[Wright is right!]

It really is amazing what you see and hear when working IN the media. You learn things that you NEVER print or put on the air - but gain context from nonetheless. Things like this become what are called "well-known secrets." There isn't a media market in the country that doesn't have its share of "who's boinking whom" and people who cling to elevated pay grades despite performing yawningly pedestrian work. Everyone in the media knows and knows whom, how, and why. You don't say anything because to do so is a career-killer.

Bob Greene always amazed me with his dazzling ability to churn out wretchedly-ordinary 8th-grade book-report prose and earn a big-city paycheck for it. To paraphrase an old radio buddy who now does mornings in Vegas, it's as if Bob sat down one day and wrote ONE very long column...and each deadline, he'd just hack off a piece of it and turn it in. Like another chorus of "Hey, Jude." Or "Second verse, same as the first," from "Henry The Eighth" by Herman's Hermits.

There was, in 1968, a DJ on WKNR in Detroit named Bob Greene (same spelling) who did on radio pretty much the same thing the columnist did in the paper - sound bland as tapioca and get paid for it. I always wondered if they were the same guy.

I just hope Greene has some bucks in his 401-k.

Michael

[IncPen]

Great post.

There were alot of things 'known, not shown'.

For instance, before Micahel Jordan was 'the man', he was a new player on the Bulls who got a girl in trouble. His manager told him, as an up and comer, that he should marry her, and he did. But rumors abounded after the marriage.

I knew women who were hit-on by Clinton and Jesse Jackson, and sports heroes now departed who were less than holy.

There is a clique that knows, to be sure, but not all of it is bad.

Oprah Winfrey was pretty much as presented (genuine, friendly and generous) in my experience