about five contributors to won ONE Polk Award, for a story that ran after he had left the show.
“I grew up in Levitt Town. Nobody started lower than me.” His real address is Westchester County, New York. One of the richest zip codes in the US. His family was comfortable upper-class.
Jeremy Glick is on his “no spin zone.” His father was a worker who opposed the Bush presidency and was killed in the Sept 11th terror attack. When Glick pointed out that the same people who attacked us had been trained by Carter, Reagan and Bush to carry out terrorist attacks, O’Reilly told him to “shut up! shut up!” and then cut his mic.
No spin except HIS spin.
Then he comes off as this big moralist. He invites porn star Jenna Jameson on his show and then calls her a “prostitute” obviously appealling to his puerile viewers who LIKE HIM want purient tittilation yet want to feel puritannically superior while they get their jollies.
Meanwhile, he goes home that very night and makes an unwanted phone sex call to a horrified employee.
Limbaugh–addicted to narcotics
O’Reilly–sexually harasses employees
Bill Bennet–gambling addiction
G. Gordon Liddy–convicted felon
Ollie North–convicted felon
Spouting the lies and hypocrises of a right-wing talk show host apparently inflict a terrible psychic cost.
Sharpton and dignity? Oh puhleeze.
Case in point. Riverside, CA, 1997. A young black woman was stoned, passed out in her car around 3AM. Her family called police, telling them she had a loaded gun.
Police showed up, pounded on the window of the car. She woke up enough to grab her gun and point it at the officers. With predictable results. However, because the officers were white, racism was claimed. Ignore the fact that the young woman had several arrests for assault, had an outstanding warrant for carrying a concealed weapon, and pointed a loaded weapon at law enforcement officers while stoned.
Al Sharpton came to town, calling for a boycott of all white owned businesses in that southern California town.
What dignity or sense does that make? The officers involved in the shooting don’t own the businesses Al Sharpton is trying to hurt. What sense is that? Where is the dignity?
Two months later, a white police officer was shot to death by a black suspect. Where were Al Sharpton’s convictions then? He didn’t show up to call for a boycott that time.
Dignity? Oh please. He goes for headlines.
Whoa Galahad!!
Oliver North? Decorated Viet Nam hero?!!!
Didn’t you get the memo? We’re not attacking heros this week!
So was Kerry.
In the immortal words of Dick Cheney on the floor of the Senate, “go —- yourself.”
Notice that nobody is arguing about O’Reilly.
Heh.
Nope…no argument with your comments about O’Reilly. But the others that have addictions are not necessarily worthy of scorn.
Scorn the felons all day long! Yes, North was a war hero at one time. Since then, I feel he is a disgrace to his uniform.
Problem is, the list of obnoxious TV personalities is so long that sorting out who’s worse than who becomes a full-time and very subjective job. rather than spend more time debating the issue, just vote with your remote! If thy talk-show host offend thee, turn him off!
If you look at the ratings you will see that people do vote with their remote. Here they are:
FOXNEWS O’REILLY 2,851,000FNC HANNITY/COLMES 2,073,000FNC GRETA 1,849,000FNC SHEP 1,538,000FNC BRIT 1,456,000CNN KING 947,000CNN COOPER 732,000CNN ZAHN 698,000CNN DOBBS 658,000CNNHN GRACE 600,000MSNBC OLBERMANN 517,000MSNBC HARDBALL 471,000MNSBC RITA 469,000MSNBC SCARBOROUGH 336,000MSNBC TUCKER 208,000
I like O’rielly. I don’t always agree with him, but he’s generally right-on with his assessments for the far left wackos.
So you do agree with him. “So you (Al Qaeda) want to blow up the Coit Tower (in San Francisco), then go ahead.”
Asked for an apology he said, “What I said isn’t controversial. What I said needed to be said.”
Also, how recent are these numbers? I heard he’s down a million viewers recently.
He totally talks and acts like that Frank Burns character on the old “MASH” tv show.
Just a big-mouthed, bullying smug jerk.
Galahad,Please don’t besmirch the name of Frank Burns by comparing him to Bill O’Rielly. Frank Burns had more honor and dignity in his little finger than O’Lielly has in his entire body.
Galahad,
You’re correct, my words were measured. If I told you what I really thought about a man that incited a riot that had many innocent people killed; a man that defamemed the good name of police officers long after he knew that Twana Brawly was a liar; a man that continually uses race to make a living. . . .well, let’s just say left-wing, cowardly, America hating traitorist nitwits like you might be offended.
(I wouldn’t want to offend)
Dear NoJoCo,
For CNN to get their numbers as high as they are they have to count all of the people sleeping in airport waiting rooms.
I gotta agree with esod: Al Sharpton is nothing more than a racist jerk. Where is he while people in Sudan and Dufar are being slaughtered? Where is he when his people are being sold into slavery in Niger and Haiti? Running around with that angel of a preacher, Jesse Jackson.
How many children you father today, Jesse? Yep, Al sure is someone to look up to . . . not! Hell, I got more respect for Louis Farrakhan than I do bloat-boy Al.
Chris Matthews is far more balanced, fair and more reasonable than the Eagle’s editorials.
“Marriage is the headstone of our society.”Frank Burns
And the issue at hand being? Well, let’s review, oh yea, Randy wants Chris to Shaddup!
It would be a shame to let a few right wing nuts to ignore that issue!
But it seems to have a like effect on the left wing nuts too.
So esod, who would you like to see shut up? I mean besides the radicals.
Well, I think Chris Matthews is a idiot. Tim Russert is insufferable. Almost anybody on CNN.
I don’t care if they shut up or not, I have a remote.
PS I have a brain, I think for myself. I don’t hate America or the president.
I am a radical.
Ah, one who has figured out the ON/OFF switch. Personally, I watch CNN till a commercial comes on, then I switch to Fox. When the next commercial comes on, I switch back to CNN and so forth (talk about fair and imbalanced!). Overall, I don’t watch much TV. It’s a wasteland.