Heartless Self-Promotion

American television strikes a new low this morning, when ABC’s infotainment program Good Morning America legitimises the selfish ramblings of a stupid old British man attempting to promote a future novel.

Peter Houghton has been living with a Jarvik 2000 cardiac implant for seven years, and now claims that the device which augments his heart has robbed him of the ability to emote. He says that while being intellectually aware of the love he feels for his family, he is unable to bond with them in a meaningful way. I’m sure his two grandkids just love hearing that.

[they] are gorgeous little boys, but when you come down to it, they’re not going to remember you very much. So automatically you sort of think, there isn’t anything I can do about this. Not going to get too hurt about it. You give them hugs and the usual things. You just don’t feel — they’re not part of my life, you know what I mean?

The producers of Good Morning America dubiously legitimise this trash by labeling the story ‘a GMA medical mystery - the real Tin Man’, complete with snippets of the Wizard of Oz and some pseudoscience attempting to justify the airtime they’ve given this arsehole.

At the end of the story, almost as an acknowledgement of journalistic idiocy, they mention that Peter is writing a science fiction novel. Presumably it will read like an annual report given Peter’s lack of ‘heart’.

Though GMA is by far the worst offender, they’re not the only ones. The story was reported by the Washington Post amongst a number of other supposedly reputable news outlets. To my mind the only story here is that people are taking this so seriously. Luckily by the time GMA aired here someone far more balanced and reasonable than the Washington Post (can you believe I wrote that and meant it?) had already blogged about it. Yay for the Internet.

You can read more about Peter’s remarkable plight on the Jarvik Heart website. The irony of all this is that his case is quite fascinating, while the man himself is nothing more than an opportunistic old codger.