David Carr Bitchslaps Tina Brown



(image via CNN)

Has Tina Brown's "honey touch" (TM) gone mysteriously MIA? So says the notoriously prickly David Carr, in the latest New York Times' blog-influenced media smackdown (For further reference see Alessandra Stanley's damning "blog entry" on Couric). Or maybe The Corsair is blowing this way out of proportion. (The Corsair rubs his hands together diabolically)

We've always rather liked the essentially harmless Tina Brown, although that hasn't hampered our style of always bitchslapping the media luminaries with whom we have grown particularly fond (For further reference, see our delicious harassments of Arianna Huffy, Allegra Beck Versace and good ole Bill Clinton over the years).

But David Carr -- oftentimes a guest on Topic A -- somewhat bitchslaps Lady Tina ("The start was rugged - she frequently looked surprised when the camera came her way ...") in the pages of The Old Gray Lady today:

"It was supposed to be serious fun, but almost no one joined the party. Broadcast in an infomercial ghetto - Sunday nights on a business channel - her show managed the ratings of a night-light, an average of 62,000 viewers in the last year. The final show will be broadcast May 29.

"All in all, not a surprise. But the shuttering of her show was seen as a second strike by competitors and media watchers keeping or settling scores. Now they can say aloud what they whispered after the expensive pratfall of Talk: that the chief bestower of buzz had lost her honey touch. (It doesn't help that Ms. Brown's next big project, a biography of Princess Diana, underscores a career-long crush on royalty that has not been diminished by growing public boredom.)"

Oh no he didn't! There is even a quixotic mention of Tina's "ratlike cunning." Finally, on reports that Tina left the chat show on her own initiative, "She and CNBC insisted there was no push, but Ms. Brown, who can be good at math if not budgets, knew the score."

Wha-pow! Score: 15-Love, Carr. More bitchslapping.