Jun 26, 2009 10:48 AM
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Ana Marie Cox is guest-hosting for Rachel Maddow tonight! She is so psyched! Or she was, until a certain someone had to go and die unexpectedly yesterday.
Wonkette founding editor, Air America Washington Correspondent, and Playboy.com contributing editor Cox is filling in for Rachel Maddow tonight on MSNBC. And she's been Tweeting about it! But then, yesterday, Michael Jackson dropped dead. And a tipster found Ms. Cox's reaction insufficiently reverent and possibly colored by self-interest!
Thought this was kind of weird: @anamariecox was immediately indignant over the roadblock coverage of Michael Jackson's collapse/death. Within an hour or so of his dying she posted "Really, news media of the world? REALLY? Well at least the NYT has a liveblog! http://bit.ly/IgVQS What color do we turn our icons now?"Haha, I guess. So what? Worse things are being said. Then she went on about it: "To be clear: death is tragic, Michael Jackson was a cultural icon. RIP But I find the blur of roadblock cable coverage less than edifying."
Uh, OK. Point made. Then this one explains it: "Headed to hotel from 30 Rock with no TelePrompTer practice or idea of how the show works but did score souvenir hoodie! #rightplacewrongtime"
I guess Rachel Maddow wasn't on and she didn't get to watch how the show goes down to practice for her guest host spot? THAT's why she's annoyed by MJ coverage? I mean, this isn't Jon & Kate we're talking about here. The guy drops dead and she's pissed that her rehearsal is cancelled? I found that shit less than edifying.
Sincerely, a reader
Ok, a reader, but there are a couple things going on here!
One if that if someone we didn't care that much about dropped dead the night before we were supposed to host a live cable news program for the very first time, and said death interrupted our one chance to watch a live broadcast of the show we were to host, we would be pretty fucking annoyed. We might not Twitter about it, but that is because we still don't get Twitter, and the only person who follows us anyway is Cox's husband Chris*, so no one would even notice if we did did Tweet about our annoyance.
Another is that dressing up that personal annoyance in the garb of a critique of cable news standards and priorities is pretty funny, yes.
But finally, "what color do we turn our icons now" is both pretty funny and also a very apt comment on the self-regard of Twitterers who think they have any hand in either breaking or affecting news of this magnitude. Because yesterday it was nothing but off-color jokes, useless retweets of links to "traditional" news sources, rambling personal tales of the first time a Tweeter heard Thriller, and lies about Jeff Goldblum. And that is what Twitter should be, basically, which is why getting all huffy about a journalist using her personal Twitter to crack little jokes and worry about her upcoming gig, which it seems like Twitter was meant for, is kinda goofy.
Good luck, AMC!
*That is our FULL DISCLOSURE, here.
Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.
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