The Fluff Factor: Today’s Journalism  Sit back, grab a martini,
and join Walter Brasch as he watches the Today Show  Mass media,
mass communications, journalism, television, broadcast
journalism, TV news, Dan Rather, Hoda Kotb, Kathie Lee Gifford,
 It makes no difference what the color is.   Plain or polka-
dotted.   Painted or sequined.    Just as long as it can be
stuffed into their mouths.   When their mouths are open, the
personality-drenched hosts of NBC’s fourth hour of “Today” are
swilling cocktails, blathering about themselves, or interrupting
their guests.   It makes no difference who the guest is.
Cookbook or romance author. Relationships or nutrition expert.
A-list actors. No one gets more than a couple of seconds without
cross-talk with one or both of the hosts. They may think it’s
funny. Or, maybe, like authors who are sometimes paid by word,
or doctors who are given bonuses for scheduling myriad lab
tests, these babblers have to justify their seven-figure annual
incomes by the jabber rate o