WSJ: Ken Jennings' nasty Tweets cost him the Jeopardy job

So far, the the show’s executive producer, never a celebrity of any caliber, machinated his own installation as host and immediately lost the job when his own sexist and antisemitic podcast jokes were exposed. Even now, Sony is still backing him to run the show as if there were no more skeletons in the closet.

As if there were no more skeletons in the closet? What was discovered should have been enough. Was more required?

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Yah, and she’s deep into “extreme attachment parenting” and other freaky woo. It’s a real shame because she was this close to being an awesome female role model.

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Deep insight there, thank you.

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Every time I read about another potential Jeopardy! host failing someone’s impossible purity test, I think about how Pat Sajak is pretty much openly fascist and nobody seems to care.

Always room for one more spin-off.

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Or just, you know, don’t be a racist, misogynist, etc. I’ve been on social media as much as anyone and have never said anything even close to career-ending. Like, it just ain’t that difficult to not be a monster. I don’t understand this attitude (which is a conservative talking point) that “everyone says incredibly horrible things from time to time”. No, most people don’t.

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  1. “Not being openly racist, misogynist, or otherwise monstrous” is not “an impossible purity test”.

  2. Who says nobody cares about Sajak? He gets dragged in the media constantly for his shitty beliefs. He was hired 30 years ago for his job and the network isn’t likely to fire him for his tweets, but his replacement would be getting the same public scrutiny for sure.

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Media company: we need a new host for a game show.

Data scientist: we’ll use AI to come up with 100 potential candidates. Humans will then choose their top 10 candidates, then the AI will scour the internet looking for their stupidity/offensive/atrocious behavior.

Media company: Maybe you should do that second search first. Besides, we need to hype the search to garner interest in something most people don’t give a shit about.

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Buzz in too soon & you get locked out for a few seconds.
Timing is everything.

Or public office, unless you are a member of the FDK. Then your spewings would be an asset.

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I thought it was woo-woo, unless she’s really trying to get the weird beliefs to become enamored with her? :grin:

If you’re a public figure you can have crazy beliefs, just like anyone can, but as soon as you start proselytizing and/or spreading that nonsense around, people, including me, are going to have a problem with that, and they shouldn’t be surprised by the rabidity of the internet, or that it’ll cost them a job.

It’s not even like it’s a very high bar, FFS.

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Interesting- I wonder if this is a regionalism. I’ve never heard “woo-woo” but have always heard “woo” to mean nonsense (in addition to the verb meaning you allude to :grimacing:). My usage may be a more linguistically recent shortening of yours?

And yah, much as I might not be crazy about Bialik, her beliefs probably shouldn’t disqualify her. But the stuff Jennings and that Exec Producer guy have said? Hoo boy, yes.

What’s often unsaid in these conversations is that it’s not one incident. These people have a pattern of saying horrible things over and over. Now imagine what they really believe if these are the things they feel comfortable tweeting and saying to reporters. The mind boggles. No, I don’t want them failing upwards into TV stardom.

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In Reno? Just to watch him die?

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seth meyers GIF by Late Night with Seth Meyers

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Agreed, anyone can screw up or have a belief system that is abhorrent. But there’s a point where a person needs to realize and denounce their past behavior and ignorance/stupidity. If they can’t do that and behave in a socially acceptable way they should not be surprised when society spurns them.

Anyone can make a mistake due to ignorance, but they should learn from it. It’s those that keep making mistakes due to stupidity that you don’t want any part of.

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“… why do so many people care about Jeopardy? It isn’t even a good game show!” says the guy who thinks “Countdown” is the bomb. (I keed, I keed!)

“Talking to Americans” would be instantly disqualifying for him (if any of them got it)…

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buzz

“Said by Jasper Beardsley while menacing Lisa Simpson and her classmates with a wooden implement of corporal punishment”

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This is pretty much true of everything in media (a fact obscured by lottery-winner guys whose twitter abuse is the core of their success and who are constantly emulated by people who don’t realize they’re playing a different game. Jennings being a very good example)

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