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Keanu Is a Taciturn Millionaire

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Mar 29, 2023
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Following a couple of days of intense journalism behavior with the Nashville shooting, we'll shift to more ridiculous and risible content today. Call it a media palate cleanse, if you will.

03.29.23

Democratic Custodial Services – CNN

It was only a few months ago when President Jose Biden tried selling us on the concept that the economy was not so bad because whatever is felt by consumers can be offset by switching to generic raisin bran. 

Well, since November, it apparently has only become worse, but at CNN, they will not come out and say so directly. Instead, the site cheerily offers up the next solution for those hammered in the grocery store: breakfast ramen!

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Body Checking the Fact-Checkers – THE POYNTER INSTITUTE

While it is understandable that a business or outfit would be interested in protecting its brand (much like Jack Daniels taking a dog chew toy company to the Supreme Court), it is also desirable that said organization gets its accused target correct.

When the Poynter Institute – the parent entity of PolitiFact – noticed a parody website modeled after its brand, it took some action. Its lawyers reached out to the Media Research Center (home of NewsBusters) to tell them to cease its operation and that it would be seeking three times the amount of any realized revenue from the site. Two problems with this legal challenge:

1) MRC has no involvement at all with this parody site. The vaunted journalism and fact-checking organization could not manage to commit journalism and get its facts accurate. The same goes for its legal team.

2) This announcement that PoynterInstitute.com is not official leads to, as Tim Graham points out, an admission that Poynter had not done the diligent thing and obtained all the domains using its name. We dare suggest this would have been a cheaper enterprise than paying for lawyers to inadvertently dispatch cease and desist letters.

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – MORNING BREW

This past weekend, the fourth installment in the "John Wick" franchise opened to a huge box office. Every sequel has opened bigger than the predecessor, and this one even exceeded the high-end projections, grossing over $73 million for the weekend.

One of the notable moves during the production was Keanu Reeves reportedly having his character dialogue cut in half from the original script in order to further accentuate the action. He has barely over 100 lines in the film, and of those, one-quarter consist of only a single word.

At Morning Brew, they tallied up the verbiage and came to the conclusion that Reeves was paid nearly $40,000 per word.

Pulitzer Prize Nomination – THE NEW YORK TIMES

Not to imply that The New York Times is catering to an elitist clientele, but as we are grappling with the harsh realities of our grocery receipts, here is The Times alerting us that croissants are not going away anytime soon. Well, thank the food overlords for that good news!

The only thing more tone-deaf than this headline was our favorite quote from the piece:

- "The colorful Cronut became the internet's first celebrity pastry, generating media attention and long lines for monthly limited-edition drops."

Reporting on the Mirror – WALL STREET JOURNAL

For some time, there has been hype that the metaverse was going to be the next huge realm in culture and entertainment. However, there have been slow – if any – real advances in this sector. It has been made even less impressive with the new announcement this week that among its massive layoffs, the Disney Company has shut down entirely its division that was set up to create content for this enterprise. As a result, the Wall Street Journal notes the moribund progress in this faction.