Meet Ronan Farrow, America's Newest, Strangest Princeling

This is all very strange.

I don't get this. Do you? If you get this, let me know.

The baby-faced Farrow, whose parentage has been the subject of much speculation, sometimes seems to be more fame and prestige than flesh and bone. From a young age, he’s had no problem attracting the sort of people who prize those qualities. They pop up throughout the many public accounts of his brief life.

There was Holbrooke, a loyal friend of Mia Farrow’s who hired Ronan as a speechwriter when he was 15. There is Holbrooke’s formidable widow, the journalist and socialite Kati Marton, the ex-wife of Peter Jennings. There is Diane Sawyer, Holbrooke’s ex-girlfriend, who is now advising Farrow. “I’ve told him, ‘If there is anything you want to do that I have a cautionary tale about, I’ll be there.’” Sawyer told the New York Times.

And there is Hillary Clinton, who, upon Holbrooke’s death, “took Ronan under her wing.”

Farrow has these people to thank for most of the jobs and awards that adorn his résumé. Marton last year presented him with the Richard C. Holbrooke Award for Social Justice. The New York Times’ profile featured Farrow receiving an award from a foundation that aids Holocaust survivors. Last week, after just three days on the air, Farrow picked up the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Exploration and Journalism at an event at the Princeton Club in midtown Manhattan.

...

Holbrooke, who had employed him at 15 and was, according to Marton, so loyal to Mia Farrow that he forbade Marton from watching Woody Allen movies, created a position for him in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Farrow's job paid in the six figures. It was some kind of bullshit coordination/liaison type thing with NGOs. It was obviously bullshit, because this high-paid post was eliminated after Farrow left State. It was made just for Farrow, and when he left, they got rid of the contrivance.

Now, having done very little in his life except to look almost as much like Frank Sinatra as he does not look like Woody Allen, he's signed by MSNBC for a salary in the "low millions."

What I've left back at the link is his poor ratings (he's striking out with younger viewers, but doing well, for some reason, with people over 50 who really liked Frank Sinatra), and his bizarre backdrop, which contains (as @JohnEkdahl noted on the last podcast) bits of Ronan Farrow's resume in big letters.

posted by Ace at 03:54 PM

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