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Published weekly...or so--usually on Friday.
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Fruit From The Opine Tree
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
It's been a month since the last new issue...I apologize for the delay but no one's been able to hear me because I was in parentheses*. I have a lot of things to say and some of it refers to old events so rather than compose full-length articles, I'll default to digest size this week.
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Kudos to the Sun-Times for two recent exclusives.
First, their tenacious coverage of unlicensed drivers driving away from traffic court appearances finally got some results as the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, the secretary of state and county & local police started following the traffic criminals out of the courthouse and into their cars. I say kudos to the Sun-Times but I'm tremendously disappointed with every other news outlet that refused to join the Sun-Times in their crusade. I see it as elitism in the worst way. Just because the "lowly" Sun-Times jumped on the soapbox first doesn't mean that the issue had to be ignored. Like newspapers of old, they had an issue that needed to be addressed and they pounded it on a regular basis. Is the fact that the dailies have agreements with individual stations generating sour grapes for everyone? Does everyone ignore Tribune exclusives because channel 9 has a deal? Will Daily Herald exclusive reports only be known to channel 5 viewers as well as Herald readers? If that's the case, then local journalism is worse off than we thought. If journalism were more about reporting stories of interest in the community rather than about attracting the largest audience, then every news organization would have followed the lead of the Sun-Times. Instead, even the TV News ally of the Sun-Times that say they "Work For Us," didn't pick up the crusade against unlicensed drivers.
Sad.
Another exclusive that the Sun-Times kicked ass on was the report of misdeeds at the Cook County Board of Review. It took a few days, but the two dishonest people with cushy government jobs were finally fired because shortly after the Sun-Times' big gun, Mark Brown highlighted the reason why having clout in government puts you above us average people. Of course, if you don't read the Sun-Times, you probably never heard of the story.
Too bad.
This idea of ignoring a story because it was initiated at a competing news organization is a recent trend. I'm not too young to remember when the newspapers would regularly report on something the rival uncovered. What we need is a news organization that takes all the information form every source and organizes them for the news consumer
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On the Nov 23rd edition of channel 11's "Chicago Week in Review," instead of the usual week in review show, Joel Weisman did a special edition on local broadcast journalism. Steve Sanders (WGN), Tracy Townsend (WBBM), Mark Suppelsa (WMAQ) and Steve Johnson (Tribune TV Critic) were the panelists. It was a good show, but I did miss the usual week in review. I kinda wish channel 11 would do special shows like this as 'specials" outside of the normal time period. "Chicago Week in Review" is too good a show to preempt. Especially since there's always a chance for a Julie Swieca appearance. My observations: Steve Johnson had much to add, but needs to work on his on-air delivery. Tracy Townsend did a shaky job faking knowledge of Chicago journalism. When Joel asked who was the best anchor, Sanders & Suppelsa picked Ron Magers while Townsend chose Linda MacLennan. Tracy needs to get out more. Steve Sanders didn't look too good--either the lighting at WTTW was harsher than at the old number nine or his makeup was different. Mark Suppelsa really impressed me. I might have been too dismissive of channel 5 in the past, but he made me check out their show-which is very good. Suppelsa especially impressed me with the story behind his "America Strikes Back" reports. Essentially, he suggested to his news director that he collect every news story from every source, digest it and report all the factoids that came from the non-NBC sources, and--this is important--reveal where the data came from! What a great idea-dropping all conceit that a story is unimportant if reported by someone else. In that half hour, Mark Suppelsa earned a great deal of respect from me, and I wonder how many other viewers. The knot heads at channel 7 who refuse to allow their employees on "Chicago Tonight" or "Chicago Week in Review" might want to re-evaluate that goofy policy. My perception of Channel 5 news was greatly enhanced by Mark Suppelsa. An interesting part of the conversation was about how TV news can improve (with a tip of the hat to Carol Marin's overrated channel 2 newscast) and the consensus was that it would take a station with dismal ratings and nothing to lose to try a different approach. With that in mind, I've been kicking around some ideas on different approaches to TV news that I'll detail in a future issue.
