Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

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THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.

THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.

THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.

THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.

PERMALINKS:

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Thursday, June 30, 2005

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

Show-biz fundraisers are all hubris. It wasn't always thus. The first big one was the great all-soldier revue This is the Army, which the War Department ASKED Irving Berlin to write on the strength of his WWI revue Yip, Yip, Yaphank. (This according to The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin.) It played on Broadway and then toured three years on the fronts, Berlin slogging along, and earned millions for the Army Emergency Relief. It also had the tremendous distinction of helping to integrate the military.

Hubris kicked in when "celebrities" like Milton Berle and Dennis James held tacky telethons to raise money for the Disease of the Month. This led to the notorious Muscular Dystrophy tearjerker, whose chief purpose seems to be to get Jerry Lewis nominated for the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. BOB'S ERADICATION OF HUNGER is a direct descendant, and every bit as morally dubious, the only real purpose to aim praise right at the organizer.

In Ethiopia, do the underfed masses know who the hell BOB GELDOF IS?

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