David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. "Still just a work in progress"
A while back, I applauded the Hallmark Channel for its revolutionary publicity tactic of actually inviting members of the public to date the star of one of its TV movies.
Alas, that scheme was apparently too ambitious, or ended badly, because for their upcoming movie, “The Good Witch,” they’ve scaled back; of course, they’re inviting all media outlets to scale back on their credibility, as well.
Their latest gambit: Sending out ready-written features on Catherine Bell, that “Good Witch” in question.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS APPROVED AND AVAILABLE FOR ALL PRESS USES reads the top of the story. And its lead promises one of the most staggering puff pieces in the history of entertainment journalism while at the same time being utterly tedious and unrevealing, and that’s saying something.
Here’s the story – or, at least as far as I was able to get into it:
“By David Martindale *
“Crown Features Syndicate
“Catherine Bell is one of the most successful and beloved actresses in TV today. ** But to her way of thinking, she’s still just a work in progress.
“‘I think if you don’t improve in life, you tend to do worse,’ she says. ‘Things never stay the same in nature.*** They either get better or they get worse.
“‘So I like to aim for better in career, better in life, better as a person, better in all things.***’*”
* Is this a real person? Or the name Hallmark Channel gave its Bland Robo-Publicity Generator 3.0 word-processing system?
** Using this as an opening sentence will get you fired from most newspapers on the planet, or at least consigned to fetching coffee for editors.
*** WTF? Things stay the same all the time. Under which pop-psych loon’s spell has she fallen?
**** Aww… Isn’t that precious? Couldn’t you just pinch her cheek – in a nice way, not a creepy way like Chris Matthews?
I’m sure Bell went on in the piece to more thoroughly analyze the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but at this point I had already plucked out my eyeballs. At any rate, I wish Mr. Martindale good luck in his future career melding celebrity profiles into the stuff of greeting-card bromides.
Bible and sword!