Radio-TV Observer

A special USA-365 supplement by Mark Smith

01-19-2006

We are all media observers. We all watch, listen and read and we know what we like.

Media is a business designed to make money off the public by entertaining them. It often does not have redeeming value, logic or a moral base. But it isn't required to. I ask you to accept TV, newspapers and radio as the creative, possibility and mistake-laden free form entities that they are.

Don't make too much of what is said, written or aired. It isn't about you, it's about them. That also applies to anyone who dares to be a critic.

Today, we consider how two area newspapers, who made a major faux pas, explained the errors of their ways to their readers.

HAMMOND (1-15-2006) If you have read some of the things I've written under this heading, you know I'm not always complimentary to the Post-Tribune. But the Post made a mistake last month and I wanted to take time to praise them. Like most media in our 'scoop journalism' world, the Post-Tribune printed up the late night unconfirmed reports of the successful rescue of those trapped miners in West Virginia on Tuesday, January 3rd.

As you certainly now know, those reports turned out to be almost totally incorrect. Instead of 13 miners found alive, only one was alive when rescuers got down to their barricaded safe haven deep underground. The January 4 edition of the Post-Tribune ran a front page story with photos and graphics describing how the working men had been saved. Most others media also ran with the story but that's not an excuse. And the Post-Tribune said as much. In the Jan. 5 edition on the front page (where it should have been), the Post explained why they got the story so badly wrong and apologized to readers.

An unsigned column representing the editorial staff of the paper said that "time, circumstance and inaccurate wire reports" led to the wrong Post-Tribune story under the headline "They're Alive" in the Jan. 4 issue. They gave the reason why the front page had been nearly 100% incorrect, "We wish that hadn't happened because it violates the basic trust in our integrity and the accuracy that allows you to serve us."

The Times explained the reasons, but did not accept THEIR blame. It is not enough to say that they ran with "the most up-to-date version available from the world's most credible news organization (Associated Press)", which is what the Times said in their front page explanation on Jan. 5. To me, that's blaming somebody else for your front-page blunder.

Newspapers have a responsibility to be correct. If they fail, there are always reasons, but never excuses. What some in the media do not accept is, if 'Person A' tells you that the sky is falling and you print or broadcast that the sky is falling; if the sky does not fall, YOU are wrong, not 'Person A'. It's always been that way.

I can imagine how hard late-breaking stories are at daily newspapers, but wrong is wrong. It does not matter how hard you worked on a story that turned out to be almost totally wrong. You have the choice to go with the story or to wait for confirmation. It's all about choices.

What I am praising is that the Post-Tribune was not too big or too arrogant to admit a major blunder. They did not have to apologize but, in effect, they did.

I do have a problem with cable TV ambulance chasers like CNN's Anderson Cooper who race down to the site of a disaster and confuse standing next to the police barricade for covering the story. Had Cooper been at his anchor desk, acting as managing editor of his late night news hour, he would have been in position to 'check out' the rumor that the miners had been found alive. The mining company never said that anyone was alive. Some folks overheard rescuers talking on a speaker phone coming from deep inside the mountain and misunderstood.

Had he been where he should have been for a national broadcast, Cooper could have easily cited the 'miners saved' rumor as an 'unconfirmed report' and he wouldn't have looked like an idiot three hours later when his 'breaking news' story blew up in a painful subsequent report.

Forget that a mining disaster in West Virginia is not a national news story unless you value drama more than substance. Ask yourself why a hurricane in Florida gets more coverage than wild fires in California or snowstorms in Indiana. Because of the drama.

The huge approaching storm. The brave rescuers drilling into the rock, fighting against time. People die in snowstorms, but a seven car collision on I-65 doesn't have any stand-up appeal for anchormen. You won't see Brian Williams anchoring the NBC Nightly News from Winamac even if Pulaski County is hit with 48 feet of snow. News seem to be designed to suck every bit of sympathy out of the viewer or readers.

