The human race has more access to more information than ever before. Anything we want or need to know is literally within reaching distance of our fingertips. Unfortunately, some of the people who deliver it make us long for the day when news was tied to a brick and thrown at your front door. The news may not have always been accurate or even true, but at least it gave you something useful, like a brick. These are the TV talking heads who make us wish they would just stop talking.
10. Keith Olbermann
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It pains us to put a man on this list who goes after some of the more egregious placeholders below with the foaming mouth of a rabid dog that swallowed a couple of extra strength Alka-Seltzer tablets. It is the more personal stories that get to us. He sometimes likes to dedicate part of his nightly MSNBC show to taking down people who have tried to take him and his network down by addressing their stories and gossip on the air. It's the news, not the World Wrestling Federation. If you have a beef with someone or a rivalry that needs fixing, do the classy thing. Address it off the air, slap on your rassling spandex, and challenge them to a no-holds barred cage match at Madison Square Garden. Then make sure the rest of us can watch it on Pay-Per-View. On second thought, lose the spandex. I just realized Olbermann has a lot of beefs with Rush Limbaugh.
9. Rick Santelli
Source: CNBC
The worst public relations job in the world right now has to be the guys and gals who represent New York stock trading firms. They must just sit in their offices all day long and dream about the easy, carefree workdays they led when they worked for the tobacco companies back in the 1980s. Rick Santelli doesn't seem to mind being their spokesperson when he's reporting live on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade and screaming about the losers getting money from the government with the kind of crazy indignation that you usually only see in Raiders fans or transients who argue with their shoes in public.
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8. The hosts of Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends
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A lot of news shows, particularly morning news shows, are finding themselves in such dire financial straits that they have to take on sponsors that almost engulf their entire show, like the way MSNBC's Morning Joe did when they struck a deal with Starbucks. Fox & Friends should be next, except they really should think about striking a deal with the makers of Seroquel. Every day, hosts Brian Kilmeade, Gretchen Carlson, and Steve Doocy find something that they are convinced is a threat to the American people that, if not immediately addressed, will give them herpes or something. Except it's not something that actually has an effect on the people that are watching such as lack of affordable health care, increased standards for education, or a mandatory 10-foot strip club lap dance law. It's usually something that comes with two scoops of crazy.
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7. Ed Schultz
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The left wing media sphere needed a red meat-eating, gun-totin' good ol' boy and Ed Schultz stepped up to the plate with his little space of airwave called The Ed Show. MSNBC was happy to do it, for reasons other than the fact that they could prove they are keeping America safe by having one less gun out there that Dick Cheney could operate. They could also use his image to prove that not all gun-loving, high school football career-bragging average Joes are the reason their state is red. Unfortunately, he uses it to show that left-wingers can be just as loud and psychotically crazy as those on the right. He yells and screams just about every night, even as people are trying to talk, and uses his mutant power of projection (his X-Men name is "Diaphragmanny") to void the warranty on that new surround sound system you saved all summer to score. His behavior paints himself as the kind of TV screamer who probably thinks "Network" was a documentary.
6. Lou Dobbs
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What if all news shows abandoned the idea of diversifying their news stories and instead decided to focus on just one topic? That's exactly what Lou Dobbs' show is like. It's the journalistic equivalent of Neopolitan ice cream if Neopolitan ice cream didn't come with strawberry or chocolate. Every issue on his show is linked back to his number one cause, illegal immigration, in some bizarre, twisted "Kevin Bacon Game" way. He has not only used it to create his slice of CNN ratings heaven, but it's also become a fun trick he can do at parties. Just name the issue and he'll link it back to illegal immigrants. Give it a try, any one will do: healthcare reform, the bank bailout, Barbara Eden's navel...
