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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Wolf Blitzer in Retirement

"I heard a ping."


It is the year 2040. Wolf Blitzer, long retired from CNN, sits in his study surrounded by his countless awards for broadcast excellence. His days vary little now. Hour after hour he sits in front of his TV watching CNN's 24-hour coverage for the search of Malaysian Airlines 370.  His successors in the Situation Room still throw questions at their several panels of experts who are discussing pings (that stopped back in April 2014), the depths of the Indian Ocean, and reports that the plane landed on an island in the Indian Ocean and the passengers and crew are all still alive.*



"Hello? Calling CNN. Calling CNN. Come in, Wolf"

Just last week, Wolf was invited to sit in at CNN as they talked about the missing plane. He sat there thinking to himself that some of these pilots on the panel weren't even born when he was reporting the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370. What do they know? After the show, they took Wolf back home, thanked him, and tucked him into bed.

So day after day, Wolf sits in front of the TV and waits for that next ping-the ping that never comes.

* You laugh. Just this week, two Saudi students at UC Irvine told me that the plane had been discovered last week in Afghanistan and everybody was alive. When I asked where they heard it, they said it was in the news  (probably Al Jazeera). I am not making this up.

3 comments:

Miggie said...

Thank goodness Al Jazeera found out what happened. Hopefully they will share it with the other networks. Did your two Saudi students explain why that hasn't happened yet?
One thing they are good at is completely ignoring past misrepresentations and moving on as though nothing happened.
Let us know if they ever refer to this "plane is in Afghanistan" story again or what they say about it if you remind them what they said.

The last time I watched CNN they had a NEWS ALERT that there was no new news on the event! They will probably be using the same banner in 2040.

Siarlys Jenkins said...

Most community studies majors at UC - Santa Cruz are too young to remember, but I know exactly who is pictured in front of that Malaysian Airlines plan you spliced into the background.

Not bad at all.

Gary Fouse said...

I got it in my email. It's not mine, but I didn't know who to credit.