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Did you read Dave McBride's essay in the business section Monday's Sun-Times? If you haven't read it, go to his web site at: www.davemcbride.com and read the December 10th rave. The erudite Dave McBride is easily one of Chicago's top wordsmiths and it is a CRIME that he is not on the broadcast airwaves addressing a mass audience. Where Dennis Miller is obscure in his sub-references, Dave McBride's array of examples and tangents are stunningly clear and entertaining. His December 10 essay on the world's less valuable currencies was joyful, informative and thought-provoking. I don't know what Dave's career plans are, but if I was a news director at a TV station or an editor at one of our newspapers that needed a strong personality to give it a push, I'd load up the Brinks truck and drive over to Dave's house myself.
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Charles Thomas no longer works for Channel 7. He has been replaced by a near-perfect doppelganger that is most likely evil. You can always tell when an evil double has replaced someone by the neatly trimmed goatee sported by the doppelganger. Thankfully, the mirror-universe Charles Thomas has not done anything evil and perhaps is pleased to be out of the bizzaro-universe whence he came where Channel 7 has the last-place newscast, The Sun-Times owns the Cubs and Channel 2 only employs journalists born in Chicago or with 10 years Chicago experience.
What a mixed-up place that has to be!
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Channel 2 is hiring a weekend anchor from outside the Chicago market. Big surprise. Fortunately, they have figured out that Kansas City is not the talent depository they had originally thought. The new anchor comes from the Fox station in New York and more importantly, Cynthia Santana is Hispanic. I'm very excited about this news and will give channel 2 a pass on this one for once again hiring outside the market. There are not enough Hispanic women on the air. There should be more. Way more. There can never be enough. Think about it-nearly all of Chicago's female Hispanic journalists are top-notch. The most impressive to me are Lilia Chacon, Anita Padilla & Teresa Gutierrez. Each can seemingly effortlessly mold a run-of-the-mill blah story into a provocative, informing and entertaining few minutes. Each deserves the high-profile status that is afforded anchor-meat; yet to pull them off the street diminishes the reporting talent of their respective station immensely. According to Robert Feder, a channel 2 insider says that the best Hispanic talent in Chicago is tied up in contracts, which is why they looked out of market. What happened to Carmen Velez? I had assumed that she was on weekend / crap duty on channel 2 because she was working her way up, not being shuffled out by management. A quick check of the channel 2 web site (where 4' 8" Vince Gerasole TOWERS over Linda MacLennan in a banner ad) shows that she is, indeed no longer listed there, so probably no longer at the station (request: can anyone verify this?). If that's the case, then I think that's a crime. I actually started watching Channel 2's weekend news for a while because Jon Davis & Mike Parker are the coolest and Carmen Velez is a total hottie! (Hey...I'm a man so cut me some slack here. Besides, I judge news babes on attractiveness combined with professionalism. Without the extensive journalistic ability, they're just so much eye candy worthy of little respect ala Giselle Fernandez.).
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For those of you wondering, the new morning show "Good Day Live" being tested in 5 markets has dismal numbers in its first week. The show, an outgrowth from the KTTV Fox Morning News with weather bunny / Fox NFL Sunday lust magnet Jillian Barberie and two news folks, performed at a level 40% below that of the program it replaced and the program airing before it. Even in Los Angeles it can't keep it audience.
I doubt this show will make it to nationwide syndication.
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Take a look at the previous issue: Monday, November 19
Take a look at the issue before that: Tuesday, November 13
* NOTE: Rather than emulate the likes of Mike Barnicle and Molly Ivins, I'll state for the record that I lifted this line from the works of comedian Steven Wright.
Published weekly...or so--usually on Friday.
If you'd like to contribute, e-mail your article to the editor
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