X Factor » by Andy Dehnart / December 6, 2011, 11:05 AM The X Factor host Steve Jones says that his barking hosting and weird demeanor is to blame on producers who feed him directions via an earpiece. When the Fox competition started, I really liked him as a host, primarily because he was the anti-Ryan Seacrest, never making it about himself. I also appreciated how he policed the judging panel, and wouldn’t just let, say, Paula Abdul blabber on forever. But as the season unfolded, that turned into an oddly robotic, dictatorial host who just barks orders and seems unaware that he’s often disrupting reality as it unfolds. Also, he’s not good at asking the contestants questions, usually because he acts like interviews are something to check off once a contestant says a few words. But a large part of that is the fault of the show’s producers, Steve said, because he’s a robo-host Appearing on Ellen DeGeneres’ show , on which he took off his shirt to try on a deep V shirt Ellen gave h...