Don Lemon Barely Able to Hide Contempt For Fluff
Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 9:31AM
On The Daily Show Tuesday, Jon Stewart ran a segment featuring on of my favorite news people, Don Lemon, barely being able to hide his disinterest in the special brand of news fluffernutter (Now with MORE fluff than nutter!) that CNN churns out when there isn't enough serious news to spread around. It can get stupid ... real stupid. In our present "Age of Cynicism" the Powers-That-Be don't think an American audience has the patience to sit through a solid block of just pure, unfiltered real news.
Remember real news? That's the stuff about economics, war, international relations, crime, politics, local and state government, cultural and social issues, race and gender, religion, sports, education and science. I mean, ugh. Who would watch a network that just did nothing but that? Go watch your PBS and al Jazeera, hippie! American news is about calculating how much it would cost to send your kids to an imaginary school that only exists in the minds of overly imaginative eight-year-old and bored geeks.
Mediabistro's TVNewser reported that Lemon was embarrassed/amused by his Daily Show segment on Twitter:
On Twitter, Lemon revealed that he was watching the program when it came on, tweeting“OMG. Had to leave room, can’t bring myseklf to watch entire skit on @TheDailyShow”
What did he think about it? “I think it was funny?? Kinda? Oy, I’m in trouble.”
Can't blame Don there. The first time I got a major TV shot back in 2009 I was featured heavily in an ABC's Nightline segment on the First Lady's first 100 days. I watched it through my fingers, terrified, screaming about why-oh-why did they use so much of my interview. I was also semi-traumatized by my first CNN segment, although my mom said she didn't remember a word I spoke because "I looked so pretty!" My father, on the other hand, was all "You moved your arms too much."
You'd think people who go on TV, work in TV or are on TV everyday like Don would be immune to watching themselves prattle on air, but noooo. Most of us are cowards who can do the work, but can't actually stand to look at ourselves or hear our own voices if we're on air. I quickly learned the easiest thing to do was have my dad watch my TV segments and critique them so I could improve. I don't watch me on TV. That mess is soul-destroying. If I ever ended up on The Daily Show, I think I'd run out of the room screaming. I mean, part of me would be all "awesome-sauce." But the other part would be, "I don't need to watch this. I'll let my dad watch it and let me know if it's safe."
But Don Lemon didn't just show up on The Daily Show this week! The professional news desk jockey also popped up on The Colbert Report Wednesday night to defend why he didn't ask a guy who looked like a vampire if he was a vampire. Lemon recently interviewed the mystery man with fanged teeth about how he successfully "foreclosed" on banker Wells Fargo when they tried to foreclose on his house.
Which, admittedly, is pretty amazing.
(Hat tip to Snob reader Tracy for the Don Lemon on Jon Stewart link. I missed Tuesday's show.)
Reader Comments (4)
I really hope that Stewart doesn't turn Lemon into his new "dirty sanchez". We all saw how well that went for Rick...
Awesome story, amazing indeed.
Funny!! I went to school with a girl who had a double set of sharp elongated canines. She eventually had them removed.
Don will be okay as long as he laughs at himself and doesn't start engaging in any tit for tat. That was Rick's problem... among other things.
Don will be fine - he has a sense of humor. Rick? not so much.