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A media critique... and then some!
Inside LA TV - A KABCer weighs in on Chuck Henry. And a former local reporter becomes an ND. Links to Recent Issues 11-10-03 Monday's OTR 11-07-03 Friday's OTR
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NABET LOOKING INTO HENRY INCIDENT
NABET 53, the union local which represents KNBC photographers,
has been looking into the incident in which the station lost a news
van, and Chuck Henry nearly lost his life. I spoke with NABET
53's Lou Gabriele today, who's been investigating it. So far, he
says it appears that Chuck Henry did nothing wrong. Gabriele
says he spoke to both Henry and the photographer Li Ruo
(aka Christopher Lee), and both say that when firefighters told them
to move, they moved. Gabriele says he talked to the photog
separately, as well as with Henry. He says both said they
never felt there was any danger until the last minute.
Of course this is contrary to what sources have told me. As you may
recall, one KNBC insider told me that someone who talked directly to
Ruo, said that Ruo had asked Henry to leave earlier, but Henry
refused.
And if Henry had moved the van with the mast up, as OTR
reported, (in the hopes of moving to a safer area), Gabriele says that is
understandable, given the emergency situation, and lack of power
lines which could make such a move dangerous in the city.
So far, Gabriele says he's not talked with any other eyewitnesses,
including members of other TV stations or the fire department.
He would talk to them if they make themselves available, but has no
particular plans now to seek them out.
At this point, with other news crews nearby, he says it appears that
Chuck Henry has been unfairly singled out, very possibly because his
news van was destroyed by fire.
So far, I've not been able to reach any firefighters who were on scene, but I've renewed my efforts, in light of this. If the San Bernardino Fire Department is willing to talk, and as a public agency they certainly should be, I'll let you know what they say. I did talk to a fire spokesman a couple of weeks ago, who said Henry had been told to move, but this was not someone who had been at the scene, and it's not clear if she had talked directly to someone who had been. So, I'll keep trying.
KCAL'S SEX NEWS RETURNS
One way you can tell it's a rating period is by watching KCAL right after a Laker game. As the theory apparently goes, most people who watch the Lakers aren't especially concerned with the war in Iraq, taxes or any of the other traditional issues that newscasts should cover. Nope, Laker viewers want babes in their newscasts, so that's what they get, along with the occasional sports or other macho type story.
The above picture came from one of their top stories for this newscast...it was either Playboy Playmate auditions, or their How To Be A Porn Star story, I forget which one. However their lead story was a feature on Kobe Bryant's new attitude, now that he has tattoos. Of course those tattoos didn't exactly suddenly appear on Bryant last week, but close enough for a KCAL lead story.
Among their ridiculous stories was a feature on ET anchorette Maria Menounos. The fact that she is a pretty poor news reader never made it into the story. Have you ever seen this woman stand there like some sort of robotic Barbie Doll? Well, apparently KCAL reporter Chris McWatt hasn't, or maybe he just has different standards than I do. According to McWatt, she is ET's "brightest new star," she has "sex appeal," and has "down to earth charm." I saw her do some Q&A on Emmy night which was not bad, but her news reading? Not major market. But hey, she's good looking with "sex appeal." And that at least, qualifies her to make KCAL's post-Laker sex newscast.
AUDIO WHICH MAKES NO SENSE
KCBS political reporter Linda Breakstone did the story about the incident involving Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which Lockyer told him that he should allow an independent third party investigation of the groping charges. Arnold's spokesman claims the AG breached an attorney-client relationship by talking publicly about their conversation. Breakstone's on set introduction to her story said there was a bit of a gray area "if Attorney General Bill Lockyer did lead Arnold Schwarzenegger down the wrong path."
Immediately followed that intro, we saw Schwarzenegger saying "She's terrific, excellent, the best." Huh? What does that have to do with Lockyer? Absolutely nothing! That's what you call sloppy editing. Opening a story with some stray natural sound is normally fine. But when that beginning is obviously about a particular subject, and when that subject has nothing to do with the introduction we just heard, something is obviously wrong. Really, you should expect better from a major market station.
