On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:28 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > This is what I don't get about the News and Entertainment (redundant?) > industry: They tend to have an absurdly asymmetrical pay scale, and > nobody seems interested in doing anything about it. I guarantee you > that, if in my industry the top 1% of employees made on the order of > $10 million dollars a year, while the rest made something on the order > of $75,000 a year, and the industry was about to go broke and about to > fire 20% of the employees, almost everyone would scream: "Excuse me - > did you ever think of cutting Diane "Crypt Keeper" Sawyer's salary by > $5 million dollars, which would fund the salaries of everyone they are > thinking of firing and still let ABC News save money?" Actually, I > honestly believe if by chance anyone in my industry made $10 Million > dollars a year and so their organization about to cut its own throat > by firing 20% of its labor pool, they would really volunteer to give > up half of it.
I believe they suggested that of Jack Nicholson's character in "Broadcast News." I notice that actors and other entertainers are usually quick to point out that they are grossly overpaid, and they usually do this when they are publicly contributing to relief efforts for a place like Haiti. Perhaps they fail to see that the dumbing down of media is in need of its own telethon. Perhaps they fail to see that a well-funded, impartial news organization that directly competed against the low-rent slum of FoxNews would reduce FoxNews to nothing within three years (same for MSNBC -- and CNN). We bail out banks. We bail out the car industry. We fund pointless wars. But we don't consider funding the fourth estate, which (if it is working properly) serves as a check and balance to all of the other things we fund. Where is the telethon to raise enough money to drop-kick Katie Couric's butt out of CBS and put in place a team of actual journalists who would risk life and limb to get a story? Why aren't high-paid celebrities (actors who get paid $20 million per picture, talk show hosts who get paid $15 million per year) donating a third of their earnings to the truth? And why is the Dalai Lama talking to Larry King, who knows as much about philosophy and the true nature of man as Jessica Simpson? I'm sorry, but I just saw that the interview had taken place. How pathetic is it that, in our society, Larry King is the alpha dog of long-form interviews? -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
