So, Frizzelle posted this yesterday, and I was disappointed by commenters’ singleminded focus on (the barbarism/foolhardiness/etc. of) the Afghan war to the exclusion of any obsession over the creepily flirty comportment of this “Lara Logan.” I haven’t watched 60 Minutes since the early 2000s, and in the intervening time it apparently has gone from being musty and serious-ish to having as its chief foreign correspondent a bewitching/frightening/husky-voiced/bizarre-vowels-of-a-U.S.-resident-South-African-having pornbot.
Kindly see 4:58—6:25.
Wasn’t Lara Logan the terrorist president’s pill-poppin’ wife in one of the later seasons of 24?
oh give me a break, Lara has spent tons of time in Afghanistan, filing many good reports from there. But that doesn’t count because she wears makeup and is cute?
Is Smegma a chick or a dude? Whoops, sorry, I meant “Zeugma”.
I can see why you were ashamed to sign your name to this, Zeugma.
This is the stupidest post i’ve ever seen on slog. grow up.
Okay, I watched it. I don’t get your complaint at all. She seems to be a perfectly fine journalist, and does an excellent job here. She didn’t interrupt herself or anyone. Is your problem just that she’s attractive?
Who are you, Zeugma? What is it you seek? Also, welcome to Slog.
You’re saying that comments were too focused on the horrors of war? Were you expecting people to express how smitten they are by a torn soldier’s tears or were you just hoping they’d rip into the reporter for sport?
whats going on? wheres the porn?
Wow, Lara Logan is one of my favorite serious journalists who happens to be an attractive woman. Also, I went to school in South Africa, so I relate to the accent–my American accent got all kinds of fucked up after four years there.
Fuck of Smegma (nice one, @3!) and think of something other than your cock, you big douche.
Smegma,
Lara Logan is a long time field journalist with truck loads of credibility and track record. Your assumptions are based on pure sexism. Sheesh.
She really rather awful. Glenn Greenwald explains.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_…
LJM:
I get that the criticism of Logan is this article is compelling that at some point she became a more establishment tool journalist, if not beginning that way. That doesn’t negate all her work and accomplishments and turn her into a piece of delicious meat.
My memory of her early work is that she often challenged the picture being presented by the Bush administration in her Afghanistan and Iraq reporting. Clearly toeing the line when you are that pretty gets you a much cleaner more lucrative billet – 60 minutes!
cracked: indeed, even Greenwald is complimentary of her previous reporting. But the attitude she displayed in the interview about Michael Hastings is really disgusting. Almost anti-journalism.
LJM:
I remember reading that when it came out and having the same reaction, but the problem wasn’t her being sexy…
Thanks for linking the piece.
I’m sorry, what’s the problem? That she’s hot? Whatever – I think she’s striking an appropriately deferential tone given what this guy did.
My grandpa-in-law got the same award for running directly into machine gun fire from the “Japs” in WWII and stopping them from picking off his fellow soldiers at will. For someone to run directly into enemy fire on behalf of the group is an incredible, hugely-fucking-impressive thing to do. I don’t think it can be trained. It’s just there, or not, and for most of us, not.
I understand why this guy is reluctant to be singled out, but his acts were indeed singular.
1. Click vid
2. See ad
3. Pause vid
4. Check to make sure that yes, I am still at my computer and using the Internet.
5. Move on
@10 What I mean is this: Compare her voice during the voiceover narratives (perfectly normal, reportorial) with her voice during the interview (totally different, and, I think, creepy). If her dramatically altered vocal qualities are meant to be deferential, or if they are characteristic of the put-on intimacy she adopts with all interview subjects, the contrast between the two modes here is to unfortunate effect. Flirtation is justifiably found in the toolkit of many journalists, female as well as male, for finessing relationships with sources and subjects in furtherance of a story. But this particular journalist (not “pretty,” I should note, but having all the charmless, airless, airbrushed blonde anonymity of mainstream porn, and thus being a slightly better looking version of Anytown USA’s plastic teeveenews anchor) seemed to be definitively in flirtation mode when there was no understandable purpose for it. Or maybe she was just afraid of spooking the Staff Sargent?
@ 4 You told me to post anonymously in the first place!
Whoops! Staff Sergeant, not John Signer Sargent.