Urban Gardner Comes to NY1

Monday, 01 October 2012 | by Pat's Picks

Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s Ralph Gardner Jr. came down to the NY1 studios to interview me and my colleagues and have a look around. The occasion? NY1’s 20th anniversary. His column was included in my In the Papers round-up that morning, so naturally, I had him give his own synopsis on air. Gardner devotes much of his column to the uncomfortable experience of being put on the spot and hearing about it all day from those who watched. And he also writes about NY1’s status as a 24-hour fixture in New York: “How can I put this without sounding underappreciative?...You’d be heartbroken if it ever went missing, but you’ve grown to take it for granted.” Gardner goes on to say some really nice things about the station, which describes as “more indispensible with the years, especially as the rest of television has seemed to become increasingly less so. It’s a throwback to an era when it was assumed that the reason viewers turned on the news was for information, not spin.” Is it me, or does that sound like he’s angling for a repeat cameo?