Poker story on 60Minutes Wednesday

[SoftcoreRevolt]

The Rather bashing makes me so sad when I look out on the utter wasteland that is TV news to see one man's credibility destroyed for one stupid story when the rest of television barely can be characterized as news anymore.

[toots]

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The Rather bashing makes me so sad when I look out on the utter wasteland that is TV news to see one man's credibility destroyed for one stupid story when the rest of television barely can be characterized as news anymore.

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Remember:

It's only bias when you disagree with them.

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[italianstang]

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Why not? If the goal is to attract more contributors to the table, who better to be the mouthpiece than a former "nobody" who burst onto the scene (regardless of whether he's a good player)?

I mean, I don't know/care/want to discuss whether MM is a good player. The human story is what gets all the fools with money to the poker table, and MM's is one of the better stories around for serving that purpose.

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Bingo. Nobobdy speaks more the common guy out there than MM. Having him be the face of poker is very good for the better players IMO.

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The problem is not whether or not he is a good performer. The problem is not even whether or not he is someone that the audience can hopefully identify with, its that he is not very well spoken. He comes off sounding awkward on television which makes him hard to listen to.

Hopefully though he will point out a bunch of "online tells" that he knows and that will get a bunch of bored guys thinking they can have an edge in poker if all they do is download the program and learn the rules, new players at least...

[MicroBob]

If it was a 3-hour interview than I would assume they will have some moments where moneymaker is okay.

I'm not the biggest Moneymaker fan in the world but I would much rather have him doing this for the Joe 6-pack reasons than a lot of other people.

Do you really want Phil Gordon on there babbling away about whata great game poker is? Do you really want 'poker ambassador' Mike Sexton rambling about it?


Moneymaker IS the common-man who hit it big.
Far more potential poker-players will identify with moneymaker than a lot of other people they could have interviewed.



Additionally...his story was HUGE....and it's what most of the common-folk know about the WSOP.
It was Moneymaker's success when ESPN expanded their coverage to more than just the final-table that helped continue the surge of the poker-boom.




FWIW - I'm as liberal as they come politically and I think Rather is a waste of space.
I've been anti-Rather LONG before the whole deal that ended up costing him his job.

I would much rather see ANYONE but Rather doing this segment... but I suppose it indicates how much CBS is playing this up that they had their 'top' guy doing the story.

[MicroBob]

Pokerstars is really going to benefit from this it sounds like.

I wonder if it is effectively going to be a 30-minute commercial for Pokerstars on network television.

Something like this could actually help Pokerstars overtake PartyPoker. Will be interesting to see.

[SoftcoreRevolt]

I fully agree Rather is biased, I just think he does really good interviews and reporting.

[Nagoo81]

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Something like this could actually help Pokerstars overtake PartyPoker. Will be interesting to see.

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Wait...you telling me those Moneymaker/Raymer commercial spots aren't doing the job?

[carpe2k]

As popular as poker has become, they could have Andy Rooney interview Moneymaker and people would still tune in.
Sadly "REAL NEWS" died many years ago.

[etgryphon]

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I fully agree Rather is biased, I just think he does really good interviews and reporting.

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That's an oxymoron...

-Gryph

[feelixthegreek]

Personally, I'd like to see Charlie Rose do the interview. Long, rambling pontifications punctuated by dramatic pauses where Moneymaker will think it's his turn to speak, only to have Rose reformulate his already incomprehensible question. If Farha had Rose's ability to befuddle, he would have broken Moneymaker down and made that "crazy call."