Photo by DaveofCali (Creative Commons)
Howard Stern isn't gonna like this.
Los Angeles Times reporter James Rainey ripped into Good Day L.A. co-host and friend of The Howard Stern Show Jillian Barberie-Reynolds this Friday in an article discussing a rash of layoffs at Jillian Barberie’s local Fox affiliate. In an article called “Fox 11’s Jillian Barberie untouched as layoffs lay waste to the TV station’s staff,” James Rainey followed his catchy title with a seething puritanical invective in which he demands that Jillian Barberie abandon all open expressions of her sexuality (including those dirty candid interviews on The Howard Stern Show) out of respect to her co-workers being laid off from Fox 11.
Rainey’s logic was all over the map. He first admitted that every media outlet in Los Angeles has been subjected to significant cutbacks due to the flailing economy, and then inexplicably scapegoated Barberie as the problem due to her pressing “the edges of the Fox code of conduct.”
Rainey’s evidence that Jillian Barberie exhibited conduct unbecoming a member of the otherwise honorable and incorruptible news staff at Fox 11? Her willingness to openly talk about her sex life with Howard Stern and her admitted desire to pose for Playboy. Rainey then creepily asserted that Jillian Barberie’s “exhibitionism” may be related to her history of childhood sexual abuse.
“Girl, you’re middle-aged and expecting a second child,” preached Rainey like the angry dad from Footloose. “You are working at a station where dedicated news people are soon to be out of work and suffering. Isn’t it time to grow up, just a little?”
While Rainey’s targeting of Jillian Barberie may be new, the L.A. Times has trashed Howard Stern before. In October 2008, Times staff writer Greg Braxton declared: “the self-proclaimed King of All Media has lost his crown.” Braxton stated that Howard Stern’s move to satellite radio had the resulted in an inability to attract big name stars and a loss of “cultural relevancy” for The Howard Stern Show.
Rainey’s campaign to scapegoat Jillian Barberie for the loss of jobs at Fox 11 seems more than a little sexist. Although Rainey expresses regret that Jillian Barberie won’t “suffer” due to the cutbacks at Fox 11, Barberie may disagree. It’s likely that the Fox’s “star of stars” will be slightly dismayed to learn that at the ripe old “middle age” of 42, she is now too old and too pregnant to talk about dirty, dirty things like sex. Good Day L.A. viewers will likely also be disappointed to know the goofy, laid-back Barberie they’ve been tuning in to see all this time will now be donning a Burka and speculating on nuclear proliferation in North Korea.
Unfortunately for Rainey and other “real reporters,” it seems that many Angelenos are just as filthy and childish as that wicked little tart Jillian Barberie is herself. Even Rainey admits that Jillian Barberie remains one of Fox 11’s biggest draws.
Rainey’s right about one thing: it’s a pretty awful time for journalists when news departments have to cut back 25% of their staff the way that Fox 11 has. What could be worse? Maybe watching a journalist for one of the country’s largest surviving newspapers turn his vitriol over the current state of today’s media against Howard Stern, one of the country’s foremost proponents of free speech and freedom of the press?
The Howard Stern Show returns live on Sirius XM satellite radio on Monday, July 13th.
Read about Jillian Barberie’s controversial appearance on The Howard Stern Show here
Sources:
Los Angeles Times: Howard Stern loses listeners--and influence--on satellite radio by Greg Braxton
Los Angeles Times: Fox 11's Jillian Barberie untouched as layoffs lay waste to the TV station's staff by Jim Rainey
Comments
James Rainey needs to get over himself! He Sounds like he's a jealous little girl not a grown man.
Jillian Barberie is being kept around for some reason right.She brings money in or else she would be gone. Maybe Rainy should put on a pair of pumps and a wig =)
is this guy "sirius" no real gests.. he must really be talking outta his backside..
I may be bar-b-q-ed but at least I am not sexually repressed. What is this guy a quaker?
How does THAT guy retain a job after writing something like that?? How does he have any job at all? He appears to be retarded, not that retarded people shouldn't have jobs but, you know. He seemed to choose to ignore the OBVIOUS reason Jillian is on the air: she speaks to a certain portion of the population. And guess what? Her co-hosts? They speak to their own sections of the population as well. Wow, James Rainey, can you believe that FoxLA wants their morning show to relate to as many audience members as possible? You being a "journalist," and on the fringes of entertainment should be fired for not acknowledging that simple concept. Clearly this guy wants to be mentioned on The Show, just like the LA weatherman that Howard ripped into a couple weeks ago. And as much as I would LOVE to hear Howard rip this guy apart, I really hope he ignores him...wait, what am I saying? I'll trade giving this guy 7 seconds of fame for a good ass rippin'...oof I lost myself there for a second.
Wow. James Rainey reminds me of middle school, when you had to come up with a certain number of words or pages for your book report.
Is that the best he could do? Perhaps he should use his pages to examine why our economy began to tank in the Bush admin and the Obama admin has continued leading the way down.
Or he may just want to leave that to the citizen journalists at infowars dot com.
jillian - u rock, keep making LA smile in the smog.
The Times is already at war with KFI's John and Ken. They really want to get Howard riled up?
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