Nightline's Sweeps Weep?

Wonkette's television and broadcast operative has a beef with Lisa de Moraes's WP TV Column on the "Nightline" fallen soldiers roll call, set for tomorrow night. "Nightline" exec producer, Leroy Sievers, said that the move is the program's attempt to "remind our viewers -- whether they agree with the war or not -- that beyond the casualty numbers, these men and women are serving in Iraq in our names, and that those who have been killed have names and faces." De Moraes's critique: Sievers's explanation was "good to know, otherwise we might be left thinking that Friday's broadcast, which ABC will simulcast on its Jumbotron in New York's Times Square, is a cheap, content-free stunt designed to tug at our heartstrings and bag a big number on the second night of the May ratings race." So subtle we could have written it ourselves.

But would we have been wrong?

Writes the WTBO:

1. i saw that and wondered, is she fucking out of her mind? reading a list of 500 consecutive names, accompanied by still photographs, is a crass ratings grab? i will e-mail you the ratings from that show on monday morning. they will be infinitesimal. because it is exceedingly boring to watch Ted Koppel read a list of 500 names. and leroy sievers knows this.

Boring for viewers, maybe. But Koppel is naked from the waist down.

 On 'Nightline,' a Grim Sweeps Roll Call [WP]