OLD Media Moves

One nugget on Fox Business Network

October 23, 2007

Posted by Chris Roush

Amid the heavy makeup and tight clothing worn by its female anchors and reporters and Neil Cavuto‘s pouting is one nugget at Fox Business Network, writes Troy Patterson on Slate.

Dave RamseyPatterson wrote, “Meanwhile, David Asman, host of America’s Nightly Scoreboard, has spent a disproportionate volume of time discussing matters related to Stephen Colbert, and Cody Willard, who trades flirty banter with Gomez on Happy Hour, needs to tuck his shirt in. Broadcast from a bar at the Waldorf-Astoria, Happy Hour arrives billed as the show ‘where Wall Street meets rock and roll.’ Its visuals go heavy on canted angles and shaky camerawork, as if we’re seeing it through the eyes of a broker loaded on Johnnie Walker Blue and preparing to sexually harass something. Its first guest, a private-equity investor and former Reagan-administration economist, casually advocated the assassination of Vladimir Putin.

“Amid all of these pandering stunts and all this spicy nonsense, one program, The Dave Ramsey Show, stands as a beacon of sanity. It’s a personal-finance show, but Ramsey, a Nashville-based radio host, abjures the drill-sergeant manner and personal-trainer vibe of CNBC’s Suze Orman. The structure is evangelical: Sinners call in to confess their misadventures with car loans and credit cards, and Ramsey preaches his gospel of fiscal responsibility with many a down-home metaphor. ‘We don’t sell microwave ovens,’ he said last week, encouraging a caller’s patience in ridding herself of debt. ‘We sell crockpots.’ Alone among his new colleagues, Ramsey is pushing a useful product. He’s an anomaly on Fox Business, a network thus far devoted to selling itself.”

Read more here.

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