The face of the small child killed when an airplane overran the runway at Midway Airport in Chicago was plastered all over TV and newspapers for two weeks following the accident. Do you honestly think that if the person killed had been a 58-year-old Mexican woman that the coverage would have been the same? But it was cute little blue-eyed blond boy. Perfect for sucking sympathy out of you and me.

I pick on Cooper because I like his style. But he swore he "would not let the Katrina story die," referring to the homeless and victims from last summer's hurricane. But when the West Virginia mining story came up, Cooper and CNN dropped the Katrina story like a dirty rag. Don't I care about the 12 miners who died last week? What about the five GIs blown up in a road side bomb in Iraq last week? Maybe you missed that story buried in the mine coverage. And CNN seemed more upset about the "miners saved" rumor that they ran with than they were about the actual deaths of the miners. They were mad they got burned. The difference between cable TV stations like CNN and newspapers like the Post-Tribune is that when CNN was wrong, they blamed the mining company and not themselves.

*****TV-RADIO NOTES:

The new format at WJOB (1230) AM has not been actually announced but it probably has begun. One or two of the talk shows may remain and it apparently will be largely a music format. Since the first of the year, WJOB has largely played "Classic Oldies" or "Timeless Classics" -- favorites from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s along with news and sports. There is every indication that all the news and sports that WJOB has been doing in the past year under the present management will remain on the air.

It sounds good and I punched my radio dial to include WJOB again because it reminds me of when I was young and music was on AM radio. In truth, it's a low-cost (read:cheap) format that appeals to older listeners. That's the trouble. WJOB (1230) AM needs to pick up younger listeners to survive. The fact that I like The Hollies and The Ohio Players is not good for 'JOB because I'm old. Young folks think Marvin Gaye is a character on 'Will and Grace'.

Other than the sports, there's no reason for anyone under 30 to listen to WJOB (1230) AM. I believe its a problem for AM radio nationwide.

To be blunt, I don't think most people care what's on the radio in mid days and overnights. But local people want local news and sports or they won't listen. I'm a fan of news and sports talk shows on AM radio, but I think the music is fine and I don't care that much as long as the news stays at the top of the hour and the ball game is on every Friday night. If this is what WJOB needed to cut the budget, it's fine and no one (except the folks who lost their on-air jobs) should have a lot of problems with the changes.

Get set for a summer of harsh and very personal media criticism of Chicago Cubs and manager Dusty Baker. With "The Score" 670 AM as the new broadcast home of the Chicago White Sox, they will be required to go easy on the Sox and that won't be hard considering the fact that the are World Series champs. It will be somewhat insane to bash the Sox when 1.) Your station carries their games and 2.) They are world champions. But sport stalk MUST be negative so the entire spectrum of nastiness will be turned on the Chicago Cubs.

Two months before the season has begun I've already heard that all their acquisitions and trades have been bad ones and that they have no hope of even a winning season. Forget that they acquired the No. 1 leadoff man in all of the National League for minor league pitchers. That means nothing. They didn't get Rafael Furcal who the media said they should get. Forget that they acquired two experienced relief pitchers to shore up a weak bullpen? They overpaid. Despite a half dozen playoff appearances with two teams, manager Dusty Baker is a bad guy for every reason imaginable. Cubs don't win? Dusty's fault. Corey Patterson flops (never mind that most prospects fail in baseball)? Dusty's fault. Kerry Wood has a bad arm? Dusty's fault. Brad gets Angelina pregnant? Dusty must've had something to do with it. The names Baker is called on the air on the SCORE were the type of things that they must've said about "Tokyo Rose" during World War II.

The Cubs will take a lot of heat for the foreseeable future. Not only is Chicago's only sports talk station in bed with the rival White Sox. But the Cubs are owned by the Tribune Company, which sports fans can be conned into believing is the Chicago Tribune newspaper (It's not). Sun-Times columnists claim a fake bias by the Tribune and hold that against the ball club as well. Any opinion junkies at the Sun-Times or the SCORE who publicly is positive towards the Cubs probably won't be around very long. You don't need integrity to write or talk sports.

