Now that The Colbert Report has signed off, what about the show that will replace it? The Nightly Show with host Larry Wilmore premieres on January 19, 2015 and he says that it will focus on the underdog, whoever that might be, with interviews of people who are actually doing something and are not merely politicians or talking heads.
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Many people may not have heard of Barrett Brown. He is a 33-year old journalist who has been hounded by the US government because he exposed its wrongdoings using documents that had been obtained by the hacktivist group Anonymous. He seemed to have informal links to Anonymous and was willing to publicly engage with reporters about what they were doing. As a result, he was sometimes referred to as their spokesperson though he and they denied it. In some ways, he was a precursor to Edward Snowden. Kevin M. Gallagher gives us the back story.
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Some years ago in a post titled God save us from the queen, I wrote about the absurd obsession that even people in the US, especially in the media, have with observing the ridiculous protocol rules that the British royal family tries to impose on everyone who comes in contact with them. That post was prompted by the US media getting the vapors and reaching for their smelling salts when the Obamas violated some absurdly trivial protocol rule when they visited Buckingham Palace, caused by Michelle Obama touching the Queen.
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First Look Media, the umbrella new media group that started The Intercept, went through a rough patch with the sudden departure of Matt Taibbi over management issues and the shelving of the magazine he was brought in to launch called The Racket. But Glenn Greenwald today has some good news about the hiring of Betsy Reed as Editor-in-Chief to replace John Cook who is going back to his former home at Gawker.
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More and more stories are emerging that are contradicting Bill Cosby’s reputation as a genial and avuncular person. It has been hard for most people to swallow, given the overwhelmingly positive public image he has had. I had never watched his hit TV shows or seen his comedy routines so perhaps had not fallen under his spell as much as others and so the allegations did not seem as unbelievable to me.
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Just recently we heard about Jian Ghomeshi and the many women he is alleged to have abused and the conspiracy of silence that protected him for so long. Now we have allegations that Bill Cosby drugged women and then had sex with them.
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In the mornings, I have NPR on while I go about the various things that need to be done around the house while I get ready for work, and again on the drive to work. Doing so serves two purposes. One is that I get to hear various news items in the background while another is that the regular routine in the way that the segments are broken up gives me a sense of what time it is without actually having to look at the clock.
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The Hill reports with surprise something that could have been easily predicted. Under the headline “Obama veers left after red wave”, it says:
President Obama has taken significant steps to the left since his party’s devastating losses in the midterm elections.
In a surprise, he announced a major deal on climate change with China during a trip to Beijing Tuesday. That followed another unanticipated move — a Monday statement pressuring the Federal Communications Commission to adopt new net neutrality rules for the Internet.
The moves are helping to rally a dispirited Democratic base while re-establishing Obama’s political leadership after he was sidelined during the midterms.
As part of the promotional efforts for his film Rosewater, Stewart is giving interviews where he talks about a wide range of things. He thinks that Stephen Colbert will elevate the late night talk show format when he takes over from David Letterman.
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Tom Magliozzi, irrepressible co-host with his brother Ray of the highly entertaining call-in radio program Car Talk, has died at the age of 77 from complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
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