TV: Inside the Blogs

With the mainstream media (sorry, MSM) under constant attack by the blogosphere, cable news is trying to make nice with their enemies. They’re approaching bloggers cautiously, the way you would a strange dog, with your hand extended. A trick I learned from SUPERFRIENDS, incidentally.

MSNBC’s new show Connected Coast to Coast is built around the concept of interactivity. I haven’t watched it for two reasons: it’s co-hosted by Monica Crowley, and half of the telecast is from Seattle. I live here and I don’t understand that.

I have seen CNN’s new recurring segment, “Inside the Blogs.” It consists of two women who look like interns reading off their computer screens. It gives my old high school closed-circuit TV newscast all the gravitas of an Edward R. Murrow production.

In addition to being stupefyingly dull television, the bit also reveals how most political blogs rely heavily on snark and juvenilia. Of course, it doesn’t help that the big buzz item of the day is the body politic getting all hot ‘n’ bothered over Condoleeza Rice’s dominatrix boots.

Reading blogs might make bad TV. Writing them is another matter. Take this one, for instance. Cranking out this stuff generally involves a bottle of Power’s Irish Whiskey and Wagner played at APOCALYPSE NOW volume. I work myself into a frenzy as I type, cursing many of those I have known and spilling all manner of dark secrets. I’m also oiled to make it easier to savage the keyboard.

I think that’d make a hell of a segment. Fox News, you know where to find me.