Harry Truman famously said about Republicans - when he was urged to "Give 'em hell, Harry" - "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."
I thought everybody knew this. Apparently not Dylan Ratigan, who in a promo for his show on MSNBC, just attributed a mangled version of the quote not to Harry Truman but Theodore Roosevelt, of speak softly and carry a big stick fame.
Boos not only to the usually more erudite Ratigan, but his producers, or the producers of this promo, over at MSNBC. One or more of these people either wrote the line for Ratigan, or if he said it on his own, his producers not only failed to catch the mistake but saw fit to highlight it in a promo for Ratigan's show.
News anchors and producers are only human. Of course they get things wrong on occasion, just as do professors (my profession). But this rises to a new level of, well, ignorance and/or carelessness. We deserve a little better in our promos.
*Note added 13 July 2010: Well, it's good to see that someone at MSNBC is paying attention to bloggers - I just heard the Ratigan promo, and Harry Truman was dubbed in to replace Theodore Roosevelt!
1 comment:
Thanks. I thought I was going crazy. I caught it right off, but the next time I saw the promo, the dub in had been inserted.
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