On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Joe Coughlin <inturnaro...@gmail.com>wrote:
> I think Seacrest is a good choice. Yes, he's not hard news, but does > Today need to have both co-hosts be hard news? Ann Curry can handle > the newsmakers and Seacrest can handle the entertainment side. It can > be both things. > > And when and if Seacrest gets better at handling more newsy things, > they can ease him into it. He has the hosting chops. He can interview > people. > > As for Tom, I think ABC would throw all the money in the world to him > if Seacrest pushes Today back up in the ratings. At this point, he is > Mr. ABC. > I have to challenge the repeated claim being made in this thread that Ann Curry can handle the hard news. If handling hard news now means looking ever so intently and empathically into the eyes of the victim of the day, and perhaps leaning over to squeeze their hand, and then quickly bringing up a hand to wipe away a single stray tear, then yes, I guess Ann can handle that pretty well. If handling hard news means even a faint echo of what it used to mean, then no, she can not. Matt Lauer, not exactly a journalistic titan himself (I did catch his hard-hitting interview with his buddy Donald Trump the other day) is there to do the hard news now. I have learned over the last year or so that I do not hate Ryan Seacrest like I assumed that I did. He makes what he does (on American Idol, and on those Red Carpet shows, the two main things I see him on) look very easy - but when you see other people doing those jobs (like guy who does it for American X Factor) you realize that it is a very difficult job that Seacrest does very well. Its just that this job, which is very difficult and that he does very well, is that it is not a terribly important or substantive job. Hosting the Today Show is, often, also not terribly important or substantive, but occasionally it is - often enough that it would be both a shame and an abdication of any journalistic responsibility NBC News pretends to have, to turn the keys over to somebody like Seacrest. The Seacrest role on the Today Show is currently filled not by Lauer, but by Al Roker. If Roker were about to retire Seacrest would make a good replacement, and then they might think of enlarging that role to give Seacrest more interview responsibilities for pop celebrities. The shame of it is that the perfect person to host the Today Show already works at NBC - his name is Bob Costas. In my mind he is the perpetual boy wonder, but dude is 59, 7 or 8 years older than Lauer. At this stage in his career Costas is probably not interested in the meat grinder schedule required for Today. -- 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 tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
