Amateur Three Minutes Runs Amok!

I swear I was going to leave this be for now, I really was. I'd had my fun and now it was time give the fine folks at RJTV a fighting chance to refine their product. But then I got a note from a prominent journalist urging me to take a look at today's edition of the daily news program.

So I did. And I'll say right now that it's difficult to know what part of this mess someone might find bizarre and blogworthy.

As I started watching, I wondered if my attention was being drawn to the fact that on RJTV, over-the-shoulder graphics get placed ON Nate Tannenbaum's shoulder by people unclear on the concept. You know, like this:


Not great, but hardly the worst sin. I mean, it's not like anyone's ever done this sort of programming before anywhere ever, right? Give them a break! They're inventing a wheel here. It takes practice!

So I kept watching. A few moments later, I was sure I had unearthed the priceless nugget to which I had been led when accused child rapist Chester Stiles, uh, ate Nate. Here's a digital flipbook, if you will:


Poor Nate! And poor Dude Who Didn't Know How Stupid That Looked And Published It On The Website Of A Professional Newspaper. Well, not poor DWDKHSTLaPIotWoaPN. He's got a job, as baffling as that may seem.

But ultimately, I really don't think that's why I was pointed to this thing today. I'm fairly certain my friend wanted me to see the R-J's publisher, Sherm Frederick, popping into the studio direct from the golf course and perhaps in need of a stronger SPF product.


Sherm was there to offer up a profound little life lesson: Capitalism = Good. The segment is not labeled as opinion, but that's probably DWDKHSTLaPIotWoaPN's fault anyway. The publisher, whom I assume has given more than a few public speeches in his time, nonetheless delivers his lines like that Boom Goes The Dynamite kid, leading us into a lengthy 30-year-old clip of economist Milton Friedman telling Phil Donahue that greed is good. Then it's back to Sherm to conclude -- and this is all he says before it's time for Yesterday's Weather Forecast Today -- "Well, here we are pondering these same issues in 2009." Sure we are if you're the R-J's editorial board and you believe any advocacy whatsoever on behalf of government intervention in a devastated economy is the equivalent of giving up altogether on capitalism. To the rational people, though, these matters are a little less black and white.

Mostly, though, I'm horrified by what this actually shows us. RJTV is not intended to inform, it is intended to become a soap box for a vainglorious newspaper publisher! Next week, maybe he'll condescend to explain why murder is bad, no matter what that growing legion of pro-murder activists say!

Evidently there just isn't enough news to smear all over ol' Nate's face.