Ron Fineman's ON THE RECORD

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NOT ALWAYS 'THE RIGHT' THING TO SAY

I've usually liked Larry Welk's work on KCAL/KCBS. Certainly for chases, there is no one better. But when the anchor goes to him for a story, he almost always begins his report by saying "That's right." It's obviously a habit which needs to be broken.

Recently, KCBS anchor Paul Magers introduced him for some breaking news, "We're going to head out to Larry Welk now in Newschopper 2." As Magers said that, we could hear applause underneath, which was part of a story which should not have been playing. Then, before Larry Welk could say anything, KCBS mistakenly played more audio from that story, which was one by Linda Breakstone. We heard Breakstone say "Knowing he has cinched the Democratic presidential nomination, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry turned more conservative." Then the audio stopped, and it was time for Welk to start his report. And yes, the first thing he said was "That's right."

Kudos to KCBS investigative reporter Randy Paige, who did a good job exposing a couple of con men. The way this scam worked, these men were supposedly selling an elder man juke boxes. If he put his money into a family business, which would be the juke boxes, he could still use Medi-Cal and get free nursing care if he needed to go into a nursing home. Whereas, if he kept that money in his a savings account, he'd be way too wealthy to get the free care. His health was so bad, he didn't even remember buying juke boxes just a few months earlier. And he paid nearly a hundred thousand dollars, more than half his life savings. It turns out these con men didn't even own the juke boxes that they were supposedly selling to this man. They later claimed that they never bought the juke boxes to sell to this man, because he decided he wanted his money back. He didn't get his money back until the day after this piece aired. And Paige reported that the San Diego DA is calling for a full criminal investigation. I hope I've done a decent job summarizing this story. If not, you can find the transcript at the CBS2 web site.

An example of normal product placement might be a visible carton of Kellogg's Corn Flakes in a kitchen on a TV show or in a movie. Over on KTLA, they are always happy to promote their WB programming in their newscast. Integrity of the newscast? What's that?

In this example, Kurt The Cyberguy was doing a story about videogames that are popular with women. As "luck" would have it, he got an actress from the WB show "The Help" to sit next to him out in the field, as he was checking out these video games. This woman added nothing to the story. It seemed like an amazingly obvious attempt to plug one of KTLA's prime time shows. Needless to say, Kurt told the audience that she was from the WB show "The Help." So I suppose as far as KTLA was concerned, she did her job.

The fact that prop 57 (and 58) passed, does not mean there was no opposition to it. Yet I thought it was odd how blatantly KTTV reporters John Schwada and Jeff Michael gave their opinions on 57. Michael interviewed Schwada as if Schwada was taking the role of analyst. Still, Schwada is a KTTV reporter, and his advocacy of the proposition seemed odd. He said something to the effect that California's finances would go off a cliff without it. And then Michael said how Prop 57 was "desperately needed." There are certainly those, like State Senator Tom McClinktock who disagree. I can't recall ever seeing reporters so clearly take a side on a ballot proposition.

Carl Cameron reported that both John Kerry and John Edwards say they want states to decide whether they want to allow gay marriage, even though both of them say they are opposed to it. Later in the story, Cameron said that neither Kerry or Edwards had a plan to stop gay marriage, like Bush has, even though they are against it. Well, he had already reported that they think it should be up to the individual state. So why would they want to have any such plan? It seemed to me that Cameron was trying to make Bush look better on this issue to the conservative Fox audience. Fair and balanced? Not this time.

How often have we heard about John Kerry possibly picking John Edwards as his running mate. We especially heard this before Edwards dropped out. Now we're hearing more names added to the speculation list. Still I wanted to throw this little fact out there...the last time a presidential candidate picked a primary opponent for his running mate was in 1980, when Ronald Reagan chose George Bush. Before that, you'd have to go back to 1960, when John Kennedy picked Lyndon Johnson. I've gone over all of the campaigns in my mind, and that's what I've come up with. So, if my memory is correct, picking a primary opponent as running mate is very much the exception, not the rule. Even crazier in my opinion, is when someone asked Wesley Clark if he would be Kerry's running mate. Anybody really think Kerry would pick Clark? Who next, Al Sharpton? I don't know who he'll pick, but my guess it will not be anyone he ran against.

Before the vote which ended the grocery strike, Michele Gile interviewed a striker who had created a salsa dip which they'd eaten on the picket line. She says the picketers considered it a good luck charm, and they called it "strike breaking salsa." Strike breaking? That's always a term I've heard use to describe what replacement workers, also known as scabs, do. Hey, they can call it whatever they like. Just sounded a little odd to me.

This morning I saw Omarosa Stallworth of "The Apprentice" interviewed by Sam Rubin on KTLA. Then I saw her on Hannity and Colmes later, as well as on Chris Matthews' "Hardball" on MSNBC. Did I miss any other appearances? This is the only Apprentice firee who I've seen making the rounds. I'm not quite sure why all these shows want her, other than maybe because she appeared to be the most disliked person on the show. Or maybe she's got herself an agent. Among her goals, she says, is to host a talk show. Good luck on that. I think one of the first rules is, you need to be likable, and she's not shown that so far, based on The Apprentice. I think she'll have better luck with something else, like a clothing line she's mentioned, though I wouldn't think that wouldn't be easy either. But she's getting her name and face out there, so she's certainly in a position to sell something. But she needs to be focused, or could end up as the next Darva Conger....basically famous for being famous.

What: one "elderly woman being transported to get medical care, we believe at this hour.

How about an elderly woman being "taken" to get medical care "now." Isn't that how normal people talk?