Foxic News Kills U.S. Night After Night

It’s hot. Like 100 degrees hot in April. I remember when I moved to Los Angeles in 1994, freezing all through the spring. I remember seeing patches of ice on the sidewalk on some mornings after the rain had frozen. I remember an unheated winter (I couldn’t figure out a pilot light — I was 24) where I slept with blankets over my face because it was so cold. Now, Prosecco on the patio, in my shorts with a fan blowing on me.

At school we have this TV writers initiative I started 8 years ago. It was an effort to identify the top writers from the graduated class so that people looking to staff up could hire based on our recommendations. Okay, so this whole thing started under a different dean. And it’s not something I really wanted to do but the students wanted me to do it. SO I did. Flash forward seven years and the students (all different now) are upset about the program because the ones who don’t win the recognition of being in the top five are saying that we shouldn’t be picking winners and that by doing so we’re diminishing their opportunities. Smart people can make sour grapes sound more complicated than it really is. The new dean HATES the program. Now she says it’s because we’re not meant to be in the business of picking winners and losers and the fact that the program’s budget ($4000 a year) comes from tuition dollars means that it doesn’t align with the school’s philosophy of neutrality. Really what is bother her, and I wish she’d just say this, is the students who aren’t picked are pissed off and so they’re less likely to donate via the alumni program. I’d be happy to kill the program. I’m not looking for extra things to do. But then the department head and the TV faculty are very upset that the dean wants me to kill the program. Plus there’s the fact that in the 8 years we’ve been running this, 80% of the winners have gone on to be hired as TV writers. Four of them are now show runners who have their own original programs on the air and are hiring more of our students. And yesterday Variety decided to write about the program so the dean congratulated me which means I’ll probably be fired soon. She has a habit of firing anyone who succeeds. It’s not just her. Every dean I’ve ever worked with has had the same habit. When our students won all the student Oscar’s in 2017 and 2019 the dean then (Jan) and the dean now (Susan) made sure that the heads of the departments responsible for student films were so miserable they quit. So not fired. Quit fired. But you get the point. But now, in order for the program to not be killed, I have to find a doner who will for naming rights sponsor the initiative. Anyone want to pay $4k a year to have a TV writers initiative named after you? She said it would be fine for us to continue the program so long as it isn’t funded from tuition dollars. Oh, and we’re not allowed to ask every top TV writer because they’ve already donated to the bullshit Lifetime Achievement Award and we’re not allowed to double dip. I hate everyone.

Then there’s Russia. Oh god. The Russians. Putin, glorious defender of Christian values. Did you know that most evangelicals have a high opinion of Putin because he “stands up for Christian values?” I’m sorry, are we talking about the guy who’s army bombed a train station and killed hundreds. Dozens of children, too? That Putin? Are Christian values now, murder, violence and chaos?

I was struck by the recent study showing that if you pay Foxic “news” viewers to watch CNN for 30 days they stop believing GOP lies.