Saturday, October 2, 2010

Regarding Rick Sanchez: Sometimes You Just Keep Some Things to Yourself

As I type this, I am listening to the tail end of the interview that former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez had with comedian Pete Dominick (see below, h/t The Daily Dish) this past Thursday. Sanchez said a whole lot of things in this interview, and I give him credit for speaking his truth, but considering what he said throughout that interview regarding minorities and how they are perceived, he forgot the cardinal rule that I know I was taught: you save some things for yourself.

Sanchez was putting shit out in the street about his employers in public. You just don't do that, regardless of your demographic profile. I am sure that it pissed him off to no end to have a higher up at his network say that he should be a reporter instead of an anchor. That would piss me off too, for exactly the reasons Sanchez stated, but that is something you would tell your boy at the bar after work (and start keeping a written log of other slights that might have a racial or ethnic component to it just in case), not someone with a radio show.

There were times when Sanchez just sounded like a wounded soul, and there is certainly a sense of his resentment among various minorities regarding the seeming ease with which privileged whites (white men specifically) appear to glide from one opportunity to the next irrespective of actual merit sometimes (the very charge that they sometimes lay on a minority moving up in an organization). Why else would Sanchez, in criticizing Jon Stewart, bring up Stewart's parents' old jobs and presumed upper middle class upbringing? I do wonder if Sanchez feels the same way about the conservative elite as he does about the liberal elite, especially since both sets often share similar pedigrees. Perhaps Sanchez is just angry that more people felt that they could trust Jon Stewart more for veracity in the news than him. He will have to tell that story himself someday.

I did think that Sanchez's criticism of Fox News was spot on. Each time I've tuned into the network (and it's often painful to endure), there seems to be some aspect of that business model Sanchez described in the interview, a business model that has proven to be wildly successful for the network. 

Ultimately, what I thought was the beginning of a mildly amusing back and forth between Sanchez and Olbermann/Maddow/Stewart, simply became a more dramatic story with a surprise ending on Friday. I wish Sanchez good luck.

3 comments:

Micheal Sisco said...

Rick Sanchez SHOULD have been fired ... he was a moron for spouting off about his employer like that -- even if there was a shred or two of truth in what he was saying ... What the hell was he smoking?

bla2222 said...

Sanchez had a point if he was spouting off about both the liberal elite and, as you say, the conservative elite.

CNN gave him his own show and has anchors that are a variety of ethnic groups. One could make the point that these anchors are light skinned though.

While Jewish people are a minority that have increased their prosperity throughout the 20th century in the US, we are not the country's elite.

Scott said...

Uh, yeah. What Michael Sisco said.

Sanchez always did remind me of Ted Baxter. Lots of deep, thoughtful looks and little actual depth. Fareed Zakaria he ain't.

And forget about the "Stewart is a bigot" line and the Jews-run-the-world fantasies. This statement alone is sufficient proof that he's not in touch with reality-- [Stewart is] "upset that someone of my ilk is at, almost, his level."

Yeah Rick. Almost.