Over in cafe Scoiety, fans were talking about the show Wonderfalls. I noted that TWoP had assigned a recapper that openly admitted to hating the show. Oddly, her “racpas” were full of hate. I also noticed a lot of hate for other shows- like Survivor, CSI and etc, whilst ER and West Wing got off *comparitively * easy. :dubious:
I think I found the answer on MSNBC:“Survivor All-Stars” had promised a big surprise to go along with Sunday’s finale, (snip)
There’s even an organized campaign over at Television Without Pity.com (full disclosure: the site’s founders also write for MSNBC.com) to try to send votes to Boston Rob, in the hopes that he’s the only one who can unseat Rupert’s impending millionairedom. Will it work? ". Hmm, they get pay from NBC, and they write biased hatefilled “re-capps” of shows from other Networks. I am shocked I tell you, shocked. :rolleyes:
I have to confess, I never have gotten into TWoP. I started to read some of their synopsis for TV shows, and didn’t like them. Didn’t understand the point.
Does anyone really decide to watch or not watch a show based on what TWoP says? Did FOX give any consideration to TWoP before pulling the plug?
IANAJournalism Ethics Expert but it doesn’t seem to me that freelancing for a website that’s associated with a cable network means that giving bad write-ups to shows on a broadcast network associated with the cable network is necessarily unethical. Nor is trying to swing voting on a show on another network entirely.
Honestly, neither did I, really. I had gone there once, but on one they were talking about Wonderfalls (a show I really liked in a strange way) so I went there to read the Wonderfalls “re-caps”. Never signed up, never posted. Did read a little Survivor stuff when linked from here. The problem is, the site does not indicate in any way shape or form that they are connected to NBC, and the founders are employed by MSNBC. If you are a critic, you owe it to your public to mention even potential conflicts of interest. Which, mind you- MSNBC was ethical enough to do. But not TWoP. Their "re-caps’ are so hypercrital, hatefilled and “snarky”, that their little “ommission” is a major ethical problem.
Well … erm … you did say that it’s Television without Pity, right? “Spark the Snark, Spoil the Network” is their motto, fer cryin’ out loud! Bitchiness about TV is their raison d’etre. And a good job too, most of the time.
ER and WW got off comparitavely easy??? Good God, the mind boggles – I’ve never ready the Survivor or CSI recaps, but I know how vicious* their recappers can be about ER, WW, AI and the rest, so I can imagine that Survivor doesn’t fare much better. (And c’mon now. I can’t really blame them for being meaner to Survivor than to something like West Wing.)
TWoP is a hilarious place. I have to admit that sometimes the recappers and mods there have some seriously bad attitudes, but they’re also extremely intelligent, savagely funny and articulate … as are a good percentage of the posters. I’d put their wit and brains on a par with SDMB, in their fields of expertise.
Anyway, all that said, I find it kinda funny – and I’m not saying that sarcastically, I’m being sincere! – that someone would complain about a website’s meanness right here at Venom Central, aka the SDMB Pit. I kid 'cause I love.
Hmm, you didn’t read the Wonderfalls recap, did you? It wasn’t “snarky” witty or funny, it was pure and simple hate. I guess we disagree on this.
Still, they have an ethical obligation to inform their readers (and supporters) of their clear conflict of interest. They have failed to do so. MSNBC did do so.
“Conflict of interest”? Good God. Dude, TWoP’s recaps aren’t investigative journalism, they’re not even real criticism – they’re freakin’ humor writing and opinion! MSNBC is (allegedly) a news organization, and thus has to make with the disclaimers and whatnot. TWoP is a humor site.
I’m not seeing what “conflict of interest” you’re talking about, anyway. What, are you thinking that TWoP is some kind of subsidiary of NBC just 'cause one or two of the site owners are also freelance writers who have had their work published by (among other entities) MSNBC? They’ve also worked for the Canadian series “Saturday Night.” Is there a big pro-Canadian conspiracy there too? (Well, okay, you got me. They do seem to love Rush.)
Even if TWoP were owned fully by MSNBC – and I’m pretty sure it ain’t – I don’t get what you’re so het up about. NBC’s programs get no free ride. Wasn’t very long ago when one of the recappers (can’t remember her name … Dorothy, maybe? Dolores? Mulva?) would practically call Aaron Sorkin, aka NBC’s darling WW scribe, an anti-Muslim sexist bigot every other week!
Rabid fans of shows who can’t take the heat had damn well better not step foot inside TWoP. No one gets off the hook there. Their Buffy recaps could be positively brutal, even though those who recapped the show probably loved it, and B:TVS was perhaps arguably the most highly acclaimed series and most popular forum at TWoP.
And no, I didn’t read the Wonderfalls recap, because I don’t watch Wonderfalls, and thus I wouldn’t know if the “hate” was earned. Even if it wasn’t … again, it’s an opinion, and the recapper is simply expressing his or hers. Which, along with the humor, is the point of the recaps. Not to regurgitate plotpoints and dialogue undigested.
BTW, are we calling things “hate speech” when they’re aimed at a TV show now? I didn’t get the memo.
The founders aren’t the ones who write the recaps though, are they? They’re always running weekly recaps for at least 20 shows. I wouldn’t think they’d have the time or the creativity to manage that.
The key to really enjoying TwoP is to only read re-caps of shows you don’t like. The whole point of the site is to mercilessly mock TV, and it’s a little hard to get into that with shows in which you have some real emotional investment. I stopped reading their Angel recaps for the reason. But I still go back for their Star Trek re-caps. The one where Kirk gets zapped by a pyramid and thinks he’s an American Indian is priceless.