The Aldrich Alert Gary Aldrich
A Publication of the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty

Greed is Good

March 13, 2001

by Gary Aldrich - Volume 2, Issue 13

This article appeared on WorldNetDaily.com on Thursday, March 7, 2002.

Arguments about how biased the mainstream media is may be ended by good old-fashioned greed. If greed triumphs, more than a few news anchors – for whom conservatives reserve special contempt – will be shown the door. They’ll be replaced by new faces waiting in the wings, hair fluffed and short skirts immodestly hiked – but these new arrivals will be there only because they have a lot more to do with entertainment than serious news. And that can only be good news for conservatives.

ABC News appears to be in "meltdown" as the bean counters look at the advertising dollars and find that fewer and fewer people are watching what the networks describe as "news." First to be brought to the chopblock is Ted Koppel. There has apparently been discussion about replacing his late-night news show with David Letterman, who seems unhappy in his current gig. In a nutshell, ABC would lose what they call a "serious" news program, and would gain a show that’s billed as pure entertainment – sure to attract the sleepless and lonely.

Those who still want to get news will have to go to Fox News Channel, talk radio or Internet news websites like WorldNetDaily.com, or DrudgeReport.com.

That, of course, can only be a good thing for conservatives who champion the truth.

Just how relevant and cutting-edge has Ted Koppel been, anyway? I once had a chance to test him on this question. At a televised meeting with conservatives in Washington, D.C., I asked Koppel why he had never invited me on his late-night show to talk about my book, Unlimited Access. He stated that my book was "old news" and no longer relevant. Of course, this was after the election of Bill Clinton to a second term, but before the exposure of the Monica Lewinsky scandal by my friend, Linda Tripp.

What were just two themes in the book that I knew were extremely relevant?

First, the Clinton White House Intern program was "out of control" (and so were the interns), and second, Bill Clinton had continued to be a reckless womanizer and was driving his Secret Service agents crazy. Both stories had been pooh-poohed, suppressed and ignored by the mainstream media. The Ted Koppels of the network news ignored numerous accurate allegations.

Maybe a fair question today would be, "Who’s irrelevant now, Ted?"

Turning to ABC’s Sunday morning show, "This Week with Sam and Cokie," the Washington Post yesterday reported that these two senior citizens are likely to be replaced with young, hip reporters – paragons of truth and virtue – none other than George Stephanopoulos and Claire Shipman. The two new whippersnappers are supposed to appeal to a younger crowd, except they have yet to explain how young people can stay up partying all night, then get up Sunday morning for the sole purpose of finding out what George Stephanopoulos thinks about, well … anything.

More likely, folks that watch this news show will be on a "hair-watch" to see how Georgie coiffures it from week to week, proving that appearance, not real news, has become the defining interest of the hedonistic who will be producing and watching this show. After all, viewers will not tune in to seek truth! Stephanopoulos has admitted that he spent the better part of two years getting a notorious liar elected to the White House. George Stephanopoulos then spent the better part of four years lying to the American public about what was going on inside the Clinton White House.

Pretty young women, with no other apparent purpose than to be receptacles for Bill Clinton’s excesses, were wearing a rut in George’s carpet on the way to and from intimate liaisons with "Bill" in the Oval Office, but never registered on Stephanopoulos’ radar screen, in spite of how sharp everyone says he is. He should be a swell addition to the growing ranks of clueless-but sexy-millionaire news anchors who put ribbons on pig slop then call it the truth.

The demise of "This Week" can only bring smiles to those working over at Fox News Channel, the station of choice for those who still insist that news be "fair and balanced." Might I suggest a new name for David Brinkley’s creation? How about "Sunday Mornings with Fluffy É Claire?"

The point is, where do people go when they want real news but cannot find it in the usual places? The obvious answer is alternative places like talk radio and the Internet, whose forums and audiences are growing in size and credibility every day as it becomes more clear that television is a swell form of entertainment, but not much else. Fox News Channel stands as one of the exceptions.

Whoever it was that claimed that TV was going to educate the world to be a better place was either one of the biggest dopes ever born, or one of the best liars who ever lived.

Whichever it was, they forgot to factor in good old-fashioned greed.