I saw the dustup of the last few days concerning the tweet sent out by Bill Weir of CNN. If you are like me, you had no idea who Bill Weir is or that he works at CNN. It turns out that Weir is a washed up news reader (he used to be at ABC) who has turned in dismal performances at CNN. In May, he actually set a record for having the second lowest rating of any prime time show over the last 15 years at CNN. Of course, that was back when he hosted an evening show. Weir's ratings disaster was not an aberration; he had consistently very low ratings at CNN. One thing that Weir did often on air was to attack Fox News Channel and its viewers, a practice that led the head of FNC, Roger Ailes, to describe Weir as "weird" and "mediocre".
Two days ago, Weir went into another attack on Fox and its viewers. In response to a tweet sent on the Fox Nation twitter feed that made fun of the fact that a group affiliated with Al Gore was going to a hearing on global warming in Colorado and planned to hand out ice cream cones outside the event even though the forecast was for cold temperatures in the 50's, Weir went on the attack. He tweeted the following to Fox Nation [my apologies for the language]:
"Weather is not climate, you willfully ignorant fucksticks."
He really said that. Ailes was right. Weir is weird. It is hard to imagine that a reporter would send out that tweet on a number of scores. First, it is unlikely to win him any new audience. Second, it puts pressure on his network to keep him off the air or to fire him. There is just no upside to this but there is a major downside.
Not surprisingly, a day and a half later, Weir apologized for his tweet. It does not really matter. He will always be that reporter who sent that tweet.
My guess is that Weir was just showing his personal frustration at his own career. He clearly is going nowhere and can't even make it at CNN. Now, he knows that Fox is trying to buy Time Warner (which owns CNN) so Weir may soon report to Roger Ailes who thinks Weir is weird and mediocre. Weir may be moving soon from a dead end career to the end of his career. I can understand why that would make him bitter. Who knows, maybe they are hiring at Al Jazeera America.
Two days ago, Weir went into another attack on Fox and its viewers. In response to a tweet sent on the Fox Nation twitter feed that made fun of the fact that a group affiliated with Al Gore was going to a hearing on global warming in Colorado and planned to hand out ice cream cones outside the event even though the forecast was for cold temperatures in the 50's, Weir went on the attack. He tweeted the following to Fox Nation [my apologies for the language]:
"Weather is not climate, you willfully ignorant fucksticks."
He really said that. Ailes was right. Weir is weird. It is hard to imagine that a reporter would send out that tweet on a number of scores. First, it is unlikely to win him any new audience. Second, it puts pressure on his network to keep him off the air or to fire him. There is just no upside to this but there is a major downside.
Not surprisingly, a day and a half later, Weir apologized for his tweet. It does not really matter. He will always be that reporter who sent that tweet.
My guess is that Weir was just showing his personal frustration at his own career. He clearly is going nowhere and can't even make it at CNN. Now, he knows that Fox is trying to buy Time Warner (which owns CNN) so Weir may soon report to Roger Ailes who thinks Weir is weird and mediocre. Weir may be moving soon from a dead end career to the end of his career. I can understand why that would make him bitter. Who knows, maybe they are hiring at Al Jazeera America.
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