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What Chicago Needs is a Local News Channel
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
Tuesday morning at about 9:00am, a man with a gun walked into a bank in Lowell, Indiana and held 9 people hostage for almost 4 hours. There is a question as to how newsworthy this event really was, but like car chases in Los Angeles, once one station starts covering the event, the others have to do the same or risk losing any identity they have as a news station with comprehensive coverage. In a perfect world, only the 24-hour news channel would offer non-stop coverage while other stations would be ready to break in at a moment's notice with updates on the drama. I watched almost all of it on TV, and television coverage varied dramatically from good to very poor. I think you can tell how well the stations did based on the following log:
- 10:25am - Channels 2, 5 & 7 are covering the story.
7 has a live shot from the chopper, 5 has a taped shot from their chopper (refueling?), 2 has talking heads in the studio. Each station's studio anchors are talking to officials on the phone.
- 10:28am - Channel 32 cuts into programming with a shot from their chopper and an update from Dave Novarro.
- 10:30am - Channel 32 goes back to Divorce Court.
- 10:32am - Channel 9 cuts into Jenny Jones with their first bulletin about the situation from Randy Salerno (no video). CLTV cuts in with their first bulletin of the situation from Bill Moller.
- 10:33am - Channel 9's Randy Salerno tells viewers to tune into the noon newscast for further information, station returns to Jenny Jones.
- 10:34am - Channel 32 re-joins the coverage as two hostages are released.
- 10:42am - CLTV goes back to other news.
- 10:45am - Channel 2's chopper arrives at the scene.
- 10:48am - Channel 32 goes back to Divorce Court.
- 10:58am - Channel 32 re-joins coverage.
- 11:00am - CLTV re-joins coverage.
- 11:03am - CLTV goes back to other news.
- 11:30am - CLTV re-joins coverage with chopper video courtesy WBBM.
- 11:34am - WGN cuts away from Sally to re-join the coverage with video from their chopper and reports from the scene. CLTV starts to use WGN's video from the scene.
- 11:40am - CLTV goes back to other news.
- 12:00noon - Channel 7 goes to All My Children.
- 12:28pm - Man surrenders to police. WGN has only shots of authorities driving the man away.
- 12:30pm - Channel 7 cuts into AMC with phone update from Chuck Goudie. Channel 2 & channel 5 return to regular programming, Channel 9 & channel 32 continue with their newscasts.
So, there you have it. Channel 2 & channel 5 provided continuous coverage. Channel 7 cut away to a soap opera toward the end. Channel 9 & channel 32 reluctantly cut into their regular programming. The most disappointing to me was CLTV. If there was any doubt that the "little news channel that won't" is under-funded and over-matched, their coverage of this breaking story proved it. I counted 5 repeats of some segment with Mike North and a Daily Herald sports guy. This event was where newschannels are supposed to shine--and CNN sure did.
CNN provided near-continuous coverage all morning, taking video from each station except channel 5. They did cut away for commercials, but that's to be expected. I think channel 7 had the best coverage, with the earliest chopper shots and on-the-scene reports. Their cut back to AMC at noon was annoying, but understandable as soap fans tend to be rabid when their stories are pre-empted. Still, I just don't understand the purpose of CLTV if it isn't going to cover a breaking story like this.
"The Bright One" Shines
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
The Sun-Times impressed the hell out of me yesterday with part one of their "Failing Teachers" investigation.
I wasn't alone.
As the day wore on and Chicago's major political players weighed in, it became apparent that the paper hit a raw nerve. I enjoyed watching the story develop on TV news as it was only mentioned in the morning, but covered extensively by evening.
This kind of investigative reporting is what makes the news business exciting. Even the most loyal Tribune reader can't help but be impressed with the thoroughness and impact of the Sun-Times report. Then again, since the Tribune has yet to mention the story, I suppose loyal Tribune readers have no idea what's going on.
Having seen past Sun-Times exclusive stories reported on TV without attribution (especially on the two local morning laugh-fests), I have to wonder if the copyright notice located on page one between the reporter credits and the first paragraph made the TV stations more careful in attributing the story to the paper.
Unfortunately, I missed the channel 2 news that night, so I don't know what the Sun-Times' TV partner did-if anything--to augment the story. Can anyone clue me in?
The "NFL Preview 2001" special pullout section in the paper also impressed me...well, the headline did:
Page one: "Can this man's job be saved?" (photo of Bears Coach Dick Jauron)
Page three: "In a word: NO" (100+ point type)
Hilarious!
How fair is FAIR?
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
I need some help from some of you smart people.
On Wednesday night's "O'Reilly Report" on the Fox News Channel, Bill O"Reilly faced off with Peter Hart, from the Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting web site (http://www.fair.org/) about their new expose on the Fox News Channel (and O'Reilly). FAIR's new report is called: "The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel's Extraordinary Right Wing Tilt"
Ouch.
Any news organization that claims it is "Fair and Balanced" is totally full of it. The fact is, no human being reporting the news can do so without any measure of bias. At the very least, voice inflection and writing style will slant a story in some way no matter how hard the reporter tries to present "just the facts". Let's face it, the only reports that are fair and balanced are legal documents carefully tailored and worded to be free of bias. As well as dry and bland and boring and sleep inducing.
Since their inception, newspapers have always had specific opinions, formulated these days by their editorial boards. The concept of reporting the facts without any bias is a television news concept. Since TV stations are licensed by the US Government and those licenses are renewable (and revocable), it is in the best interest of those stations to NOT piss off any politicians.
That having been said, the Fox News Channel's proclamation that it is "Fair and Balanced" is a bunch of hooey. Their most popular shows are issue-oriented talk fests filled with opinions slanting one way or another by their very nature!
So.
FAIR sees a target and they decide to go after Fox News. Not a particularly difficult assignment.
The thing I don't understand is why they felt they had to load their expose with weak, and inaccurate examples. I felt as if I was reading a piece written by a liberal organization--criticizing a conservative organization. Not what I expected from an organization called FAIR. On Wednesday's "Factor", O'Reilly took Hart to task and pointed out the inaccuracies in the article-inaccuracies that O'Reilly has dealt with (and in some cases, corrected) on his show in the past. Hart was quite defiant.
The O'Reilly Factor has recently become "Must See TV" for me, and I honestly cannot detect the sweeping "Conservative bias" that FAIR claims he has. O'Reilly's show makes me think. Only Chicago Tonight does that for me locally. I'm wondering if FAIR isn't the media watchdog that I perceived them to be, but rather an organization with an agenda.
Note the 2nd paragraph of FAIR's O'Reilly article:
A former anchor for the tabloid Inside Edition whose upcoming contract is reportedly worth $20 million (Boston Globe, 3/14/01), O'Reilly poses nightly as an outraged common man speaking out against the corruption of the liberal elites who run the country from Hollywood and Washington.
Note the use of the adjective "tabloid". Hardly fair and balanced, the term is used in this case to belittle and convey disdain toward Inside Edition. I wonder what FAIR thinks about Deborah Norville?
This is where I need some smart people to guide me.
Does "The Factor" lean Conservative?
Is FAIR an organization with an agenda?
Any thoughts?
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Take a look at the previous issue: Friday, August 31
Take a look at the issue before that: Monday, August 20
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