Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Sign of the Times
How's this for pretentious media writing?
...[Amanda Congdon] often appeals to the camera — the audience? God? — to find out what’s going on. Slim, swan-necked, with the upright bearing of a dancer or cadet, she doesn’t exactly lean in for intimacy with the viewer. She’s not relatable. She seems a touch abstemious. The news, it seems, kind of grosses her out.
Before dismissing this as eek-a-mouse-ing by a news bimbo, though, it’s worth thinking harder about the pose. If anchormen like Peter Jennings cultivated brave, value-neutral stoicism about the news, it wasn’t always so. Watch old Walter Cronkite broadcasts now and what comes through is the marvelous moralism that used to inform every syllable of his speech....
And so the pendulum swings back. In another key — and of course in the quickie-video medium — Ms. Congdon may be reprising Mr. Cronkite’s melodrama.
This is Virginia Heffernan writing in the New York Times on the subject of blonde sexpot Amanda Congdon, who has been hired by ABCNews.com after a stint on a little known website. (The most known thing about the website, as any reader of Gawker will tell you, were two of Ms. Congdon's physical attributes.)
If I read that correctly, Heffernan has just favorably compared Congdon to Walter Cronkite. (To her credit, Congdon herself would probably read this and think, ????)
As a friend of mine likes to say, this is surely a sign that the end is near.
According to the Times,
the next Cronkite. At least she
has good taste in music.
...[Amanda Congdon] often appeals to the camera — the audience? God? — to find out what’s going on. Slim, swan-necked, with the upright bearing of a dancer or cadet, she doesn’t exactly lean in for intimacy with the viewer. She’s not relatable. She seems a touch abstemious. The news, it seems, kind of grosses her out.
Before dismissing this as eek-a-mouse-ing by a news bimbo, though, it’s worth thinking harder about the pose. If anchormen like Peter Jennings cultivated brave, value-neutral stoicism about the news, it wasn’t always so. Watch old Walter Cronkite broadcasts now and what comes through is the marvelous moralism that used to inform every syllable of his speech....
And so the pendulum swings back. In another key — and of course in the quickie-video medium — Ms. Congdon may be reprising Mr. Cronkite’s melodrama.
This is Virginia Heffernan writing in the New York Times on the subject of blonde sexpot Amanda Congdon, who has been hired by ABCNews.com after a stint on a little known website. (The most known thing about the website, as any reader of Gawker will tell you, were two of Ms. Congdon's physical attributes.)
If I read that correctly, Heffernan has just favorably compared Congdon to Walter Cronkite. (To her credit, Congdon herself would probably read this and think, ????)
As a friend of mine likes to say, this is surely a sign that the end is near.
According to the Times,
the next Cronkite. At least she
has good taste in music.
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Richard, I usually respect your views, but Virginia Heffernan is drop-dead brilliant. Her writing is the most stylish, perceptive criticism being published in The Times. Yes, she occasionally goes a bit heavy on the English Lit jargon, but she has a keen sense of kitsch and a way with metaphor. Heff, you'll always be #1 in my book.
Hi, Virginia!
No, just kidding. As a matter of fact, I generally think she's pretty good, although I wouldn't say the Times' best critic. (Which, come to think of it, isn't saying much anyway.) But on this one, I think she's off-base.
No, just kidding. As a matter of fact, I generally think she's pretty good, although I wouldn't say the Times' best critic. (Which, come to think of it, isn't saying much anyway.) But on this one, I think she's off-base.
Wow, Congdon is painful to watch. As for blurring reality and fiction, she's learned a lot from video blogs on YouTube. She reminds me, for example, of LucyinLA on YouTube, with faux sincerity, overdone cutesyness, and studied playfulness.
Virginia Heffernan, by contrast, fun writer and chooses topics well to work with her strengths.
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Virginia Heffernan, by contrast, fun writer and chooses topics well to work with her strengths.
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