I've enjoyed National Broadcasting Company "NBC" for decades as it was the broadcaster for my…read morefavorite tv shows of Star Trek, The Andy Williams Show and The Andy Williams Christmas Shows, Meet The Press, Johnny Carson Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, Buck Rogers. Adam-12, SeaQuest DSV, ChiPs,and David Brinkley, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel, Savannah Guthrie, Jane Pauley, Ann Curry, Bob Costa.
Lately, NBC hasn't been all rosy for me. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
"NPR reported NBC News chairman Andy Lack was the driving force behind the disastrous Megyn Kelly hire, which led to a mountain of negative press and cost NBC.
Lack was on the receiving end of much deserved criticism over the years from his mishandling of the sexual harassment and rape scandals of Matt Lauer and Harvey Weinstein. You can't protect the public by withholding facts from them. Lack had blocked journalist Ronan Farrow's reporting on Weinstein from appearing on NBC.
What really did Lack in was Farrow's then reporting in his book Catch & Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators about Lack's own appalling behavior. Ronan outlined Lack's pattern of preying on young female staffers, that he "pursued sexual relationships with them" -- and then ultimately turned "hostile" toward the women.
According to NPR, news of Lack's ouster was buried in an announcement about corporate restructuring that saw Lack replaced by Telemundo exec Cesar Conde, who was appointed to take charge of NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC.
For decades, NBC has aired The Golden Globes while being dogged by accusations of shady practices, largely on account of mismanagement of the ceremony by its hosting organization, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association "HFPA". By 2021, however, the Globes had built up a sheen of legitimacy that belied the sketchiness of the HFPA, which consisted of just 87 mostly elderly members. Yet because of the Globes' perceived prestige, this small group held outsized power in Hollywood until, in 2021, when the HFPA was taken to task for its lack of diversity when a report revealed the group had a grand total of zero Black members.
Los Angeles Times reported that things got real when more than 100 top Hollywood publicists sent a scathing letter to HFPA, alleging "discriminatory behavior, unprofessionalism, ethical impropriety and alleged financial corruption." The letter also called out NBC for its complicity as NBC aired the Golden Globes for well over two decades of complaints.
NBC then announced it would not be airing the Golden Globes in 2022, in order to allow the HFPA time to implement all the sweeping changes it laid out to The Hollywood Reporter; and that the network was "hopeful" the show could return to the network in 2023."
This day in history 20 December is the birthday of the US Space Force. I agree with William Shatner. "TV's most outspoken space explorer has a question for the minds behind the US military's newest branch: "What the heck is wrong with you, Space Force?"
In a Military Times op-ed, actor William Shatner railed against the US Space Force for choosing US Air Force's officer and enlisted rank names over the US Navy's, contravening decades of science fiction conventions.
"Do you know your entertainment space history? Let me show you what I mean," wrote Shatner, who played Captain, later Admiral, James T. Kirk on "Star Trek."
"Throughout entertainment history, which precedes actual space flight history by decades, we had captains," he wrote, providing examples of Navy ranks adopted for fictional space exploration.
Shatner invoked the heroic exploits of fictional space captains, while poking fun at TV space colonels.
"We cannot forget [U.S. Air Force] Colonel Steve Austin, an astronaut who crashed his ship and severely injured himself that cost taxpayers $6 million to put him back together, who was portrayed by my dear friend, Lee Majors," wrote Shatner, referring to the 1970s TV series "The Six Million Dollar Man."
US Navy Captain holds a rank equivalent to a US Air Force, Marine Corps or Army Colonel.
US Air Force inherited its rank names as an offshoot of the US Army in 1947, when the US Army Air Forces became a standalone branch.
US Space Force was left with same rank names when the US Air Force Space Force was split from the US Air Force.
In his op-ed, Shatner suggested borrowing the rank structure made famous in "Star Trek," following in the footsteps of creator Gene Roddenberry, who chose the Navy ranks for his Starfleet despite having been an officer in the US Army Air Forces.
"They made better sense when talking about a (space) ship," explained Shatner. ""
Issac Asmiov's Foundation has Admirals: Admiral Prince Lefkin in "The Mayors", 1942, Bel Riose in the main novels is compared to an "Admiral Peurifoy") and Captains of starships, Han Pritcher in the Foundation Navy.
Doc Smith was using naval terms when writing for Amazing Stories in the early 1930's.
