When Critics Are Selling Shit
I had to laugh when I read Tom Shales’ complaints that Lorne Michaels stole his co-authored book, “Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live,” as the template for tonight’s SNL in the 80s special on NBC.
“All they did was buy it for $24.95 instead of $50,000, and use it as a blueprint.”
In other words, he wants the 50 grand that he thinks is his for recoding a lot of people’s stories.
As someone who was involved with the show for two of the ten seasons of the 80s and involved with the lives of certain staffers for another number of those years, I am both amused by the many stories he never heard or got wrong. And as a journalist, I am stunned by the arrogance of someone deciding they own any part of history, much less a TV show involving a few hundred people over the course of that decade. If the show feels familiar to Shales it’s because there is only so much interesting material.
In additon, Shales plays the ultimate whore game by attacking Jeff Zucker, but standing by “his friend,” Lorne Michaels. If there is any real issue with Michaels’ Broadway’s Video’s insight into SNL in the 80s, it is that Michaels was not there for a few of the years… and that his return was initially marred by massive overspending and not much funny work before he funny adapted the show to Groundlings-driven performance.
When they think they own something, critics quickly become the same assholes that we constantly claim others are when they sell their shit.
Besides, where is my $50,000?
Mainstream journalism went into the tank once jounos realized they could become celebrities. They could be the next Geraldo Rivera or Oprah Winfrey. They realized they could influence the stories they were telling as opposed to just reporting.
I remember reading a study of journalism schools in the mid-nineties that compared why students became journalists now as compared to the fifties. The older generation said it was because they wanted to report news to the world as a sense of duty. The newer (post 60’s Watergate influenced generation) said it was because they wanted to change the world.
That says it all.
How does ‘change the world’ equate to ‘I want to be rich and famous’?
If you don’t know the answer to that question…I don’t think I can tell you.
You are correct.
Let me see if I have this right.
Tom Shales wants money because someone he wrote about is using the stories that happend to them?
Something doesn’t click here. I missed the part where he created any of what he wrote.