Matt Lauer And Glenn Beck Leaving Today And Fox News

Two television news icons, one interesting, the other annoying, announced they're leaving this week: Matt Lauer from The Today Show and Glenn Beck from Fox News.

Matt Lauer's news would, if it holds, bring to an end an 20-year relationship going back to January 1992. That tenure saw Lauer's rise from newsreader to the face of The Today Show. It's a position Lauer's managed to hold with relatively little fanfare and not much scandal, other than hard exchanges with Tom Cruise and more recently Kanye West, and rumors - since denied - of a breakup with his wife Annette in 2010.

The question is where will Matt Lauer go? Mr. Lauer was born in 1957, which would put him currently at 54 years of age. One thinks Matt may want to take his life in a very different direction than it's gone over the past 25 years.

But Where?  Glenn Beck's Way?

Certainly not in Glenn Beck's direction, that's for sure. Beck, a hyper-conservative given to wild and hard-to-substantiate claims, and the occasionally crazy rant (to where the blog Gawker's called him an "unhinged crybaby"), has lost a slew of advertisers (like Geico and Proctor & Gamble), so it's no surprise that his daily TV show's coming to an end.

Glenn just plain does stupid things on his show and on Fox. From calling President Obama racist, then taking back the statement, to the consistent use of Nazi and Holocaust imagery, upsetting not just Jewish groups, but anyone who has at least half-a-brain to be aware of what's decent and acceptable to do on television.

Let's hope Matt Lauer doesn't turn Glenn Beck's way. This blogger's sure Lauer won't, but it's a good idea to make sure.