Alex Trebek RIP

An alternate take: what if Jeopardy yielded to the smarter side of Youtube?

 

The general public is not a monolith. Twitter most certainly represents what a significant segment of the general public is thinking. In cases where someone is fired, the employers clearly have made the decision that it's a large enough segment of their audience that it's not worth continuing to employ that person and in the process alienate a significant portion of their audience.

A person getting fired from one specific job they've made racist or sexist jokes in the past is hardly the same as a person getting blacklisted from all work by all employers due to their political beliefs or associations. To make such a comparison really trivializes and minimizes blacklisting.

 

What's a racist or sexist joke? Are the "jive-talking" guys in Airplane a racist joke? Or the black natives who are really good at basketball? I don't believe Richards said anything that was racist or sexist. Jokes are jokes. They are meant to create laughter through an artful use of language or situations, not to communicate someone's beliefs about anything.

To say it's not blacklisting is overlooking how monolithic this thought process is becoming. This is something we're seeing repeatedly from different companies. Is someone going to rush out to hire Richards now, after his name has been dragged through the mud by some elements of the media?

Most of the "internet-only" press doesn't even pretend to have journalistic integrity. When you see these sites like Ringer, Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, Vox, etc., they are agenda-driven outlets. That's their right, but these sites just shouldn't be quoted or looked at by anyone who is seeking an objective evaluation of the facts.

 

Still loving Buzzy! I'm glad they're running the T.O.C. with him hosting. I wonder if they're trying to remind the public how good he is.

 

Well, I do think he made sexist comments. Ultimately though it doesn't matter what you or I (or any one individual) thinks. Enough people found his past comments offensive that the owners of Jeopardy decided they didn't want him representing their product. And that's certainly their right. Given the choice between several equally qualified people, why choose someone who has offended a significant amount of your customers if there are other options?

Based on what I've read, Jeopardy intended to keep him as EP until it became clear there were issues with staff and his job performance that had nothing to do with past comments. And I bet he will be able to get work in some capacity. There are probably people who would even hire him as on-camera talent because of the things he said, specifically to make a point.

"Blacklisting" means active collusion between competitors not to hire a specific person for some reason that has nothing to do with their job performance or abilities. Can you cite one example of a "victim" of cancel culture who has not been able to find any work because of such collusion? A person losing one job because something they've said in the past is embarrassing to to their employer is not blacklisting.

 

Watching Buzzy I like his style, but when I first turned it on I wasn't looking at the screen, and when I heard his voice I couldn't place it, only that it seemed kind of annoying. I don't know, at this point I really don't care who they pick.

JohnK

 

When all you have is a grievance-hammer, everything looks like a "cancel culture" nail.

JohnK

 

I'm all for Buzzy if Balik can't do it.

 

Joe Buck?

Isn't he too busy with sports broadcasting to do the Jeopardy gig?

 

They should've just announced Jennings as "host in waiting" and then told the Twitterati to go to hell when the wheelchair tweet came to light.

 

The Hollywood Reporter published an expose of Mike Richards’ time as executive producer on TPIR a couple of days ago. It’s ridiculous, frankly. “He wrecked the family atmosphere!” Yep - the family atmosphere that saw Janice Pennington and Holly Hallstrom and Kathleen Bradley fired (pre-Richards) because Bob Barker didn’t like their testimony in a lawsuit against him. “He got rid of longstanding employees and brought in his own people.” Yep - that’s what new managers often do. “He played favorites!” As a longtime manager, I’ve heard this complaint from underperformers.

The guy has been fired. And they feel it’s necessary to publish a seemingly one-sided report on his managerial skills?

 

Apparently, Jeopardy James (Holzhauer) had little use for Richards, too judging by a series of tweets I saw. Wonder what Matt Amodio has to say since he actually played with Richards before the ouster.

 

Welcome to every media outlet in the country over the past decade.

 

Our Jeopardy station (CBS 42 in Birmingham) shows back-to-back episodes--the first a rerun, then a new episode. Until today they had been still showing episodes with Alex Trebek as the rerun, but with the new season starting today, they have on an episode from Mayim Bialik's stint as guest host from earlier this year. I enjoyed seeing the Trebek reruns, so this is somewhat disappointing.

 

It makes sense, though. There's only a week of Richard shows and then it's Bialik for a while, so they might as well get people used to her.

 

Now maybe we can get back to the Matt Amodio Show. Wonder if the hiatus has thrown him off his game?

 

They should just get a Trebek hologram.

 

It's not a defense of blacklisting to say, "well, we didn't COMPLETELY blacklist you." Under McCarthyism, some blacklisted people were able to work under assumed names. Did that make it not a real blacklist? Of course, what I'm talking about here is a de facto blacklist driven by the media. It's open collusion to tar and tarnish the names of people so that they will be deemed unacceptable to be hired by any mainstream company. It has nothing to do with job performance. The media is instilling a fear that companies will be smeared and trashed with bad press if they hire a certain person. There was an agenda to get this guy fired, and a mission to dig into his background and find anything they could that could be spun into a negative headline. The stories were sourced, framed and written in a completely biased way. It's distasteful and un-American to simply target a private citizen for destruction and have numerous organizations direct their resources to comb through his entire life to find things to create faux scandals about. The targeting of Richards should send a chill down every American's spine. What was done to him could be done to any private citizen.

 

More accurately, it could be done to any citizen who a. works in a job wherein they have a high profile representing their employer to the public, and b. has made many public comments in the past that would embarrass their employer or run counter to the company image. Everyone else has nothing to worry about.

And again, a person getting fired from one job is not a blacklist. Get back to me when you have evidence Richards is not able to get any work whatsoever in his field, from competing companies and interests. By your definition, any person who gets fired ever can say they are being blacklisted.

I know it's popular these days to suggest "the media" is some monolithic force with a specific agenda. But the reality is quite the opposite... never before have so many different perspectives had access to widely disseminate their views. The media (if we count the internet and social media) is far less monolithic than at any other time in modern history.

Who do you think is in the wrong here? Do people not have a right to protest if someone has said something that offended them? And do private companies not have a right to fire someone who they feel is harming their public image?

 

Watch the Awkward Jeopardy Season 38 Introduction - BuzzerBlog

 

Weird if they were going to dub over Mike's intro that Johnny Gilbert wouldn't just say "here is the guest host of Jeopardy". I wonder what he initially said- "Here is your new host of Jeopardy?"

 

'Jeopardy!' Will Go with Mayim Bialik, Ken Jennings as Hosts Rest of Season

 

Vamping to see if Bialik become available full time, is my guess.

 

Or wanting to see if there's any difference in ratings and audience reaction between Bialik and Jennings. And probably also wanting to see if any new skeletons emerge from the closet of either one of them. An extended tryout for both without making a long-term commitment to either makes a lot of sense, really.

 

Excellent points. I don’t get all the love for either of them, tbh. They were both decent but I didn’t think either was anything special and there are people out there with more experience in this type of thing.

But the past few months have shown me that there are tons of different opinions on what would make a great Jeopardy host.