{"id":365,"date":"2007-11-26T06:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-26T13:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgillin.com\/2007\/11\/nbc-uses-character-assassination-to-attract-viewers.html"},"modified":"2007-11-26T06:27:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-26T13:27:00","slug":"nbc-uses-character-assassination-to-attract-viewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/nbc-uses-character-assassination-to-attract-viewers\/","title":{"rendered":"NBC uses character assassination to attract viewers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/tbn0.google.com\/images?q=tbn:wsTCFW4yJOtLCM:https:\/\/www.olbermannwatch.com\/images\/vick05.jpg\"><img style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 116px; height: 133px;\" src=\"https:\/\/tbn0.google.com\/images?q=tbn:wsTCFW4yJOtLCM:https:\/\/www.olbermannwatch.com\/images\/vick05.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Network television continues to move the bar lower in its desperate efforts to retain viewers. On Sunday night I witnessed a new low in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaresearch.org\/realitycheck\/2006\/fax20060627.asp\">Keith Olbermann<\/a>\u2019s \u201cWorst Person in the NFL\u201d feature on NBC\u2019s broadcast of the Patriots-Eagles game. This is apparently a regular feature on NBC, which demonstrates how little respect the network has for its audience.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">When I heard the title of the segment, I assumed it would be about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/08\/27\/AR2007082700379.html\">Michael Vick<\/a>, who is a bad person by most accounts. Instead, the victim was <st1:city><st1:place>Denver<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> punter <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/nfl\/players\/profile?statsId=3156\">Todd Sauerbrun<\/a>, who is apparently the worst person because he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagobears.com\/news\/NewsStory.asp?story_id=4118\">had two kicks returned for touchdowns by the Bears\u2019 Devin Hester<\/a> this weekend. For this mistake, commentator Olbermann administered a lashing of sarcastic abuse, concluding \u201cSauerbrun was once suspended by the league for violating the substance policy, perhaps now to be suspended by the league for violating the stupid policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">This was supposed to be funny, I guess, but it came across to me as simply mean-spirited and pathetic. Is NBC so backed into a corner that it has to resort to character assassination to attraction attention to itself? Could Keith Olbermann have embarrassed himself more? <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Fortunately, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patriots.com\/search\/index.cfm?ac=searchdetail&amp;pid=29247&amp;pcid=41&amp;rss=1\">the Patriots won<\/a>, so I feel better :-).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Network television continues to move the bar lower in its desperate efforts to retain viewers. On Sunday night I witnessed a new low in Keith Olbermann\u2019s \u201cWorst Person in the NFL\u201d feature on NBC\u2019s broadcast of the Patriots-Eagles game. This &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/nbc-uses-character-assassination-to-attract-viewers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-5T","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}