Shook the Spot

Rupert Murdoch gets top billing in New York's list of "The Influentials" in media . . . the fwavlosphere, inexplicably, goes unmentioned . . . but an accompanying piece explicating Murdoch's influence is not convincing. As follows, the second-person blurb annotated with Shook's actual reality . . .

You get up early and switch on Fox News for Your World With Neil Cavuto [NBC for the Today show] and catch the end of an O’Reilly Factor repeat [a new Ellen]; he’s hawking “The Spin Stops Here” golf balls [American Express]. Flip to Good Day New York [Today in New York], then grab the Post [the Daily News] for the subway—check out that “Page Six” ["Lowdown"] item on The Simple Life [okay, well, probably Murdoch]. At work, update your MySpace page [Facebook], search for a better job at SimplyHired.com [huh?], then pop to the newsstand for the Times of London [nope!], the Sun (National Rugby League scores—sweet!) [nope!], and the Weekly Standard (to see what Tony Snow’s White House pals are thinking) [nope!]. Your FoxSports.com Fantasy Football draft is coming up—study the prospects at Scout.com [nope!]. Then chat with the cute sales rep from HarperCollins about How I Met Your Mother (using flirting tips from AskMen.com; so much better than The Game) [nope, nope, and nope!]. Say, maybe she wants to catch a film: How about The Sentinel [didn't even think about seeing it]? Meh—RottenTomatoes.com [A.O. Scott of The New York Times] says it’s a poor man’s 24 [David Blaine: Drowned Alive]. So you head home alone—you need to catch up on The Shield [something better's probably on HBO]. Too bad your DirectTV’s [actually, yeah, but TiVo does recording, not DirectTV] been acting up—it didn’t record M*A*S*H [didn't that go off the air last century?] or Boston Legal [Conviction]. Your buddies in England and India never have problems with BSkyB Or Star [what buddies in England and India?]. You could always rent a flick: Napoleon Dynamite [okay, fair enough] or Alien [nope!]? Though you should finish Freakonomics [actually, opted for the briefly recurring column in The New York Times Magazine], and Mom’s been pushing The Purpose-Driven Life [nope!]. But you can’t put down Nicole Richie’s The Truth About Diamonds [nope!]! Finish it, then surf IGN.com [IGWhat?] for dirt on next summer’s Halo movie [Shook would sooner spend a weekend in hell than watch anything related to a videogame about killing people]. Whoa, there’s a Website that lets you do karaoke online [?]! Then check the TV Guide Channel [tv.yahoo.com]: Hey, a Buffy [West Wing] rerun on Channel 9 [Bravo]! Wait: Isn’t tonight a new episode of American Idol [The Office]? D’oh! [Your Moment of Zen . . . ]

So it seems Shook is more of a Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves kind of guy . . .