Steve-D'oh

This is pretty damn hilarious.

Anyone who's read my little book, Dead Star Twilight, is familiar with the name Steve Hyvonen. He's a guy I used to work with years ago at the NBC owned and operated station in Miami and who I wound up being under again immediately after 9/11 -- that's because he was an executive producer of dayside news programming at MSNBC at the time. In the book, I describe him as a pretty harmless and likable goof -- certainly not a bad guy by any means but likewise no ferociously uncompromising journalistic iconoclast. Hyvonen always perfectly represented the kind of tediously average, whiter-than-white-bread influence that seems to assert itself more these days in local news than just about any other. He was never the type to make waves and he seemed content at all times to just do whatever that management guidebook he'd once read dictated and be back home to his suburban wife and 2.3 kids by supper; think Bill Lumbergh by way of Ned Beatty's Otis character from Superman. He certainly wasn't the kind of guy worth getting worked up over for any reason at all.

Which is why it's all kinds of amusing to find out -- and I missed this the first time around -- that last year Hyvonen made Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons in the World" list at one point. That fact alone is worth pointing and laughing at; the fact that the inclusion was apparently made at the behest of a few people at MS who are still aware of Hyvonen's time at the network and have, shall we say, less than fond memories of him, is even more entertaining. What Hyvonen did to earn Olbermann's ire, by the way, tells you everything you need to know about his thinking. Once again, I have no problem at all with the guy -- but it's still a hoot.

Incidentally, the reason I stumbled across this has to do with my plans for Dead Star Twilight for the upcoming 10th anniversary of 9/11. A full announcement will be coming within the next few days.