The 2018 T Dog Media Turkey Awards
Welcome to the 13th annual T Dog Media Turkey Awards – celebrating the worst in media, sports, and life in general. We have 20 recipients this year just waiting to get their hands on these Golden Gobblers. And the losers are:
President Trump. Well, duh.
Megyn Kelly. NBC signed this former Fox News star for $69 million to get her own weekday 9 a.m. hour only to get canned for saying blackface “was okay when I was a kid”. Even those who went to high school with her in the Albany, N.Y. area in the 1980s begged to differ. ‘Bye girl.
Bill Maher. He should have been on this list last year for him saying the “n” word, so let’s make up for lost time as he criticized fans of Stan Lee after his death. But its par for the course at HBO, who also let Larry Merchant keep his job after making racially insensitive comments.
Mike Francesca and Entercom New York. After retiring, the WFAN sports radio host “changes his mind” and decides “unretire”, replacing his replacements as the ongoing feud between him and the rest of WFAN’s on-air staff speaks to a lack of leadership at Entercom New York. And you can say Francesca has some influence given WGN-TV news director Jennifer Lyons did the exact same thing.
Roseanne Barr. Sending a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett sunk her show (now reincarnated as The Conners without her) and later claimed she didn’t know Jarrett was African-American. What a maroon!
ABC. Though any one of the five broadcast networks deserve this honor, ABC wanted it more given they have been in fourth place for years. As a result, Channing Dungey was shown the door last week.
B96. The once-cutting edge station plunges in the ratings and thought the solution to its woes was hire one-time competitor Drex in morning drive. In the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that working out for ya?”
Les Moonves. One of television’s most successful executives goes down in flames due to…what else? Sexual harassment charges.
Kanye West. The Chicago-born rapper embraces the darkside – Darth Dumbass in the White House and sees his career nosedive. Make Kanye Great Again!
Chicago White Sox. How’s the rebuild going? Don’t ask.
Chicago Bulls. See above.
Chicago Blackhawks. This team hasn’t been on this list in years, but firing a three-time Stanley Cup Champion coach – not to mention a lackluster record will put you here.
Sinclair Broadcasting. The Maryland-based broadcaster forced its anchors to read a form-letter like script decrying “fake news” – interpreted as promoting propaganda. And due to the weight of their sheer arrogance, their $3.9 billion deal with Tribune Media collapsed.
Mark Konkol. The Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist (sorry, I can’t stop laughing at the thought) lasted less than two weeks as publisher of the Chicago Reader after approving a racially-insensitive cartoon showing Governor-elect J.B. Pritzker blowing black smoke on a lawn jockey amid questionable leadership at the paper. Getting canned sooner than a lame network sitcom is quite an accomplishment.
Michael Ferro. He bails out of “tronc” with a $15 million consulting fee – just in time as sexual harassment charges against him were published in Vanity Fair.
Hawk Harrelson. The now-retired White Sox broadcaster had a parting shot at LeBron James on “Hawk Harrelson Day”: “Well, I used to watch LeBron but no more. I wish these guys would keep their nose out of politics and just play because people didn’t come to hear their opinions on politicians.” And you wonder why no one bothered to tune in to see his final broadcast. Bye, bro.
The Alec Baldwin Show. Doomed from the start, watching Alec Baldwin interview celebs in a quiet setting was a total snoozefest. Obviously, network execs failed to learn from the failure of similar efforts hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and Lauren Hutton.
I Feel Bad. The title of this NBC sitcom sums up the series’ quality in a nutshell.
Jessica Jones. Once a great show, the Marvel drama took the term “sophomore slump” to a new level as the second season of this show went completely off the rails with terrible storylines, uninteresting new characters, and completely unrealistic situations (such as Trish quitting her radio show on the air.) “It’s Patsy” all right.
Iron Fist. Not sure why many people thought the “second season” was better than the first. If they criticized the first, then why did they return for the second? Doesn’t matter, the show got shitcanned along with Luke Cage as the Marvel Netflix Universe is finally running out of gas given Disney is taking its Marvel properties to its own streaming service.
Happy Thanksgiving!