Agitators

I wrote once that it’s pointless to get mad at Talk 1300 numbnut Paul Vandenburgh.

“Doing that would be like going to the circus and criticizing the clowns for — well, acting like clowns. That’s their job.”

I’m not here to lecture you on media literacy, but we all need to remember that some people are paid to be provacative. Columnists, commentators, opinion peddlers, pundits — and sometimes bloggers.

That’s what they do.

Let’s take as an example this headline seen recently in the Times Union blog section:

Good riddance to Grandma’s Pies

That’s how Times Union staff blogger Kristi Gustafson-Barlette titled a post about the closing of Grandma’s, a local restaurant and pie
shop.

She made it clear in the post that she was never a fan of the place, but I think the title was calculated to make people angry.

Not everyone bought it, like this person in the comment area:

Content-wise, your article captures the truth: Grandma’s had lost all  of what made the pies local favorites and it was time for a change. However, your headline implies your revelry in the closing of a local business. The disparity in tone between headline is clearly evidence of a lame attempt at clickbait – an insult to your readers.

But it worked. Her post rocketed to the top of the most-read list.

Whatever. Why are we so bothered about what’s in some blog or on a stupid talk radio show — especially when it can be argued that what you’re reading or hearing isn’t real, but cooked up to grow audience?

Probably for the same reason many of us can’t stop reading about Trump. It feels so good to be outraged.

6 thoughts on “Agitators

    1. Well, I prefer public radio and mostly listen to that. It takes four hours of WAMC to replace the brain cells lost listening to Talk 1300 for 15 minutes.

  1. Maybe the outrage over Grandma’s “Homemade” Pies is about finding out they were made at Grandma Sysco’s home. I confess I feel a bit taken-in, having imported contraband pies over the Whitestone to Nassau University Medical Center executives as a favor, only to find out the smuggled goods were the equivalent of buying a dime bag of oregano (also probably from Sysco).

    1. Yeah, the pie scandal. Apparently, some were partly made in house, but it was a bit deceptive. Gotta say, I was never that impressed with the pies.

  2. In other news, I think I know where WNYT CH13 old news set went. Parts of it seems to have shown up at Spectrum.

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