Via Poynter.org’s Morning MediaWire (click here to get the hyperlinked version):
Personnel advice to CNN: hire Leonardo DiCaprio
He’s well-intentioned on the environment even if he erred in telling the worldwide Oscars audience Sunday that “The Revenant” changed locations due to global warming and an inability to find snow (no, they moved due to a Chinook wind that’s unrelated to atmospheric change). Regardless, Daily Kos suggests that CNN beckon him for its Democratic debate Sunday in Flint, Michigan. (Daily Kos) The aim? Daily Kos says he’d do “what moderators so far have failed miserably at doing, which is to ask Hillary and Bernie a sustained set of questions about climate change.” Well, they haven’t asked many about early education, either, so we might as well beckon Jennifer Garner, since her mom taught school and she’s quite versed in the topic. And, while we’re at it, bring on Bono to inquire about AIDS and awful poverty in Africa. The moderators have missed those topics, too. DiCaprio, Garner and Bono. Imagine those ratings.As for DiCaprio’s roots
At the Oscars, he repeated a refrain about being from East Los Angeles. Not so, says L.A. Weekly. “We would normally let such a white-guy lie slide. But East L.A. represents culture, hardship and ethnic roots that are hard-earned. The unincorporated L.A. County community east and southeast of downtown is a storied heart of Mexican-American California, the place where the Chicano movement pierced the national conscience with student walkouts in 1968, where Garfield High School’s Jaime Escalante taught the children of poor immigrants to excel in math, and where low-rider and cholo style cruised Whittier Boulevard and ended up influencing youths around the world. DiCaprio was a part of none of that, and to claim otherwise is cultural theft.” He was born in New York and did move to L.A. but not the deprived area he intimates. (L.A. Weekly)
