Archive for October 2nd, 2010

• Day 222: The Power of Self-Sabotage

  Date: 2010.10.02 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 1

  

  The big news yesterday was Rick Sanchez getting fired from CNN because of comments he made on Pete Dominick’s Sirius radio show about how Jews run all the broadcast networks.

  My friend Karyn wrote on my Facebook page, “Watch for him to turn up on Fox News.”

  Has shooting yourself in the foot now become a career move?

  In 2010 America, that’s altogether possible.

  I, however, hew to the classic definitions of self-sabotage.  For me, deciding to give up candy for a year was a method of squarely staring down self-sabotage – and making an effort to defeat it.

  I’ve always been fascinated with those who, to me, seem to be immune to any form of shooting themselves in the foot.  If I had to choose someone who seems to be immune to self-sabotage, that would be Diane Sawyer.  I worked with her at ABC News and I also once interviewed her for a MORE magazine cover story.

  I am nothing like Diane Sawyer, so I was surprised at how much I liked her.   Then again, me liking her so much is probably part of why Diane is so successful, at least in official terms, and why she’s done so well in life.

  I also worked with Rick Sanchez, when I was the “entertainment editor” for MSNBC.  (Though I started my career as a hard news reporter, I made a brief detour into entertainment news which was a lot of fun and got me a lot of great-paying jobs at CNN, ABC News and MSNBC.)   I only have fond memories of Sanchez at MSNBC because back then he was just a benign Ron Burgundy.

  One time I was doing a live segment with him about the upcoming fall TV season. (Full disclosure:  I was probably the only entertainment reporter in the U.S. at the time who almost never watched TV.) Anyway, the segment involved talking about four TV shows, among them Alias, which began the segment.

  After I got through with my take on Alias as well as three other TV shows, Sanchez smiled at me gamely and looked down at his notes:

  “Now then,” he said. “What about this show, Alias?”

  I smiled gamely as well and repeated what I’d just said previously.  The great thing about TV is that if you just act as if everything is all right, people rarely notice the blunders.   Like real life.  Perception=reality.

  It was only a few years ago that Rick and I worked at MSNBC.  Now I’m a resident of France, he’s in between networks (Roger Ailes on line one, Rick!) and America has changed so much in five years that at times I barely recognize it.

  Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself.  I used to identify more with the loose cannons than the Diane Sawyers.   Now I’m not so sure.

  It’s finally autumn in the south of France.   The change of temperatures is suddenly making the lack of chocolate in my life a lot more difficult.

  Sugar’s back to running my network.

  Who’s running you?

  Ta,