It's Official: The Today Show Is Making Me Crazy

Today was the last straw: I officially hate the Today show. I know it's in the category of "morning television," but I always tune in, hoping against hope, that I'll see, you know, the news. But after the missing women and harmed kids stories, they move right along to "When should I throw stuff in my fridge away?" and the earth-shattering suggestion that if you think your pet is sick, you should see a vet. Then there's a "concert" on the plaza. And for the last few months, a horrible feeling has been building and accumulating inside of me, and if I don't let it out, I'll burst: The absolute worst part of the show is the "reporter" known as Ann Curry.

Ann Curry is the worst. She hems, she haws, she giggles. Words come out of her mouth, but they are strung along in an order that make no sense. It's embarrassing. And on top of her incoherence, in spite of the fact that she is supposedly a journalist, she does not ask questions. Well, sometimes she asks stupid questions. Earlier this week, of Pierce Brosnan on his singing voice in Mamma Mia, she asked, "Where does it come from?" Um, out of his mouth? She asked Natasha Bedingfield the same question today: "Your music. Where does it come from?" Bedingfield was gracious enough to explain how she gets inspired to write songs (Ann was shocked: "You write your own songs?!" Did you do your research, Ann? Read the bio? Or maybe ASK?) If I'd been asked "Your music. Where does it come from?" I'd have said, "The speakers."

Today, Nelson Mandela's birthday, Curry "interviewed" Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and filmmaker David Turnley, who spent 25 years documenting the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. This is, verbatim, Curry's first question for Turnley:

"[Mandela] says in this last clip we just heard, 'It is in your hands now.' And this is the idea in your book the idea that we are now given the baton we now have this legacy."

Turnley barely knows how to respond, but basically just interviews himself and explains the point of his book. Ann follows up thusly:

And that's not all; that's not all. You took these iconic images that show us not just that courage but also… … a man who could despite what he gave up forgave. And I think that was the moment that made people around the world realize that something that we want to believe is possible in all of us."

Wait, what? As seen in the clip above, all the poor man can do is blink. Of all of the questions she could have asked him: "What was your most memorable moment of your quarter of a century in South Africa?" "Did you ever feel that Mandela's life was in danger?" "Did you ever feel that your life was in danger?" "Which, of all of the photographs you've taken, was the toughest to get?" She asks a question that is, in fact, a statement, filled with some kind of breathy faux-gravitas that we're supposed to interpret as sincerity. I wanted to throw my television out of the window. She makes journalism look bad. She makes women in journalism look bad.

And just when I was calming myself down, who should arrive but Kathie Lee and Hoda? Their cackle-filled, weight-loss centric last hour of the Today show veers between mind-numbing, inane and excruciating. And every Friday, they relive the week's exploits through a montage set to "Girls Just Want To Have Fun." These are full-grown women on a news program? Believe me, I want to stab myself (or SOMEONE) in the eyes.

Send an email to Dodai, the author of this post, at dodai@jezebel.com.

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