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It’s like making a vegetarian the CEO of McDonald’s

9 comments on It’s like making a vegetarian the CEO of McDonald’s

It’s like making a vegetarian the CEO of McDonald’s

: The NY Times mag has an interview that’s as astonishing as it is amusing with the new Corporation for Public Broadcasting chief executive, Ken Ferree [sent to me by Jonathan Miller]:

What PBS shows do you like?

I’m not much of a TV consumer. I like ”Masterpiece Theater” and some of the ”Frontline” shows. I like ”Antiques Roadshow” and ”Nova.” I don’t know. What’s your favorite show?

It would probably be the ”NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.”

Yes, Lehrer is good, but I don’t watch a lot of broadcast news. The problem for me is that I do the Internet news stuff all day long, so by the time I get to the Lehrer thing . . . it’s slow. I don’t always want to sit down and read Shakespeare, and Lehrer is akin to Shakespeare. Sometimes I really just want a People magazine, and often that is in the evening, after a hard day.

For the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, you don’t sound like much of a PBS viewer. Perhaps you prefer NPR, which your organization also finances?

No. I do not get a lot of public radio for one simple reason. I commute to work on my motorcycle, and there is no radio access.

9 responses to “It’s like making a vegetarian the CEO of McDonald’s”

  1. Matthew Goggins Avatar
    Matthew Goggins

    I like Ken Ferree.

  2. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    I loved Ferree’s comment “Sometimes I really just want a People magazine…” How true. This is the primary appeal of The Week, IMO. I read heavy-duty articles about foreign policy, social security, etc. from a variety of sources, but when The Week arrives, I devour it in one sitting. It’s the People Magazine for news junkies, because even news/political/issue junkies don’t always have the time or energy to wade through long and complex articles.

    I thought Ferree’s honesty was refreshing—if only more media types would follow his example.

  3. Undertoad Avatar
    Undertoad

    I actually got one of my first clues about the nature of “public” when I was in college in the early 80s. At the time, colleges generally had little 10 watt FM stations in the non-commercial band. The CPB lobbied the FCC into ruling that all all such stations had to either upgrade to higher power (sometimes at immense cost) or go off-air completely. The goal was to make sure that the non-commercial FM band was reserved for CPB interests. Many schools even became NPR outlets in order to afford being class-A stations.
    Lessons learned:
    “public” didn’t mean “in the public interest”.
    “non-commercial” didn’t mean “unable to make a boatload of money”.
    “public broadcasting” meant “the public will absolutely be forbidden from broadcasting”.
    All power corrupts, RF power corrupts the worst.

  4. clyde Avatar
    clyde

    BREAKING NEWS: US ADMITS EL-MAZRI STORY IS TRUE! DEMAND ANSWERS ON THIS ONE FOLKS….

  5. Alan Kellogg Avatar
    Alan Kellogg

    I am reminded of a complaint once bandied about in RPG circles concerning d20 system product designers who didn’t even know the rules they were using.

  6. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    What chance is there of having SpongeBob declared an endangered species?

  7. Sam Ernesto Avatar
    Sam Ernesto

    I’m just thinking that if Lehrer would only wear a leather jacket and a bandana, he’d be less “slow”.
    Also, any ideas on what kind of bike Ferree is riding?
    -s.e.

  8. hey Avatar
    hey

    R admin, hard to find people that believe in this, nea, d. ed, etc. people at DOJ believe in locking up dangerous felons, anti-porn, and pursuing drug users.
    D admin, hard to find people that believe in DOD, CIA, NSA, DOE, etc. people at DOJ believe in understanding criminal motivations, pursuing any possible civil rights or sex-harrassment violation, and persecuting drug users.
    SSDD

  9. amyc Avatar
    amyc

    clyde, I read the article. interesting…here’s what I saw. first, we acted because of a call from an ally who had arrested this guy, told us he was al-q with fake passport. took him away. 1 month later they were fairly sure his passport was real. 2 months later they were fairly sure he was not al-q and his passport was real. it took 2 more months to get him released, even after cia chief and nsa/sec state ordered him released. i’d guess that second meeting with dr. rice, when she realized that her order to release him hadn’t been followed was rather unpleasant. sounds like typical bureaucracy to me. that’s why cia and fbi need to clean house, to get out the half-wits and thumb-sitters who squelch the people in the field. problem is, i don’t know if that’s possible in huge organizations like that any more. and people want the government in charge of their health care decisions? and their retirement decisions?