CARNEY DESERVED BETTER
On the day Art Carney's death was announced by his family, KCBS carried a short story on him at 11:22pm during their 11pm newscast. By comparison, KCBS ran a very good David Sheehan package on his career at 5pm, though even that was only in the second segment. At 4pm, KABC led with Carney's death. But I think it was bad judgment by KCBS to give him so little time and so little prominence at 11pm. This from a station that virtually blew out their entire newscast at 5pm on the day that Bob Hope died. I understand that Carney was not considered as big a star as Hope, but for some of us, "Ed Norton" means a lot more. And of course Carney was an Oscar winner (Harry and Tonto), too. He also was among the many great talents who appeared in The Twilight Zone, playing an alcoholic department store Santa who gets fired on Christmas Eve. But bottom line, Ed Norton is one of the greatest comedic characters of all time. The man who portrayed him deserved better than 30 seconds at 11:22pm.
BUT THIS IS NEWS?
KABC covered the story of a home in Lancaster which was partially damaged by fire. Why cover it? Because it's a home where Judy Garland once lived. Do most people really care?
COULDN'T HE GET THE VIDEO SOMEWHERE ELSE?
As KABC's Jaie Avila was doing his story on the young girl who apparently drowned, but was actually alive after being declared dead, the above video was used. As you can see, there is a crawl at the bottom of this shot. This was the only video in the story which had the crawl, which really looked odd. So I assume Avila's editor must've gotten the video from an air check (video taken from a newscast). Shouldn't KABC have this video in their archives, so that the video would be clean? It sure would've looked better.
KNBC BOGUS BREAKING NEWS
Chopper reporter Mike Case reported on an SUV which was on it's side. He said the woman inside had "very minor injuries." He did add that the intersection was blocked, which created traffic problems. But what percentage of viewers were likely to be ready to leave their house and go through that one intersection? In other words, what was the news value of this story? On that's right...an SUV on its side. Wow.
SOMEONE SHOULD TEACH HER ABOUT POINT SPREADS
When you hire a sports anchor with no sports experience, you can expect some screw-ups, and certainly Jennifer Gould has come through on occasion. Most recently she showed she is clueless about point spreads. The Vikings were six point favorites to beat the Chargers last week. So when the Chargers won, it was of course an upset. But Gould called it a "huge upset." A six point underdog winning is NOT a huge upset. 13 points? That would be huge, especially in the pros. Maybe 10 points would be huge. Possibly that mistake was written by some producer who didn't know any better either. But if you are going to talk about upsets, you really should know what you are talking about. Even though casual viewers wouldn't know the difference, some of us do.
SANCHEZ STRIKES AGAIN
When it comes to saying inappropriate things, no anchor comes close to Lauren Sanchez. She is the low class leader of LA, if not the entire country. While reading a story about birth control among giraffes, she said "You know it's not always effective, I would know. (laughs)" To which co-anchor Rick Garcia said "I think that's more than we need to know my dear." Then, laughing, she back-pedaled "Not personally, as a woman."
Right. Though she might be more believable if she didn't have an out-of-wedlock baby, a birth which KCOP news actively promoted at the time.
GREAT TO SEE
I'm glad that Andy Griffith decided to do another reunion show. The show included conversations between him, Ron Howard, Don Knotts and Jim Nabors. It also had sound bites with others including one of the Dilliards, the bluegrass group which played The Darlings. As you may recall, the guys never talked during the show, so it was nice to finally see that at least one of them could speak!
In one of those interesting behind the scenes tidbits, Jim Nabors recalled the "Citizen's Arrest" episode. This was when he tried to "arrest" Barney for making a U-turn, right after Barney had given Gomer a ticket for the same thing. In what I recall as a departure from the show, Barney made fun of Gomer's hick accent during this one episode, as he imitated Gomer calling out "Citizen's arraast! Citizen's arraast!" Nabors revealed that he found Knotts so funny while delivering that line, that they had to move the camera from a two-shot to a one-shot, so viewers wouldn't see Nabors laughing. It was pretty funny, too, as Barney referred to Gomer as "Nutsy." But who would've known how much the line would have broken up Nabors?
After all these years, there seemed to be a genuine rapport among these actors, especially between Andy and Ron. Seeing the two take that opening walk again, with "Opie" being nearly 50, and Andy at 77, was touching, especially when you notice how Andy now walks like he's all of those 77 years. And when this reunion hour ended, Andy and Ron hugged each other, and said they loved each other. It was as if it were Andy and Opie, father and son....a very nice moment. But as Ron said during the show, Andy was always like an uncle to him, not a father. And yes the affection appears genuine. For this old Andy Griffith show fan, it was an hour well spent.
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