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You Suck! No, You Suck!
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
It's amusing to see the Sun-Times and Tribune lobbing salvos at each other about Wrigley field, isn't it? I especially love the gall of the Sun-Times writers to suggest the Tribune writers are being forced to toe the company line. Total crap that forced White Sox fan John Kass to chime in and dispel. I think the ultimate words on the subject came from Tribune's heavy-hitter Kass and the Sun-Times Sports section's heavy-hitter Rick Telander. Both saw each side of the issue and wrote columns in shades of grey rather than the black/white nature that everyone else has been doing. I'm amused at how the other Sun-Times columnists have virtually ignored Telander's points (talent envy, I suppose).
Roger Ebert chimed in with his opinion of what Mike Royko might have thought about things and was rebutted by Eric Zorn on the issue.
See: www.poynter.org/medianews/letters.htm#zorn
Then: www.poynter.org/medianews/letters.htm#ebert
Then: www.poynter.org/medianews/letters.htm#EZORN
Then their final letters on April 22: www.poynter.org/medianews/letters.htm#ericzorn & Ebert a few letters down
I'm wondering what Richard Roeper will write about the issue, but if he follows past practices, he'll no doubt totally agree with Ebert--or state his opinion, then water it down with conditional statements in a nod to Ebert's opinion.
Nice to see the kids fighting again...ain't it?
Sweep It Up
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
The May rating period begins on Thursday, which is why all the newscasts are promoting special stories that air at the end of the week. I plan on tracking the 10pm sweeps stories again, but I'd appreciate some help if anyone would offer. I try to roll tape on all the news shows, but it gets difficult at times and the weekends are a bear. If someone wants to help by keeping track of just one station, it would be much appreciated. As far as formatting goes, take a look at the February sweeps chart that I compiled. If you can help, lemme know. Thanks.
Where's the Local Coverage?
By MARCIA WEISZMANN
Two years ago a local man named Al Hanna, 69 years old then, made a valiant attempt and came within 500 feet of the summit of Mt. Everest. What made this feat even more remarkable than the "usual" (if there is such a thing), attempted summit of the tallest mountain in the world, was that he was 1) 69 years old, and 2) he lives in Chicago. Now, we all know how much diversity there is in this city, but this is not a place where most high altitude mountain climbers reside, for logical reasons. It's flat. Climbers need to work out, practice, etc., which is why most of them live in or near the mountains.
When Hanna was in Nepal preparing for his ascent, nary a word on local television news about this guy. Nada. Nothing. Mind you, these very same news stations, just a few months earlier, couldn't get enough of some yokel from Rockford (I think) who decided he was going to fly around the world in a hot air balloon. Anyway, as the date of the ascent approached, and remember, Everest ascents rarely go according to plan because the weather is not exactly predictable, I was emailing every station in the city asking them why they were ignoring a great human interest, feel good, suspenseful, inspirational story about a local man who, if he made it, would be the oldest person to summit Mt. Everest, and he was from Chicago for God's sake! In the end, he turned back 500 feet from the summit, a wise decision I'm sure, but nevertheless an admirable feat. I will admit that when he turned back it was reported on local news, but at this point it was anticlimactic, at least in my opinion.
Al Hanna is trying it again, only now he's 71. According to dispatches he's looking better than he did 2 years ago. To the credit of channel 7, at any rate, and maybe the other stations, they did a brief story on him. I also heard from friends who know how much this bugged me that CNN did a feature on him last fall. CNN??? Where are our local stations? They've got a gold mine here. Whether he summits or he doesn't, that's not even the point. Here is a 71 year old man from Chicago trying to do the nearly impossible! The 2 weeks preceding the final ascent is fraught with drama, suspense, crises, you name it, due to weather, illness, injury, etc. And it's during sweeps, as the final summit attempts are in May, though obviously no one knows exactly what date. I'm assuming the local news operations will ignore this unfolding story much as they did the last time, but I don't know why. In a week or two it will begin to get really interesting. Can anyone shed some light and give me some reasons why they will probably again ignore this story?
Hell, it's not like the Bulls are taking up airtime.
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