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Posts Tagged ‘TV’

Lou Dobbs Finally Under Scrutiny After Years of Bigotry

4 Aug 2009

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the past couple of days, you’ve heard about the controversy that’s been swirling around our good friend Hispanic journalist Lou Dobbs. It seems after all these years of hate and bigotry, and after years of activist groups like Media Matters going after Dobbs for racist rhetoric, it’s only caught on now that Lou appears to be bought into the whole “birther” movement. Media Matters made the following PSA to warn weaker minds of Dobbs’ agenda:

Tons of mail to CNN demanding Dobbs get pulled from the lineup and suddenly they are nervous…amazing! Hadn’t CNN president John Klein said Dobb’s claims were “legitimate”? It appears he’s since taken that back; in fact, he never believed it, as in a private memo, Klein urged Dobbs to drop the whole thing two weeks ago.
Read more…

Walter Cronkite is Dead

7:35 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Media| society · Comments Off

17 Jul 2009

It’s the end of an era, folks. I’m not old enough to have experienced Walter Cronkite as a young journalist, but in his last years in the profession he was a staple in the early lives of our generation, who grew up with Cronkite as a pre-cable news icon of TV journalism trustworthiness. Before CNN, there was network news, and at CBS, Cronkite was king.

Walter Cronkite, an iconic CBS News journalist who defined the role of anchorman for a generation of television viewers, died Friday at the age of 92, his family said.

Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war, and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.

“It is impossible to imagine CBS News, journalism or indeed America without Walter Cronkite,” Sean McManus, the president of CBS News, said in a statement. “More than just the best and most trusted anchor in history, he guided America through our crises, tragedies and also our victories and greatest moments.”

Mr. McManus added: “No matter what the news event was, Walter was always the consummate professional with an un-paralleled sense of compassion, integrity, humanity, warmth, and occasionally even humor. There will never be another figure in American history who will hold the position Walter held in our minds, our hearts and on the television. We were blessed to have this man in our lives and words cannot describe how much he will be missed by those of us at CBS News and by all of America.”

R.I.P. Walter. A real reporter.

Via / NYT

“Miss Spain” Moves to Mexico

6 Jul 2009

Times are tough for beauty pageants. With every year that passes they become more irrelevant and more of a joke than a competition to most. Perhaps that’s why Spain’s “Miss España” pageant is suffering so much that they need to take the show on the road: to Mexico. The organization’s president admits that the economic crisis is what lead Miss España to leave la madre patria and move to el nuevo mundo:

It is the first time in 49 years that the event will be celebrated outside of the country. “The world economic situation has forced us to open up borders,” said Andrés Cid. He also mentioned that the decision will “possibly open doors to future events in different places around the world…”

Why Mexico? Because the Mexican tourism industry is still suffering the effects of the swine flu and needs a platform from which they can talk the hundreds of thousands of Spanish tourists who visited the Riviera Maya each year into coming back.

So it works out like this: lack of interest on the part of the Spanish public and low ratings = the pageant needing money. Mexican tourism authorities buy something that won’t work for them, since no one is watching this in the first place. Nice little deal.

Via / 20 Minutos

Paquito Cordero is Dead

4:52 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Media| Puerto Rico| TV · Comments Off

2 Jul 2009

Puerto Rico lost a television pioneer this past Tuesday, when Paquito Cordero passed on at the age of 77. The Puerto Rican government has declared 3 days of mourning for Cordero. EFE reports:

“The people of Puerto Rico start the day in mourning for the sad loss of one of the greats among our artists and a man of the people,” Fortuño said in a press release.

Francisco Cordero was born in 1932 in San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood, and after attending the Central Upper School, began his artistic career as an actor when television arrived in Puerto Rico in 1954 on the program “Mapy y Papi,” together with his aunt Mapy Cortes (1910-1998).

His greatest legacy as a producer was the program “El Show de las 12” (12 O’clock Show) for Telemundo Channel 2, which aired at midday.

The program was transmitted for the first time on Jan. 11, 1965.

In addition to his work as a producer and comedian, Cordero is often credited with the international success of Menudo.

