Lord knows I have been tough on Seth MacFarlane for some of his recent machinations around his animated sitcom Family Guy, but even I know how to conduct a proper interview. This Sunday's NYT magazine featured MacFarlane in its "Questions For" column, but it read more like "Inquistion Of" or "Dressing-Down For" than an interview. And imagine, this column is what the NYT's Deborah Solomon gets paid to do. If you think that CNN's Larry King Live is the most inane softball session ever, than reading this hit piece by Solomon on MacFarlane is the exact opposite. Wow. Just, wow. What a piece of crap. It's one thing to have him address criticism; it's quite another to (as a friend of the blog pointed out to me overnight) use more words telling people they are unfunny (and questioning their sexuality?!) than words they are given to defend themselves. At least the editors gave MacFarlane the last words: "Oh, boy, we're getting deep."
Sean L. McCarthy
Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.
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5 thoughts on “Epic fail?! New York Times “interviews” Seth MacFarlane”
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Have you ever read one of D.S.’s Q&A’s before? This is sort of her jam.
I am learning this about her. Did not realize that the venerable New York Times was paying someone to be, in effect, a heckler?!
And here’s an article that Rachel Sklar wrote for HuffPo about Deborah Solomon’s sketchy tactics back in 2007:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/10/03/new-york-press-raps-debor_n_66969.html
She’s got some real pizzazz, that one!
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14pubed.html
Yeah, the Times’ Public Editor has called her out on interview problems before: “There is a protocol, and ‘Questions For’ isn‚Äôt living up to it.”