Whether Hard Or ‘Lite,’ The News Is Still Network
When one network news anchor criticizes the work of the next, you know that ratings are at stake. It’s just business.
Or is it? When CBS anchor Dan Rather described top-rated “NBC Nightly News” as “news lite,” NBC’s Tom Brokaw erupted.
“I resent that quite deeply,” Brokaw said. “We have done some stories that may not meet Dan’s definition of hard news, but they’re relevant to people’s lives. Just because it doesn’t happen behind an oaken door of a subcommittee room, or in a foreign capital does not mean that it’s not hard news.”
Further, Brokaw added, “Whenever there is the first hint in the fall (that) a hurricane might hit land, ‘Mr. Hard News’ is down there wrapped around a lamp-post somewhere.”
Loose talk
Jenny McCarthy on her favorite character from her new comedy show for MTV: “Helga, the German waitress with long armpit hair.”
He knows that it’s no fantasyland out there
Michael Eisner turns 55 today.
Anyway, they all had a gay old time just listening
Ellen Degeneres entertained a table of celebrities, among them Mel Gibson, Robin Williams, Jodie Foster, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Ryan, at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas the other day. “So, I’m sitting next to Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who keeps hitting on me,” Degeneres said. “And he has no idea, poor guy. I keep trying to explain to him, I’m just not interested.”
In reality, Keaton will always thank Houston
So who does Diane Keaton thank for helping her win a Best Actress nomination for “Marvin’s Room”? Whitney Houston. Seems Keaton played Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” to prepare for her role as a self-sacrificing daughter. “I played it over and over in my head, and just kept getting more and more upset,” Keaton told Entertainment Weekly. “I had a whole tape filled with that song repeated over and over.”
And just sipping mint juleps wasn’t going to work
Edward Norton is a Best Supporting Actor nominee for the film “Primal Fear.” But the Maryland native may have put on his best performance during the audition when he affected a Kentucky accent and claimed actually to be from the Bluegrass state. “There were a lot of guys up for that part,” Norton told Entertainment Weekly. “I felt I had to do something drastic to set myself apart.”
An Oscar for ‘Fargo’? Yah, sure, you betcha
Look for the folks in Fargo, N.D., to hold a special Oscar night party. “Dress will be strictly North Dakota formal,” jokes Margie Bailly, director of development for the historical Fargo Theater. “That’s fur hats, overalls, huge parkas and everything else everybody else thinks we all wear.” The film “Fargo” is vying for seven Academy Awards.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Dan Webster