Once again mainstream media doesn’t get it
July 27th, 2006
Yeah it was on digg and it even appeared in the New York Post but I even saw something about it on the news up here in Canada. Ken Jennings, the super-ultra-mega biggest winner of Jeopardy! that there ever was and ever will be, the alpha and omega of gameshow winners, has apparently presented a tirade on his blog which spits in the face of the show that made him famous. Well, yes, he did write a blog entry in the form of a love letter to the show. Only the most simple-minded of people, however, would confuse this with real criticism. I guess mainstream media is simple-minded.
For Christ’s sake, people, he says that Trebek was replaced by a robot in 2004 (later corrected to be a cyborg – the inclusion of body parts from “patriotic Canadian schoolchildren” means he is not entirely a robot) and that the show needs some angry bees and physical action to appeal to greater audiences. The fact that any of this made the news outside of quirky news sites like fark is astounding.
This reminds me of the anti-abortion idjit (no link – he replaced the original rant with some nasty pictures. Really mature) who took an Onion piece as real and decided to rant about how terrible it was. If satire didn’t die a horrible, painful death at that point, the fact that Jennings’ little bit of humour has made it to “legitimate” news sources as an attack on Jeopardy! has certainly put a few nails in that coffin.
