Tag Archives: Don Lemon

Carlson, Lemon gone … now what?

Tucker Carlson has departed the Fox Propaganda Network, seemingly resulting from The Big Lie over which the network was sued and then had to pay $787.5 million to settle with Dominion Voting Systems.

OK. What does that mean in my house? Not a damn thing, because I don’t watch Fox. However, I regret to acknowledge what I believe is the sad truth that Carlson is likely to land somewhere, continuing to spew the garbage he seeks to disguise as legitimate commentary.

Some right-wing network is likely to add Carlson to its roster of blowhards.

Oh, but wait! Don Lemon got the axe from CNN. Lemon said he is “shocked” by his ouster. Why did CNN let him go? Well, I must concede I know little about that, too. Because … I don’t watch Lemon, nor do I heed much of what he says about anything.

Here’s the thing about Lemon, too. A network is going to shell out a lot of money for him as well.

So, I won’t cry for either of these fellows.

***

Back to Carlson for a moment.

He became a major household talking point over his role in fomenting The Big Lie. Evidence was discovered in the run-up to the defamation lawsuit that Dominion settled with Fox that Carlson didn’t believe The Big Lie. He reportedly expressed extreme displeasure with the 45th POTUS in private.

Yet he went on the air with The Big Lie anyway.

Part of me wants to believe the Fox hierarchy cannot tolerate lying openly on the air. The rest of me believes Carlson’s departure is driven instead by a loss of revenue from supporters backing away from the network.

The Big Lie will fester in what passes for the minds of those who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from the 45th POTUS. It will fester whether Tucker Carlson is the air with Fox or with whichever network is willing to allow this know-nothing to blather about the lie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

CNN ‘demotes’ Lemon? Hmm

Don Lemon reportedly has been demoted by CNN in the latest move by the cable network to reshape its image and re-cast its brand.

I won’t comment on Lemon’s politics. Frankly, they don’t bother me as he and I think a lot alike. However, I cannot think of Don Lemon without recalling a question I understand he asked a guest regarding the disappearance a couple years ago of Malaysian Air 370, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

You’ll recall that the Boeing 777 jetliner with several hundred passengers aboard disappeared without a trace. Lemon was interviewing some aviation expert and asked, with a straight face, whether the plane could have flown into a “black hole.”

The question took Lemon’s guest aback. He then reminded Lemon that if a black hole is involved in the disappearance of Malaysian Air 370 that it would have “swallowed the entire solar system.”

I guess Lemon was asking … “for a friend.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

LeBron’s noble act gets lost in the Twitter storm

Seemingly lost in all the hubbub over Donald J. Trump’s tweet about LeBron James and Don Lemon has been the noble act that the pro basketball player has committed on behalf of at-risk children in his hometown.

Sure, Americans are talking about the president’s racist-sounding message in which he calls Lemon the “dumbest man on television” and how the CNN anchor made James “look smart.” I’ll add that both men, Lemon and James, are African-American. Trump’s insult is in keeping his with his history of insulting African-Americans’ intelligence.

The story ought to center on what LeBron James has done for students in Akron, Ohio. He has invested several million dollars of his own immense fortune in establishing a school for those children.

Trump, who said in his tweet “I like Mike,” drew a response from “Mike,” aka Michael Jordan, the retired NBA great who endorsed LeBron’s efforts on behalf of the kids.

The reality is this: LeBron James has done far more for children in Akron than Trump has done in his entire professional life. I will repeat what I’ve noted already, which is that Trump focused his entire career on self-enrichment. He demonstrated zero interest in public service prior to running for president in 2016 … and I’m convinced that he intended to become president for completely personal reasons.

LeBron James’s act of generosity will long outlive the current dust-up over the president’s Twitter tirade and perhaps even the debate over its racist tone.

‘Obligation,’ no; prerogative, yes!

CNN anchor Don Lemon is not among my favorite TV journalists/talking heads.

He is the one who once asked — reportedly in all seriousness — whether the Malaysian Airlines jetliner that disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing had been swallowed up by a “black hole,” apparently not realizing that such an event would have consumed the entire solar system.

I got that out of the way.

Now we hear that Lemon says it is his “obligation” to refer to Donald J. Trump as a “racist.”

According to The Hill: “Critical thinking is important as a journalist. If you cannot surmise that this president — if he’s not racist, he’s certainly racist-adjacent,” Lemon told an audience as the keynote speaker at Variety’s Entertainment & Technology NYC Summit. “We have come to a consensus in our society that facts matter. I feel like it’s my obligation to say that.”

