Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

Just what we need, David Shaw, another Scotty Reston -- an insider suck-up who wrote incomprehensible articles.

Hasn't the career triumph of Ken Auletta taught these clowns the dangers of schmoozing?

Which prompts me to this: Here's what a well-informed cable subscriber might ask of King Richard:

"Mr. Parsons, I've been a Time Warner Cable customer for ten years, and every year I've seen my rates go up and up and up, and every year you have excuses: first you were going to upgrade your 'infrastructure,' then it was improve your customer service, then add channels, then add Internet service, then add broadband, then you had to pay for rate increases from, say, ESPN. I've already ditched HBO because I couldn't afford it, and, to be honest, I did like what I saw, and I didn't want my kids to see it. Mr. Parsons, how do I know you won't use America Online and your shareholders' resentment as two more excuses to hike my rates?"

Here's what a well-informed Internet subscriber might ask:

"Mr. Parsons, I've been hooked up to America Online for two years, and it's one problem after another. I get disconnected no less than four or five times a day. Recently I had trouble with the hookup and I called customer service, and they thought I was speaking Greek. I'm paying $23.95 a month for a service that's worth half that, and that ranked at the bottom of Consumer Reports' ratings. And now there's talk of you folks spinning off America Online. I'm seriously thinking of going to another ISP. How do I know that you haven't given up on America Online, that you'll just let the service languish, or get worse and worse?"

Now, here's what Ken Auletta would ask:

"Dick, what does the recent slowed growth in America Online do to synergy, and how will it affect your strategy of cross-platform promotions, particularly with franchise pictures, which, as I needn't tell you, have formed much of the growth in the entertainment side lately? And what sort of opportunities will you have in putting some of your magazine content behind the wall and selling to AOL's captive audience?"

It's this sort of nonsense that has led to complaints about news hacks' disconnects with their audience, most recently with the Columbia reporting. Si, time to give Ken his gold watch, a big bonus and a kiss from Tina in absentia, and send him off to Capri for a well-deserved, permanent retirement. The man is a walking cliche, the bad news hack personified.