By James H. Burns: Our old friend, long time science fiction fan, Stuart Hellinger, has the headline piece in my old stomping grounds, The Daily News‘ “Voice of the People” editorial page, with this nice commentary on the alleged William Shatner controversy:
A no-win scenario for Shatner
Brooklyn: “Captain Jerk!” (March 1) was one of the most tasteless and disrespectful headlines I have ever seen in the Daily News.
As one of the people who ran the original “Star Trek” conventions in New York City in the 1970s, I had the privilege of meeting William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and many others connected with the show. Yes, Shatner could be difficult. But in general he was a kind and generous individual who has only become more so over the years.
In this case, he had made a commitment to an important charity in Florida for their largest fund-raiser of the year. He could not honor this commitment and still get back to Los Angeles on time for Nimoy’s funeral. I’ll bet he raised even more in tribute to Leonard.
I respect Bill for honoring his commitment to the charity. And knowing Leonard, I am sure he would agree that Bill did the correct, logical and human thing.
Stuart C. Hellinger
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When I heard about the mean tweets I made a donation to the Red Cross online in memory of Leonard Nimoy. It seemed like a more useful thing to do than being nasty.
Shatner once shrugged off an earlier incarnation of this comment, though it may have been through sloppiness:
Fan letter: “Dear Captain Jerk. How is Mr. Spark?”
Shatner: “Still plugging along.”
🙂
I don’t understand. It wasn’t like Shatner was seen in a bar hanging out with drunken women after saying he couldn’t make Nimoy’s funeral.. I was puzzled by the NYC News’ stance. Seems like they’re becoming more like the NY Post each day…
Robert, for quite a number of years now the News and the Post have been engaged in a race to the bottom.
A few years ago, someone placed a bunch of papers, one stack of the POST and one stack of the NYC Daily news. The Post was free. You paid for the NYC News. No one took the post, but paid for the NYC Daily News.
Of course, that was a few years ago, before some editor at the Daily News decided the Kardoucheians were news of some kind.
In many ways, the Daily News has gone downhill in the last few years, since they had their “price war”. They haven’t stooped as low as the New York Post. Yet. It takes a lot of effort to go as low as a Rupert Murdoch owned newspaper.
The News continued to bash Shatner on Monday and Tuesday.