Can we wait at least until spring training begins to star bad mouthing pro sports figures? Don't like Dusty Baker? Who cares? It's January. But as soon as the Bears went south against Carolina on Jan. 15, sports talk Einsteins immediately leapfrogged the inept Chicago Bulls and invisible Chicago Black Hawks and started talking about how bad the Cubs were. It's an example of how hard it is to find subjects that will entice the (very) common man who listens to sports talk and reads sports writing.

The bottom line is, I've read 10 times already this winter about how some media "spin doctor" feels that the White Sox title makes 2006 a very bad year for the Cubs and their fans. That sounds like someone seeing the subject the way he would like it to be, even though he's too afraid to come right out and say that. The basic problem with all sports talk and opinion, as I've said in this space before, is that opinion givers hide what they think by portraying it as how the fans think. Writers and talk hosts are not fans. They are professional critics telling you what to say and think. Many sports fans don't know what to think unless they are told.

The Fox Network and CBS, which carries the NFC championship games, lost an incalculable amount of ratings (and future cash) when the New York Giants and New England Patriots disappeared in the preliminary round of the playoffs before the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts folded in the first round of the playoffs on Jan. 15. Fox really got hurt because they must carry the lame Carolina-Seattle game in prime time on a Sunday night, the No. 1 night in television.

The NFL game will win the night, but if you don't think that substituting Jake Delhomme and Shaun Anderson for Rex Grossman, Thomas Jones and Brian Urlacher will lose that game some viewers to the backfield of Nicolette Sheridan, Eva Longoria and Teri Hatcher on ABC, you might want to check the ratings after the fact.

Early round upsets left Denver, Carolina, Seattle and Pittsburgh in the semifinals for the Super Bowl, a network TV disaster. Not that Denver and Pittsburgh aren't good TV markets, but the teams are dull and plodding run-oriented squads and you have the entire Midwest plus the giant New York, Boston and and Chicago markets on the sidelines.

Local stations also got smoked. Chicago and Indy TV, which could fill hours with mindless (but heavily sponsored) pre-game programming, now has to sub in "The Three Stooges," Dick Button's ice skating world tour and "Clifford, the Big Red Dog." Those are not ratings monsters. Expect interviews with Peyton Manning and Brian Urlacher to dot the NFL pre-game shows in the final three games in a long-reaching attempt to keep the viewers outside the markets involved interested.

But with a full three weeks left before the Super Bowl, the entire center of the country has lost interest. The NFL will be fine. It's just that the final three games' ratings will sink down to the "American idol" and "Desperate Housewives" level instead of soaring in record-breaking territory. Don't expect Fox to send Christmas cards to 'Peanut' Tillman and Mike Vanderjagt.

What is so interesting about unclean people with no money and no food suffering and conspiring against each other? If I wanted to see that, I could just go back to the neighborhood where I grew up. One problem with TV is that when shows get tired, they still stay on for two or three more years until they've milked them into the ground like an anorexic cow. At least in reality shows like "The Apprentice," they do create new products or new slogans and somebody does get a job. And you get to hang out with Donald Trump. On Survivor, who do you get to meet? Jeff Probst? Let me off that island. That's not time well spent.

2.) ALIAS (Jennifer Garner) ABC

Okay, Jennifer Garner is not hard to like. But what is this show about? She's this secret, secret agent who is so secret that she isn't even sure how secret she is? And she keeps getting surprised by new secrets. Garner dresses up in all kinds of different costumes that are supposed to confuse her enemies? It's like when Clark Kent takes off the glasses and puts on the cape. I still know that's Clark Kent. Same stupid look on his face. Plus Jennifer in real life is absolutely nothing like her character. I mean, those folks on CSI, you see them interviewed off camera and you can imagine them enjoying those gruesome murders. Jennifer Garner has a "Disney Channel" personality and here she is kicking and killing people. And now she's has a baby? No wonder ratings are plummeting. Secret agents just cannot be mommies.

