Piers Morgan Is Not What He PromisedIN the two months leading to his take-over of the Larry King mantle as CNNs top talkshow host, Piers Morgan threatened he would ask interviewers irritating questions and would demand answers. You could call me nosy, he warned, even call me British, but dont call me boring. Morgan isnt exactly boring. But he is not as amazing as he claimed he was. He let it go easily when Oprah Winfrey decided she wasnt going to talk about her wealth. He was so star-struck in the presence of George Clooney that he couldnt readily follow up the actors answers. And if he was the pleasantly irritating journalist that he claimed he was, he could have gotten more out of Condoleeza Rice than the glib remarks about the non-mistakes in attacking Iraq. Morgan is not the relaxed headmaster-typethat Larry King playedwho often, with his easy style, got more than his interviewees were ready to give. And unlike Christiane Amanpour, he is not insistent on staying on the script, collecting as much information on a particularly topical subject, at least for illumination, and broader perspective, if not for scoop. So he has so far been a lightweight, much more comparable with the bland Anjali Rao, who handles CNNs Talk Asia, than, say, Becky Anderson. He could redeem himself by pretending to be more of the showman than the journalist. At least he got the blogosphere chatting about Ms Rices marital status. At CNN, you could make a career of being an empty shell with a loud presence. Afterall, Richard Quest, the stations chief showman, had the worlds top political and business leaders at his beck and call at the World Economic Forum in Davos and he got nothing worth a post-interview discussion out of any of them. The best he could do for his all-expense paid trip was to show how excellent the resort was for skiing. Worries About Reading Habits Are Centuries OldWith just about every teenager seemingly focused on facebook and twitter, it is easy to assume that the campaign for more widespread reading of extensive narratives is far more urgent today than ever before. But theres evidence that the concern about the publics poor reading habit is over 200 years old. Take a look at Adam Smiths The Wealth Of Nations, a book written about 250 years ago. There were fears, when it was published in 1776, that such a book with profound analysis of society would be widely ignored because the general public was disposed to giving very little attention to such work. On the eighth page of the 1997 edition of the book, now on sale at the Hub Media at the Palms Mall in Lekki, Lagos, Smiths publisher, Strahan, was quoted as expressing surprise that the sales of the book had been much more than he could have expected from a work that requires much thought and reflection(qualities that do not abound among modern readers) to peruse to any purpose. Manthia Dawara In Hadley Chase ModeWhy would Manthia Diawara disclose that he bribed a hotel receptionist with a hundred US dollars to get a room in a Hotel, in such an important book with a global import, as African Film: New Forms Of Aesthetics and Politics, his new work Is he deliberately playing the game of identity politics when he writes that They had just given rooms to two White men ahead of me.., or I could see a White woman taking laps up and down the swimming pool Why describe people by the colour of their skins Would a simple reference to the men as, say two mid-aged men , have reduced significantly from the point he is trying to make Is this African scholar, working in a predominantly white establishment (hes a professor of comparative literature and film and director of the institute of African American affairs at the New York University), seeing things we dont see and trying to tell us something For whatever its worth, some anecdotes and turns of phrase chip away at the respect that this very significant book should command. Mabogunje Invites Deep Pockets To Support ArtsThe poet and theatre patron Toki Mabogunje has called on deep pockets, to get in aid of the arts. At a recent dramatization of The Duet, a collection of poems she and her son had published, Mabogunje told a gathering of well -heeled Lagosians, who filled the 350-seater Agip Hall of the Muson Centre, to consider putting back into society by supporting the contemporary arts of the country. Everywhere in the world, it is the wealthy in society who put in money to fund this or that artist, Mabogunje said. Believe me, she said, this experience has made me see the challenges artists are dealing with in our society. There is nothing in it. The dramatisation of The Duet was directed by William Ekpo, who brought up the idea to transform those cold texts into live performance on stage. Mabogunje then decided she might as well produce a drama for her 50th birthday and deliver the proceeds to charity. It cost the Mabogunjes (She and her husband, Seun) more than N3m to fund and the proceeds from the three performances are to go to the Sickle Cell Foundation.Compiled by staff of Festac News Press Agency
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