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If Only We Had Money for Journalism

ONTD reminded me of this the other day, regarding Shepard Smith.

Mr. Ailes has put his network’s money where he wants its chief voice to
be. Last week, Mr. Smith signed a new contract that will take him, a
former local news reporter from Holly Springs, Miss., into financial
territory usually occupied only by network news anchors. Although Fox
did not release the exact terms of the new deal, an executive briefed
on the them said
that Mr. Smith, who is 43, had signed a new contract for a little more
than three years at a salary of $7 million to $8 million a year.

Not that it isn’t worth having someone on Fox to frequently point out that Fox sucks.

As the ONTD crew put it:

IF THAT JOB CAME WITH FREE CANDY AND COMPLIMENTARY ADMINISTERINGS OF HEAD IT WOULD BE THE GREATEST JOB IN THE UNIVERSE

“SO WHAT DO YOU DO?”

“WELL,
MY BOSSES AND ALL MY COWORKERS ARE STUPID ASSHOLES, SO I GET TO CALL
THEM STUPID ASSHOLES ON THE AIR, AND THEY PAY ME $8 MILLION TO DO THAT.
ALSO, I RECEIVE ALL THE RED VINES AND NOW-AND-LATERS AND DR. PEPPER
THAT I CAN HUMANLY CONSUME.”

A.

5 thoughts on “If Only We Had Money for Journalism”

  2. maybe I’m too skeptical, but I can’t help wondering if part of the contract is for him not to criticize faux.

  3. Smith didn’t call out Cameron about his redefinition of what the “nuclear option” in the Senate was, though. Cameron talks as if using budget reconciliation to get around a filibuster is what’s been referred to as the “nuclear option,” but back when the Republicans were running things, the NO was aboutactually changing the rules of the Senate:

    It’s Frist’s plan to change the Standing Rules of the Senate in order to prohibit Democrats from using the filibuster to block votes on Bush’s judicial nominees. Under the current rules, senators in the minority can indefinitely delay a floor vote on judges — or on just about anything else, for that matter — by engaging in extended debate.
    The Senate’s rules have allowed unlimited debate, or filibusters, since 1806, when senators dropped a rule that allowed a majority of the Senate to put an end to discussion and call for a vote. For the next 111 years, there was no way to stop a filibuster once it had started. But in 1917, when filibusters were blocking Woodrow Wilson’s plans for World War I, the Senate adopted Rule XXII, which allowed senators to end a filibuster by a two-thirds vote on a motion to cut off debate — a procedure called “cloture.” In 1975, the Senate amended Rule XXII so that cloture required, in most cases, the vote of not two-thirds but rather three-fifths of the senators. In today’s 50-state, 100-member Senate, that means it takes 60 rather than 67 senators to put an end to most filibusters.
    With the nuclear option, Frist and his supporters would effectively change that rule so that filibusters on judicial nominees could be cut off by a simple majority vote.

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