Frank Rich, crapmonger
“Many of those [Balloon Boy] viewers,” said Rich in the NYT, “were driven by the same bloodlust that spawns rubberneckers at every highway accident: the hope of witnessing the graphic remains of a crash, not a soft landing.”
Our whole newsroom was riveted to this, and I would swear that not one person was secretly hoping to see a bloody death. As parents, and as people, we were hoping to see him land safely, because we could imagine our own children, or children we know and love, getting into some horrible situation, and how scared we would be.
We were scared for a kid we didn’t know, and wishing the best for his family, and that’s a good, human, emotion, and Frank Rich’s version makes me think he distrusts every person and every emotion he comes into contact with.
Rich does point out, sentiently:
[E]ven slightly jaundiced onlookers might have questioned how a balloon could waft buoyantly through the skies for hours with a 6-year-old boy hidden within its contours. That so few did is an indication of how practiced we are at suspending disbelief when watching anything labeled news, whether the subject is W.M.D.’s in Iraq or celebrity gossip in Hollywood.
And I yield to his expertise here, since credulity, even if feigned, is the one thing you can count on from The New York Times.
Dick Stanley »
26 October 2009 · 9:47 pm
I’m surprised that anyone, outside of liberal New Yawk, reads this clown.
McGehee »
26 October 2009 · 10:01 pm
He hasn’t been tracking the ratings.
Jim - PRS »
27 October 2009 · 3:34 am
Frank Rich should return to writing opaque reviews of Broadway shows.