Via / Latin American Herald Tribune

Carlos Baute is a Matchmaker in Spain

11:10 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Music| Spain| TV| Venezuela · Comments Off

30 Mar 2009

Remember how Venezuelan singer Carlos Baute swore he’d never leave Venezuela with his hit song “Yo Me Quedo en Venezuela” (above)? Well the lyrics now ring with irony, as Baute has apparently given up on his homeland and is forging a new career in España. After recording a hit duet with Spanish singer Marta Sanchez, Baute is also hosting a crappy-looking dating show which looks like a refrito of The Dating Game. Preview after the jump. Read more…

George Lopez Goes Late Night

11:48 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| TV · 4 Comments

25 Mar 2009

georgelopeztp At a time when late night talk shows are in a period of transition — what some might call a renaissance — a familiar Latino face is emerging to shake up the genre even more. George Lopez is getting his own late night talk show, which is set to air on TBS and seems to be much more than just a monologue and a guy behind a desk:

Lopez and his producers approached TBS with a pilot episode filmed on an outdoor soundstage, with Eva Longoria, Dane Cook and Samuel L. Jackson as guests. Lopez sat audience members close to the stage, let them ask questions and didn’t sit behind a desk.

“The music was from salsa to Led Zeppelin,” he said. “Look, you can either go to Nieman Marcus or you can go to a flea market. When you go to a swap meet, there’s just a ground-level feel that you can find anything there. At Nieman Marcus, you’re not going to find tube socks and pliers. This will be a flea market feel.”
TBS was sold by the pilot, said Michael Wright, the cable network’s programming chief.

I’m not a huge fan of Lopez’s comedy, but I appreciate what he’s trying to do: represent some diversity in late night, so I’ll be watching. I must admit I’m also attracted by what he said he’s shooting for:

He said he wants to be inclusive, not divisive, in much the same way as Arsenio Hall’s early-1990s talk show.

I loved me some Arsenio!

Via / Yahoo Entertainment News

MTV to Air Pedro Zamora Movie

5 Mar 2009

Some of you might be a tad too young to remember, but back in 1994, MTV’s The Real World actually retained some element of real, and was actually a pretty engaging show (note: there were actually people with brains in the house). The San Francisco edition was one of its highest points, mainly due to the groundbreaking things that were going on on the show: 21 year old Cubano Pedro Zamora emerged as the first openly gay HIV-positive man to appear on American television, and in following Pedro’s life and death, U.S. TV viewers finally got to know someone living with HIV.

Alex Loynaz stars as earnest Real World cast-member Pedro Zamora in this intimate biopic tracing the HIV-positive immigrant’s rise from humble roots to becoming one of the most instantly recognizable HIV/AIDS activists in the United States as a result of his high profile role on MTV’s pioneering reality… television series. In 1992, The Real World made it’s debut on MTV, forever altering the definition of the term “celebrity,” and providing a sympathetic face to the growing AIDS crisis for the millions of Americans who had yet to meet someone suffering from the devastating autoimmune disorder.

While the show was great, what MTV has got up its sleeve now doesn’t look like it’s going to do it much justice. “Pedro: The Movie” actually looks pretty terrible if the trailers are to be believed (check them out here). MTV movies are infamously bad, so I guess you can’t expect much more, but I would have preferred Pedro’s story be told by a good filmmaker with…a budget. When you check out the trailer, you’ll know what I mean. But before that, check out the clip above of The Real World San Francisco to get a sense of who Pedro was.

Pedro: The Movie is set to air on MTV on April 1st.

Via / SF Citizen

Smells Like…Basura

9:39 am By Maegan La Mala · Bizarro| Funny| Music| Spain · 5 Comments

21 May 2008

Think American Idol is bad? Check out the Spanish equivalent. Poor Kurt Cobain is spinning in his grave.

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Posts Tagged ‘TV’

Lou Dobbs Finally Under Scrutiny After Years of Bigotry

Walter Cronkite is Dead

“Miss Spain” Moves to Mexico

Paquito Cordero is Dead

Carlos Baute is a Matchmaker in Spain

George Lopez Goes Late Night

MTV to Air Pedro Zamora Movie

Smells Like…Basura

‘Crash’ to Become a TV Show

Pink Panther to Take Argentina and Chile

Hola!

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