Monday, January 04, 2010

2010 Media-Political-Cultural Predictions (with tongue in cheek)

In the final installment of holiday posts, here are my 2010 predictions:



Friends of Courtney Love -- including former lover Ed Norton -- will stage an intervention, hoping to save the former Hole lead singer from a path of self-destruction.



NewsCorp media mogul Rupert Murdoch will toy with the idea of placing Page Six's content behind a paywall, causing a stir in the gossip entertainment media complex. After much media debate, Murdoch decides not to do it.



Saturday Night Live will spin off Weekend Update (and Thursday Update) to a daily 30 minute format aired on MSNBC. The show will be political satire heavy, hosted by Seth Meyers.



Sumner Redstone will publicly apologize to Howard Stern, going so far as to say that he should have stuck up for the skockmeister against Bush's FCC, in an attempt to lure him back to embattled terrestrial radio, sticking it to his nemesis, Mel Karmazin. Redstone will offer Stern a record contract in mid-2010, in excess of the astonishing $500 million 5-year contract he presently has at XM-Sirius.



Naomi Campbell will become engaged to Russian oligarch Vladimir Dobronin, stirring up thoughtful conversation in Moscow about racism -- and anti-semitism -- throughout the country.



To the suprprise of everyone involved, Sean Penn and Madonna -- older and wiser this time -- will start dating again, sparking hugely premature talks of remarriage (as Liz Rosenberg will remind the media).



Disgraced 2004 Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards will form an exploratory committee to run an insurgent Progressive campaign against President Barack Obama. He will strike a populist tone, brushing off claims that his turgid personal life might be off putting to voters saying, in effect, "I'll let the voters decide whether or not they want me to be their candidate."



Artie Lange, was hospitalized in New Jersey over the weekend, will resign from the Howard Stern show to work out his substance abuse issues. Stern will audition several comedians over the summer to replace Lange, ultimately settling on former Stern show head writer Jackie Martling to the delight of longtime fans.



New York's 23rd District will serve as the template for a intra-party Republican crack-up even as the GOP makes gains in 2010. Mitt Romney will head the center-right coalition, using his book tour as a launching pad to a more national fiscal conservative profile, while Sarah Palin will rally the soaicl conservatives, but get tripped up on the minutiae of fiscal conservative policy.



The Howard Dean-Rahm Emmanuel Frisson will continue throughout much of 2010 with increasing calls from Progressives that Rahm be replaced as Chief of Staff by Dean. By year's end, however, President Obama will appoint Howard Dean a Special Advisor, calming a far left on the verge of bolting.



Mike Tyson will become a strong advocate for African children (beginning in Malawi), drawing upon his own rough experiences as a kid from Brooklyn. By year's end he will become an unlikely UNICEF Ambassador.



Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will spend the year aligning herself closely with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- the most powerful man in Obama's administration -- marrying toughness on the war on Terror with significant diplomatic achievements, making the Vice President the odd man out and setting herself up as Biden's possible replacement in 2012.



By the end of the year The Wall Street Journal will be widely regarded as a better, more competitive paper than The New York Times. Morale at the Gray Lady will be at an all-time low, ending the year with calls from all precincts for the Sulzberger's to sell the paper. David Geffen, Mort Zuckerman, Bloomberg LLC and Warren Buffett will be among the prominent names considering buying the moribund institution.

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