Paks go boom

I’m taking my cue from Sandy Berger, since the Paks are taking their cue from the Indians. I think we all feel safer today, especially everybody who drives cabs on the Eastern seaboard. We’ve had cold wars and hot wars, now comes the extra-hot and spicy war. Having dipped just slightly into the un-PC waters (don’t blame me, I’m Mac), what really caught my eye this morning was a trade paper (radio listeners know I do read the trades for you) called TV Shoptalk. Nothing makes us feel better than having our suspicions revealed to have a basis in fact, and there it was, in the letters column, reacting to a previous item: news consultants actually do tell on-air “talent” (a term of art in the business) to project emotion when they read news stories. Why anyone still pays attention to consultants of any stripe is beyond me, and I’ve asked my own consultants to get it within me, or at least within my perimeter. But, I’ve long maintained that one of the primary reasons Americans don’t trust the media is precisely this: that the TV newsies are engaging in a worse crime than bias, triviality, or rampant tabloidism: namely, bad acting. Nothing is less credible than bad acting, and we’re getting it by the tubeful.