On Tuesday, AMC tried a publicity stunt to promote their new horror series about life after zombies take over the world, The Walking Dead. The stunt was to hire actors, have the makeup crew turn them into bloody, ugly zombies, and have them start slouching around major landmarks like the Lincoln Memorial and the Brooklyn Bridge and 24 others around the world.
Of course, zombie movies are now so ubiquitous that I half-figured that a well-conditioned and educated populace would simply roll into action with double-tap headshots and creative use of chainsaws to ensure the continued existence of humanity.
Steve Lindbeck, president and general manager of Alaska station KSKA, expressed similar sentiments. “It struck me as an overreaction,” he told Fox News from Anchorage. “And then I listened online to his comment in context [on the October 18 edition of "The O'Reilly Factor"]…And it didn’t strike me as [being as] difficult as it originally appeared….That’s a problem, where people occasionally don’t look at the context.” Lindbeck said KSKA exceeded its fundraising goals last week, which saw the Williams controversy coinciding with pledge drives at most NPR stations, but added: “I doubt that it was good [for fundraising]….I don’t think it was the most deft handling of the situation.”
No, “deft” is not the first word that springs to mind. [NPR's] Vivian Schiller has thrown herself face-first into an identity politics minefield and can’t stop making snow angels.
