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A media critique... and then some!
Links to Recent Issues Inside LA TV - Sharon Tay comments on her credibility, and a couple of familiar names are pregnant. 3-15-04 Monday's OTR 3-19-04 Friday's OTR
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WILSON TOLD TO GO HOME
According to an inside source at KTLA, reporter Warren Wilson was pretty ticked at news director Jeff Wald last week. It seems that after Wilson had left for the day last Wednesday, it became necessary to re-edit his story, because of some change in the circumstances of the story. I'm told he was not pleased with the way that was done, and went into Wald's office on Thursday to tell him about it. My source was not an eyewitness, but assures me that it got to the point where Wald felt it was necessary to bring his boss, Tribune Group VP John Reardon, into his office to settle things. Before it was over, Reardon told Wilson to go home. Wilson, I am told, will be back to work on Monday.
Now, if only Wald or Reardon would talk to Wilson about editorializing in his stories. Seriously, as long as they were having some sort of confrontation, it would have been nice if they might have dealt with another issue which should be fixed.
BROWN/TUZEE - MOYER/WILLIAMS IN FINALS
After the first round of 'Best LA TV anchor team' voting, here are the vote totals:
Marc Brown/Michelle Tuzee - 22 (KABC)
Paul Moyer/Colleen Williams - 17 (KNBC)
John Beard/Christine Devine - 10 (KTTV)
Kerry Kilbride/Pat Harvey - 7 (KCAL)
Phillip Palmer/Kathy Vara - 4 (KABC)
Glen Walker/Leyna Nguyen - 4 (KCAL)
David Ono/Ellen Leyva - 1 (KABC)
Dave Clark/Sylvia Lopez - 1 (KCAL)
Jeff Michael/Susan Hirasuna - 1 (KTTV)
Worth noting, neither Paul Magers/Laura Diaz of KCBS or Hal Fishman/Lynette Romero of KTLA were even nominated.
WHO'S THE BEST LA ANCHOR TEAM?
Please click on your choice, and then hit 'send.'
Click here->OTRVote@aol.com?subject=Brown&Tuzee
Click here->OTRVote@aol.com?subject=Moyer&Williams
TO THE DEFENSE OF BUSH
The more I watch news, the more I believe that the right wing bias of the Fox News Channel is more blatant than the left wing bias of everyone else. As you may know, The White House was not thrilled to see a commission investigating just how 9/11 was able to happen. Their fear has been that it will end up being a way to make them look bad, even though the commission is balanced 6/6 between Republicans and Democrats.
Anyway, I would certainly agree that Richard Clarke's background briefing in which he praises his boss's work on fighting Al Qaeda is certainly newsworthy, in light of his more recent criticism. But it was interesting how FNC kept interrupting live Commission coverage to break the news and continue to talk about it. A chance to make Clarke look bad and Bush look good could not wait! Of course it was very noticeable the first day of the public hearing, when MSNBC and CNN were carrying it live, but FNC was not. Do you think they would have been more enthusiastic about covering it if 9/11 happened on the Democrats' watch? Do you think it will snow in North Dakota during the next winter?
They did give a lot of live coverage to Clarke's testimony, and of course were happy to talk about his background briefing afterward in their post-hearing coverage. But one thing was curiously missing from their 'fair and balanced' coverage right after Clarke's testimony...they didn't include Clarke's explanation of why he was praising the man he is now criticizing. Clarke said that was asked by his bosses, including Condi Rice, to do a briefing putting the best face on the administration's performance against terrorism. As special assistant to the president, he said he was doing what he was asked to do. He could not have given his real opinions, without losing his job. Yet, he made it clear that he felt he did not lie.
You can buy his explanation or not. But certainly, Fox should have included it in their post-hearing coverage. They got to it later on, by the time Brit Hume was doing his news hour, but there was no reason they could not have had it right away, especially when that briefing was so much the center of their coverage.
BIG DEAL
While I have supported the war in Iraq, I've not been pleased that there apparently turned out to be no WMD. Like most people, I'm not happy about the intelligence failure. And I do feel misled, even though I think getting rid of Hussein and trying to bring democracy to Iraq is a noble cause all by itself.
