Observer » 9-11

NBC’s Half-Assed Apology for Airing Kris Jenner Interview During 9-11 Moment of Silence

Drew Grant — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 16:33:24 -0400

Savannah Guthrie interviewing Kris Jenner on September 11. (NBC)

September 11th was Tuesday, which most people remembered, what with "Never Forget" being the slogan for the annual commemoration of those who lost their lives or loved ones when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers 11 years ago. NBC might have forgotten the date, however. At least we assumed that's what happened when it booked Kris Jenner to talk about reality television and filming her daughter's fake-boob upgrade on Today, making it the only major network out of the Big Three that didn't air footage from the Pentagon and Ground Zero to honor the Moment of Silence. We were willing to give NBC the benefit of the doubt, something that the network's President Bill Capus obviously didn't want.

According to a memo sent to NBC affiliates obtained by The New York Times, the decision to not air the footage was an "editorial" one:

Yesterday, we made an editorial call resulting in the Sept. 11 moment of silence not being seen. While we dedicated a substantial amount of airtime to anniversary events, we still touched a nerve with many of your viewers … and for that we apologize.

Mr. Capus then went on to note that NBC had only observed the moment of silence once before, during last year's 10th anniversary. Of course, the problem wasn't only that NBC didn't air the same footage as every other network ... it was that they filled the time slot with Kim Kardashian's mom talking about giving her children breast implants as a present. What was the editorial decision behind that? "If we don't show Kris Jenner yammering about excess frivolity and giving her daughters a terrible body image on national television, the terrorists will win"?

9/11 Gaffe: NBC Chooses to Air Interview With Kris Jenner About Breast Implants During Moment of Silence

Drew Grant — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:36:31 -0400

Kris Jenner, blithely blathering on about some bullshit. (NBC)

While every other major network today chose to interrupt its normal programming in order to cut to the president observing the annual moment of silence for the fallen heroes and victims of September 11th at Ground Zero and the Pentagon, NBC decided to go an alternate route ... by skipping the matter entirely and having Today interview Kris Jenner about breast implants.

Only the New York affiliate, WNBC, chose to air live coverage of the somber event, while the rest of the country took to Twitter to freak out:

While the CBS and ABC cut into their normal programming, NBC instead showed the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star discussing her decision to let camera crews film her 23-year-old daughter change her breast implants.

"I thought it was such a great idea to film that," Ms. Jenner told Savannah Guthrie. "The reason I went in and did that was because I had had my implants in for 152 years ... you know, a long time, way longer than their shelf life."

Keep it classy, guys.

Florida Pastor to Counter Mosque with '9/11 Christian Center'

Nate Freeman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:10:01 -0400

Plenty of conservatives have made loud remarks about the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, but Bill Keller — a Florida televangelist who hosts the online ministry Live Prayer, and who confusingly shares a name with the executive editor of The New York Times — has done the impossible. He's managed to somehow inspire rage from both the pro-mosque camp and the anti-mosque camp. The pastor has announced plans to build a 9/11 Christian Center as a foil to the Park51 center, with his first sermon to be delivered this Sunday.

The Daily News reports that even those fighting for the mosque's relocation think he'll do more harm than good. "This guy is going to justify all the people who call us bigots and racists for opposing the mosque," said Andy Sullivan, who is not the popular Atlantic writer with a blog called The Daily Dish. Instead, Andy Sullivan is a construction worker who started a "Hard Hat Pledge" to get the mosque moved and blogged about it.

Only a truly radical agenda can have the mosque's opponents thinking it's gone too far, and Keller has managed to pull it off. How did he do it, exactly? Well, he does have the correct background, having earned a degree from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University while doing time for insider trading. He even takes Glenn Beck to town on his Wordpress for not being tough enough on those worship "FALSE GODS" other than the "TRUE JESUS." Plus, the shameless contradiction from the Daily News story can't hurt.

"The center is there to bring hope and to help people," Keller said Thursday. "It's not designed to be a place where we preach against Islam, although we will preach against Islam and Mormonism and any other false religion."

To preach against Islam or not preach against Islam. Make up your mind, Bill Keller!

Baseball and the Heart of New York City

Steve Cohen — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:43:00 -0400

My parents moved to Brooklyn in 1955 when I was almost two years old, and by the time I was four, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants had played their last home games in the five boroughs. Until Casey Stengel and the Mets arrived in 1962, the only baseball team in town was the New York Yankees. It was during that time, while the Yankees held a monopoly on New York baseball, that I developed my lifelong love for baseball. And that is why, despite growing up in Brooklyn, I am a semi-fanatical Yankee fan.

I grew up thinking that the natural order of things dictated that the Yankees belonged in the World Series. But Derek Jeter and I have both learned the hard way that other teams get to play and win in the Series too. Still, watching the Yankees in this year’s World Series feels to me like the planet has been restored to its proper orbit. What is there about baseball and New York that puts them in sync? I suppose some of it is that baseball is a 19th century sport, with plenty of time for contemplation and beer between plays. In the rest of the country, if people want to see smashing, crashing and fast-moving action, they check out football games or NASCAR. In New York, we just walk down Broadway.

For many, but especially for New Yorkers, the search for calm and a sense of connection to the past leads to baseball. That’s why some of us were so moved when Derek Jeter broke Lou Gehrig’s Yankee base hit record this summer. It was wonderful to see that someone whom we admire so much can somehow be connected to the guy who made the famous “luckiest man in the world” speech, way back when the world was filmed in black and white. The importance of baseball has never been better expressed than by the “Terrance Mann” character in the great baseball movie Field of Dreams:

“The one constant through all the years… has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past… It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again….”

Baseball appears again and again in our culture as a unifying symbol and set of images. Baseball is Jackie Robinson and the fight against Jim Crow. Baseball is the growth of the global economy and players from Latin America and Asia sharing a field of dreams with guys from Kansas. And baseball is the Yankees and New York City—from the “Bronx is burning” Reggie Jackson images of 1977 to the post-9-11 World Series against Arizona that was emblematic of the tenacity and toughness of New York.

This year, the cultural touchstone for the World Series may very well end up being the rap star Jay-Z. I admit that most rap songs don’t move me, but ever since I heard Jay-Z and Alicia Keys sing “Empire State of Mind” a few weeks ago. I have not been able to get those lyrics or melodies out of my head. As with all great art, the song has captured the sound and feel of this place perfectly. Jay-Z has created an indelible image of New York City in 2009. Watching his performance at Yankee Stadium before the second game of the World Series the other night, with the Yankees looking on, was simply amazing.

New York City has a reputation for being a cold and unforgiving place, but those of us who have been here a long time know that is simply not true. This place gives and receives great loyalty and heart, and one sign of that spirit is the number of Yankee caps and A-Rod t-shirts you see all over town these days. Jay-Z may be able to “make the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can,” but all he’s really pointing out is that the cap and the team are just a part of this place. The “streets that can make you feel brand new” are bigger than the Yankees and bigger than rap music. They are what David Dinkins once called a “gorgeous mosaic.” Each community in the city is distinct and identifiable, but when you step back and look at the whole, it provides an image of great beauty. This is a unique place where the entire world gathers to meet, learn, have fun, make a living and, of course, watch the game.