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What Every Journalist Should See
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
On Friday night I saw Michael Moore's new movie, "Bowling For Columbine" at Piper's Alley. This was the first Michael Moore film that I've seen, and I do plan on buying his book "Stupid White Men" now that I realize it's not a Spike Lee joint. In various interviews I've seen with Moore, I can definitely say that I don't agree with him on many parts, but his style is uniquely persuasive.
All that having been said, "Bowling From Columbine" has made me seriously re-evaluate my stance on gun control. I used to be 100% for gun control, now I'm not so sure. The movie is both hard-hitting and entertaining.
I don't really want to say much about the film except that it should be required viewing for every journalist, especially those journalists who wish to advance their craft in better ways. Yes, Moore points a finger at "If it bleeds, it leads" TV News as a possible symptom of the murder-via-guns epidemic in the US, and his statistics have been oft quoted and confirmed. If I were in a position to determine news coverage, I might profoundly change the way I did things after seeing this movie. It's that good. Those journalists with minds of their own will watch this film with an open mind, listen to the hypotheses presented and learn more about their beliefs. Those without minds of their own will enjoy the popcorn.
See it.
Chicago Tonight Rhetoric Needs to End
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
If you haven't already, take a look at Steve Rhodes' article "Chicago Too-Lite?" from the October issue of Chicago Magazine. It's a good read about the turmoil - internal & external that is currently revolving around the show. From my vantage point, it appears that various factions who want the show to do well have taken sides and the unfortunate result is a house divided for no good reason. The pro-Bob Sirott vs. pro-Phil Ponce in-fighting is working against the efforts to revitalize the show. Of course, part of the in fighting involves propaganda and since I deal with statistics in my day job, I've taken note of the ways some of the rating information has been loosely used.
Rhodes isn't the only critic to post a skewed view of numbers...and he probably won't be the last. Specifically, I call attention to the 20th paragraph, which begins, "During Ponce's tenure at "Chicago Tonight", the ratings have slid. In Callaway's last full year, the show earned a rating of 2.7. In the next three years, the ratings were 2.0, 1.9, and 1.5. For the first six months of this year, it logged a rating of 1.3." Okay. I have access to TV ratings and I decided to check up on the numbers. Based on what the criteria that Steve used, the numbers are correct. The only problem is that statistics can be easily manipulated, and in this case, inferring that Callaway had high numbers and Ponce's have fallen is both right and wrong. Here's the fact:
True: Ratings for Chicago Tonight have fallen about 50% since 1998, the last calendar year that Callaway was host.
True: Ratings have slipped consistently since Ponce took over in July 1999.
True: The ratings slippage started at the end of Callaway's reign and cannot be pinpointed to Phil Ponce's debut. The ratings in the last 6 months of Callaway's tenure were down 33% vs. that 1998 figure that Rhodes quoted. In fact, the show's ratings started to dive in 1998-well before Ponce took over.
Okay, so let's put to bed the notion that ratings dove after Callaway retired...they started to fall just before he left the show. And another thing…let's all just acknowledge that the show could use something to revitalize it. Those with a corner window to the world office have decided to give Bob Sirott a job and see what he can do with the show. Bob's okay, Phil's okay. Let's all cross our fingers and wish the show well. We can do that without the backbiting and rumor spreading.
On that note, I'd like to point out an interesting hypocritical swipe that happened last Monday in the Sun-Times. In Phil Rosenthal's "What are you looking at" feature, he says this about "Chicago Tonight": "Will the fact that the Bears were idle this weekend keep the show from focusing on pro football tonight? For the amount of time Phil Ponce has devoted to the Bears this season, they might as well call this 'Chicago Bears Tonight.'" Odd that this kind of a slam would come from the Sun-Times, as they count on Bears front page stories to drive their circulation. The most interesting thing about this is that while nearly every daily newspaper had front page coverage of the terrorist bombing in Indonesia that killed nearly 200 people, the Sun-Times felt that it was a page 3 story at best and lead off with pictures of the Chicago Marathon winners instead. Gee, the Sun-Times using sports to draw readers. Kinda makes you wonder if Rosenthal enjoys lobbing stones from the glass house he works in.
Musings
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
Thankfully, I wasn't the only rational person who found a comment by Tribune Ombudsman Don Wycliff a little bizarre. The statement about "Boondocks" reader letters was, "Invariably the complaints are from white readers; I can't recall a single one from someone who said he was black." appeared in Thursday's Tribune. I totally agree with James Taranto's opinion, which is in his "best of the Web" column at the WSJ Opinion Journal site. Check out: The WSJ Opinion Journal and scroll ¾ of the way down to "Coloring The News".
This November, Channel 32 news viewers get treated to another staged 'Experiment," this time focusing on Homo/Hetrosexual people rather than Black/White. There's a nice article about it in the October AJR under the sub-head "Is It News?" Of course, it is a stunt and not news. After reading Michel Miner's excellent recounting of the Sun-Times' "Mirage" undercover series from the late 70's, I have to wonder which would be considered more ethical. I vote for the Mirage.
I'm quite disappointed with the report that Channel 5 was dispensing Dr. Phil's quackery on their newscast last Wednesday. I didn't see it, but as Robert Feder reported in Thursday's Sun-Times, he did so from the set of his show, which airs on Channel 5. The difference between that and having Jerry Springer do commentaries on the news is zero. Absolute zero. Apparently, all those that were outraged about the ex-politician-turned freak show host Springer are gone from Channel 5 and the remaining crew has no problem shilling for pop psychologist-turned freak show host Phil McGraw. Sad...I was under the impression that Channel 5's news operation was on the way to respectability beyond reproach. Maybe I was wrong.
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