I was watching live coverage of the Correspondent's dinner the other
night, and I thought it was funny when they showed a picture of Bush looking
under a table, and him commenting that those WMD must be somewhere. He showed
an ability to laugh at himself. Since when is that a bad thing for a president?
Yet some Democrats are getting bent out of shape. Look, I appreciate that
those WMD were the basis for a war which has taken hundreds of American lives.
Obviously, those deaths are not a laughing matter. But of course no one was
laughing at our servicemen and women. The president was laughing at
himself. If Democrats want to make a big deal of that, so be it. But it
just may bite them in the butt. I think must of us appreciate what Bush
was doing at that dinner.
WHY FAKING A LIVE SEGMENT IS A BAD IDEA FOR NEWS
KTLA is not the only station to do this from time to time. In fact every Sunday Morning, KABC runs a taped sports segment, without telling the viewer that is was taped the night before.
On the KTLA News At Ten, it's not unusual to run Mindy Burbano's entertainment segment on tape. Last night, right before her entertainment report, Hal Fishman read the story about Tom Cruise breaking up with his girlfriend. Why would Fishman be reading an obvious entertainment story when Burbano is coming right up? Well, it was of course obvious to me that Burbano was on tape. Maybe even the casual viewer figured this one out. I can understand why she wasn't there, since she did the Morning News. Still, it doesn't look good to have your main anchor reading such a story, when your entertainment reporter is coming up next, does it?
WE HAD A GREAT NIGHT
Last Saturday Night, Christy and I finally had our wedding reception, after getting married on December 5th. It was a wonderful night, as we were surrounded by family and friends. We certainly hoped for a good night, but it was even better than we had expected.
Our caterer Dejafood Catering of Santa Clarita, did an outstanding job. We heard very positive feedback on the food, and in fact we've been eating leftovers all week, and still liking it!
I gave a few opening comments, and got a few laughs, including when I said that we were going to do a costume reveal on me, but that Janet Jackson ruined it for all of us. I then mentioned that with KNX people in attendance, they could be suspended just for being there as I talked about it. I believe the KNX folks laughed the hardest.
For our "first" dance we decided to do two dances, one to "True Love Ways" by Buddy Holly, and the second was "Jump, Jive and Wail" by The Brian Setzer Orchestra. The idea of a love song followed by a fun swing song really appealed to us. The reaction could not have been better.
Afterward, we found that a few relatives actually had tears in their eyes during "True Love Ways." If we did our routine well, we expected people would like it, but that sort of reaction, we did not anticipate. As that ended, we went right into "Jump, Jive and Wail."
People began clapping to the beat and some actually gave us a standing ovation when we finished. That felt terrific!
I was also really pleased that we had a lot of compliments on the music, since I put all the songs on the CDs that we were playing. I wanted a real cross section of music to appeal to everyone, and it seemed to work. There were lots of oldies, along with swing, disco and country. Among the oldies were songs that people had not heard in a long time...stuff you won't hear on KRTH, or possibly even AM540. For example, do you remember "Yellow Balloon" by The Yellow Balloon? I am told that one of our guests was still humming it on Monday. This perfect night concluded in what turned out to be something that I could not have planned. Keep in mind that I loaded five CDs with music, two for listening, and three for dancing. Among the songs I planned to come up in our last hour was "Last Dance" by Donna Summer. Based on the time I figured dancing would begin - which turned out to be wrong - "Last Dance" was not designed to be our last song. I figured it would come earlier. But since we started later than expected, as luck would have it, at 10:55pm, up came Donna Summer with "Last Dance" taking us to 11pm when the party was scheduled to end.
And so just as the dancing began with Christy and I alone, so it ended the same way, with my new wife and me dancing to "Last Dance." It was the perfect ending to a storybook night for us. It is a night we will never forget.
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Later on, I will post a bunch of photos from the party, at www.ronfineman.com/party.html. I put an html extension on there so that anyone can check it out, without having to be subscriber. I'll try to get them up there some time tonight.
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