'Star anchor' Richard Quest 'can't turn the clock back'

[financeguy]

Gareth McLean interviews Richard Quest, the CNN broadcaster, about the 'New York incident' | Media | The Guardian


When I first noticed this article in a prominent place on the front page of the Guardian website, I was initially puzzled. Why, I asked myself, was the UK's foremost left wing newspaper Guardian advancing the career of a US television presenter that has been arrested for a drugs related crime in Central Park? Then I read a bit more about Mr Quest, and it started to become....a little clearer (I should state I watch very little TV, and before reading the article only had the vaguest awareness of who this person is).

It appears that apart from the court-ordered rehab, law breaker Quest has not been required to fill any particular penalty at all, and it doesn't seem to have hurt his career to any great extent.

What does this say, if anything, about contemporary mores in the media, and is this a good or bad thing?

 

[VintagePunk]

I sort of love Richard Quest. Several years ago, he was interviewing a crowd on the street, and was speaking in his comedically loud, bombastic, over the top way, and there was a group of small children nearby. They threw it back to Anderson Cooper in the studio, and Anderson, in his typically dry, tongue-in-cheek manner said "careful Richard, you're going to frighten the children." I still laugh when I think of this.

 

[melon]

(I should state I watch very little TV, and before reading the article only had the vaguest awareness of who this person is).

No worries. I watch a lot more TV, and I've never heard of this guy at all until this article.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Anderson, in his typically dry, tongue-in-cheek manner said "careful Richard, you're going to frighten the children." I still laugh when I think of this.

God I love that man, so much. I miss that AC thread here..

I know who that Richard Quest guy is, they always have him reporting on the royal family and that sort of thing. He seems a bit bat shit crazy . I remember hearing something about some trouble he got in, I guess that was it.

 

[VintagePunk]

I think that his career wasn't damaged because no one really expected him to be an arbiter of morality. As far as I remember, he mostly did fluff pieces - reporting on the royal family and things like that. Given his style and eccentricism, it wasn't a shock that he was a drug abuser. I'm not sure what he even does these days, I don't really tune into CNN on a regular basis anymore, with the exception of their political coverage last year.

God I love that man, so much. I miss that AC thread here..

Did you happen to see this year's New Year's Eve coverage with him and Kathy Griffin? It was hysterically funny.

 

[yolland]

It sounds like Mr. Quest (who I'd never heard of either; then again, I really don't watch TV at all) is himself British, and in fact a former BBC correspondent, which presumably accounts for much of the Guardian's interest.

I'd imagine all this really says about contemporary media is that--as with yesteryear's media--executives confronted with such a situation will take both the conspicuously 'troubled' broadcaster's $tar potential, and the extent of what they figure they can 'get away with' with viewers and sponsors, into account when deciding how to handle it. As for the viewers, this probably disgusted some and merely titillated others, though it does sound like the nature of what he did was more on the order of something which would temporarily shock most people (and perhaps make them shudder with the thought of 'glad my worst mind-altered moments never became public'), as opposed to something which would inspire widespread moral outrage (his crimes involved no harm to anyone else, so far as I can tell).

"...I can see the producers saying, 'Oh that's boring business', and the journalists having to fight to get the stories on-air. What really pisses me off is that my political and international colleagues can get airtime for the tedious minutiae of the politics of some remote part of the world because it's 'geopolitical'."

Right, who cares about the "tedium" of international affairs!

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Did you happen to see this year's New Year's Eve coverage with him and Kathy Griffin? It was hysterically funny.

No but I saw some of it online

I went to a book signing he did for Dispatches From The Edge..when he spoke to me that was it. I was toast. His eyes are really that spectacular.

Sorry...