I beg to differ, young man.

It’s not your “obligation,” although it is your “prerogative” to say what you want about how you perceive the president’s point of view. His obligation as a journalist requires fairness and accuracy.

I am quick to agree that Donald Trump has provided plenty of evidence of racist tendencies. I keep turning to the lie he fomented about Barack Obama place of birth, as he kept alive the slanderous accusation that the first African-American president was born in Africa and was constitutionally ineligible to serve in the office to which he was elected twice.

And, yes, there was that hideous assertion that there were good people “on both sides” of the riot that erupted in Charlottesville, Va., between counterprotesters and Klansmen, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Lemon’s “obligation” only is to report what Trump has said; he should let his viewers make the determination as to whether the president is a racist.

The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, of course, doesn’t prevent him from hanging the “racist” label on Trump. Indeed, it allows Lemon to say it, but it damn sure doesn’t require it.

CNN vs. Fox over this O’Reilly matter

There’s little doubt I will tire of this story quickly, but for now I’m kind of chuckling at a media war that’s flaring up over the controversy surrounding a cable news star.

You’ve heard of Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News Channel’s main man who’s been accused by several women of behaving a boorishly, of committing acts of sexual harassment.

Meanwhile, CNN talking heads and commentators have been blazing away rhetorically over the troubles at Fox.

Fox is firing back, accusing CNN of ignoring a story regarding whether former national security adviser Susan Rice outed some Trump campaign officials who might have been monitored by, oh, someone. CNN denies ignoring the story. Fox, meanwhile, is sticking with O’Reilly.

The two main-event combatants appear to be O’Reilly and CNN’s Don Lemon.

I plan to watch this tempest play itself out from the peanut gallery.

Fox is ignoring the O’Reilly matter

CNN has been covering the Rice story. It’s pretty clear, though, that Fox is giving short shrift to the O’Reilly story. I get that the stories aren’t parallel; Rice is a former government official while O’Reilly is employed by one of the feuding cable news networks.

Fight on, cable news guys.

CNN anchor crosses another line

What in the world is up with Don Lemon?

The Columbia Journalism Review rated Lemon as one of this past year’s worst journalists. Now the CNN anchor has cemented that crummy rating with a seriously bone-headed question posed to an American Muslim.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/01/08/do-you-support-isis-watch-cnns-don-lemon-ask-a/202056

The link is attached. Take a look.

I watched the interview in which Lemon asked Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights attorney, if he supported ISIS, aka the Islamic State or ISIL, the monstrous Islamic cult that has beheaded captives.

What’s remarkable about the question was Iftikhar’s response, which was that he seemed unsure whether Lemon actually posed that question. He then answered it calmly and rationally.

Lemon has made a bit of an infamous name for himself lately by suggesting that Malaysian Air 370 might have been swallowed by a black hole and then suggesting to a sexual abuse victim that there are graphic methods to avoid being forced to perform oral sex on a man.

The discussion about radical Islam needs to remain focused on what I believe is the core issue: Do the terrorists’ actions represent Islam or are they the acts of religious perverts?

To ask an an intelligent, reasonable, scholarly man who happens to be Muslim whether supports the actions of ISIL becomes an immediate distraction. It focuses attention on a dimwitted question.

 

Yep, Lemon's been a lemon

Don Lemon hasn’t had a distinguished year in front of the CNN news camera.

Although I don’t like critiquing media “performances,” Lemon’s string of gaffes in 2014 is worth a brief comment.

Columbia Journalism Review has slung a barb at Lemon, one of CNN’s go-go guys, for his amazing string of terrible interviews. He made CJR’s “worst journalism” list for 2014.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/27/cjr-dart-award-rolling-stone/20940309/

They’ve made news in ways Lemon, or his bosses at CNN, ever would want.

He wondered aloud whether Malaysian Air Flight 370 vanished into a “black hole,” only to be reminded by the expert to whom he asked the question that a black hole would swallow the entire planet.

During the Bill Cosby controversy involving allegations of sexual assault, Lemon said on the air that there are ways to avoid performing oral sex, such as using one’s teeth.

While reporting from Ferguson, Mo., during the rioting in the wake of the grand jury decision to no-bill the officer who shot Michael Brown, Lemon reported he could “smell marijuana in the air,” as if that had any significance.

Good journalism requires an element of trust that must be built between the reporter and his audience, whether they’re readers or TV viewers.

Don Lemon has squandered a good bit of that trust.

Let’s hope the young man repairs it in 2015.