3.) The O'REILLY FACTOR (Bill O'Reilly) Fox cable

Even if you are the most right of all the right-thinking right wingers, doesn't anybody ever catch him in inconsistencies? O'Reilly's "hardball" act and beat down interviews appeal to millions of frustrated Americans who yearn for the good old days when there were fewer liberals, fewer rappers and women knew their place, (not in government). But this is the man who said that if they didn't find any Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, he'd never trust the Bush Administration again. Now, he says he believes that the President is a good and honorable man. You can't have it both ways. Bill says the White House leak scandal is manufactured by the press even as the evidence mounts and the indictments come down like rain in Florida. You keep waiting through hurricanes, wars and odd Supreme Court nominations for O'Reilly to take the blinders off about our national leadership, but he can't see what he won't see. And anybody who brings up his blind spot is the enemy. Bill has mastered the ability to paint every media outlet as being wrong, manipulated or careless except him. O'Reilly is like a kid who says that everybody's lying but him. He has all the answers and so many of them that he can dish them out five days a week. The fact that people continue to believe him says volumes about his verbal skills and about the intelligence level and attention span of the American public.

4.) 'That 70s show' (Ashton Kutcher, Topher Grace) Fox Network

Please. Somebody cancel this train wreck. It's a knock against the television industry as a whole that a one-joke show can be on for six (or is it seven?) years. Ratings are so weak you wonder what network executive's daughter or girlfriend needs a job so badly they have to keep this Titanic afloat. The cuteness of what it was like to be a teenager in the 1970s is a four-minute skit on Saturday Night Live, not in any way a weekly television show. I want to find Ashton Kutcher funny. I really do. Demi does. But a laugh track of hysterically laughing hyenas doesn't hide the fact that this show must have gotten writers right out the state penitentiary. If you've been in jail 30 years, all you know is 1976 and everything's funny. But, as someone who lived through the 70s, it wasn't a lot laughs. And since they clearly ran out of clever observations midway through the pilot, neither is this show.

I love Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, but can we be honest? This show, outside of the girls "Weekend News Update" is as soggy as saltines on a New Orleans supermarket shelf. 60 percent of SNL is like a failed comedy school where talented people try to make mediocre lines funny to an audience that is waiting for a musical appearance by "the Insane Left Wing Capons."

This show has a gift for taking talented stars like Alec Baldwin or Scarlett Johansen and giving them nothing to work with. Actually, that can often be funny. It's when SNL takes folks who are not talented (Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Lance Armstrong) and puts them in comedy situations they do not have the skills to make funny where they fall down like Chicago Bears defensive backs. It's okay to put relative unknowns like Dane Cook on as host, but that puts the spotlight on the writing which is always going to be inconsistent on a live weekly show.

And what's up with the musical guests? Some screaming thing called "Death Cab for Cutie" forced me to turn to the Weather Channel on Jan. 14. Other than kids who dress all in black and wear trench coats, I don't know who listens to some of the so called "Musical Guests" on SNL. Don't Hall and Oates need a paycheck? Whatever happened to Earth, Wind and Fire?

I appreciate that my previously expressed affection for Tina Fey must be tempered by the fact that she's the head writer in charge of churning out some of these lame skits. But she and many of her gifted cast members are seemingly running dry. They can't expand the "Weekend Update" segment because Jon Stewart does that on "Comedy Central" every night. They want to appeal to young audiences, but their mid-30s age group humor works better on older folks.

You can't cancel Saturday Night Live. It's a 30-year TV institution. But SNL might want to concentrate on going a little mainstream with the music guests, stop trying to create regular, repeating characters (which are easier to write) and just hang in there. Sign Tina and Amy long term and just hang in there. With three more years of George Bush and the potential of Hillary in 2008, the comedy "ship" may be about to come in.