Well, I had a lot to cover in today’s Jamboree edition. But reading the New York Times’ interview with Shari Redstone, where she finally gives us “the truth” on the events of the past couple years, made me feel a big “what the hell is the point?” coupled with an urge to throw my laptop off the roof of my house (to be crushed by a passing ICE convoy, probably).
It’s not that I blame Shari herself for all the issues here. She was put in an impossible situation, and by the time they reached a final decision, there were no good outcomes for anyone. I don’t envy her being in that position, and although I think she took the worst of the possible paths, I’m not fooled into believing that any of them were great.
What is frustrating about the interview isn’t Redstone’s myopia, but an entire system built around self-justifications, circular logic and an inability to see anything bigger than an immediate financial position. Her choices all along the way make total sense and are completely defensible, as long as you don’t believe there was anything bigger at stake.
It’s like we’re living in a world of Mr. Magoo. Every step along the way, there’s a host of institutions so self-absorbed that no one can even look at what’s happening. If Shari had done anything other than what she did, these forces would have come down on her like Thor’s hammer.
Believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was write about this one more time or ever again. But every time you turn over a card here, you’re hit in the face with how pathetic our industry has become and how much — if things go south in a major way for democracy, civilization, anything like that — this will have been a moment in which it was very clear nothing on our part was going to stand in the way of that decline.
And instead of this being an object lesson to turn the tide maybe, just a little, everyone seems determined to sweep this under the rug, shrug, “Oh well!” and move on as fast as possible. Which makes one feel pretty confident that next time, these forces will act in exactly the same way, or worse, because they will have paid not even a social price for this round.
So… if it’s left to me, then once more unto the breach. Let’s have a close look at Shari Redstone’s conversation with the newspaper of record.
Viewing Herself as Victim
I’ll skip over the introductory graphs, recapping Shari Redstone’s tragic journey out of her father's gruesome shadow to finally inheriting a company that, at that point, was probably irredeemable without some kind of change or infusion of capital.
I’ll instead just fast-forward to her sense of victimization and hurt feelings...