Wednesday, May 21, 2014

How To Get Better Ratings (And A Spot On FOX): Go Hypocritical, Homophobic and Victimized





“When parents do not have a choice about whether or not they want their children to see this, it is wrong… I don’t call it a moment of celebration… It’s being pushed in faces. I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to see cake in your face, kissing each other,”


My Texas Today:

This down home girl not only strives to be the best but also to bring the best out in others around her. She doesn’t let any grass grow under her feet. A graduate of SMU, a full-time wife and mother of three believes that life is short and doing what you’re called to do, is doing what you love.
MyTexasToday was created out of sheer desire to promote the great state and pursue her dreams of sharing on-air.

Never trust rich people dabbling at a "career". Especially rich children of scamvangelists.

Amy Kushnir created a small (but rating-lucrative) firestorm when she walked off a Dallas- Forth Worth morning show after discussing Michael Sam's ESPN kiss. She decried the in-your-faceness of it all and said that children, families should not be "forced" to see it. Social media reacted negatively, so Amy got a spot on FOX, naturally, to expound on her family values.

Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God.com got suspicious of such righteous indignation and found out that Amy Kushnir is the daughter of Robert Tilton, the televangelist who was one of the first "prosperity preachers" to be investigated.

It appears that anti-gay Dallas television host Amy Kushnir, who is so terribly outraged by Michael Sam's kiss, is the daughter of legendarily disgraced scamvangelist Rev. Robert Tilton, whose multi-million dollar grifting empire first crumbled in the early 90s following an exposé by ABC News. Christian Nightmares points us to this 2011 post on the televangelists watchdog blog Snake Oil, which refers to Kushnir as "Amy Tilton Kushnir."
Interestingly enough, Jervis also points out that bios of Kushnir (like the one above) are exceedingly thin and never mention the father-daughter connection. Check out "My Texas Today" (Kushnir's home page). Her blog is almost non-existant (last post - February and quite innocuous). Her blogger bio simply says "wife. mamma.foodie.girlfriend." Her biggest achievement outside the home is a slim, spiral-bound cookbook - Red Dirt Recipes - which has a whopping 47 recipes. She hosts a radio foodie program and hosts on KTXD's The Broadcast, a "The View"-like local show. In February, Amy played host to the famous Chippendales, fanning her face constantly, apparently unaware that she looked ready to have an orgasm - not very family friendly programming. 

The fluff bios, the inexperience, the amateurish attempts at social media all seem to point to a bored, spoiled, 43 year-old woman playing at being something - anything.

Was It All About Amy ... And Ratings?

Before the show of family values righteousness, even FOX News would have said, "Who the hell is Amy Kushnir?" With flimsy bios negating her childhood, it's no wonder Amy Kushnir was kept exceptionally local. The fact that she is host of The Broadcast, however, might be due to the history of the station KTXD (formerly KTAK) which started out as the "flagship station" for PromiseLand Television Network.

KTXD was not very well known either, but obviously loved the attention it got from the walk-out:

KTXD-TV started the The Broadcast in February 2013 as an opinion-based show. We selected five hosts who represent a subset of the vast, diverse community that we serve, and we encourage them on a daily basis to share their personal opinions on a variety of topics.

On Tuesday, May 13, that topic happened to be Michael Sam’s draft day kiss and the controversy it was generating. The debate between our four hosts that day got unusually heated and ended with one host – Amy Kushnir – leaving the set. Ms. Kushnir’s action was a signal of frustration on her part, as she felt she was unable to express her own views correctly.

While KTXD-TV neither supports nor condemns opinions shared by our hosts, we stand behind both The Broadcast and Ms. Kushnir. We wholeheartedly stand behind our hosts right to voice their opinions as an integral part of our program. We have clearly ruffled feathers, and in doing so we hope we have advanced the dialogue on this important issue.

The "Important issue" could be ratings. It seems that KTXD was left out of a massive Gannet buy-out.
wikipedia:
On May 14, 2014, the Gannett Company announced the purchase of six of London Broadcasting's Texas television stations for $215 million. London exempted KTXD and Longview sister station KCEB from the deal.
London kept KTXD, but never mentioned if Gannet wanted it or not. Hmmm... And looking at that representation of the "vast, diverse community" on The Broadcast one would never guess that Texas has any African-Americans or Hispanics.

Texas Born, Texas Proud. We Are Texas. 
That's London Broadcasting's signature slogan. We get the picture.
A Media Star Is Born!

Since Kushnir's walk out generated almost as much attention as "the kiss" itself, FOX News picked it up and gave Amy's crusade for family values a boost: on FOX, Kushnir said that she received hate mail and death threats too horrible to mention on air.* 

To recap: spoiled daughter of a disgraced televangelist gets bored, produces lame self-published cookbook, gets into minor-league media, gets righteous about a televised gay kiss and snags an interview on FOX. Got that?


Gay Family Values puts it in perspective:



*While it is possible to receive death threats these days from anyone via social media, I doubt most gay people wouldn't go that far. "SNAP!' would be about as close to a threat as they could muster. Either that, or "Go suck a Chippendale, bitch!" 

Author's Note: Kushnir's personal story (actually Robert Tilton's story) may be a good lead-in to the next installment of Billionaire Jesus. Stay tuned y-all. 



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