The Good...The Bad...And The Best!

The Quiet Star Of The Zarqawi Story

There are two important things to remember about the way we first received word of the killing of Iraqi terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

First, in this age of global satellites, multiple cable news networks, billowing blogs and endless stories about the “new media,” this story broke the old fashioned way, thanks to a seasoned reporter who knows how to cultivate credible sources. ABC’s Martha Raddatz got a phone call at 2:00 AM from someone at the Pentagon who gave her a heads-up. What’s significant is the fact that Raddatz doesn’t even cover the Pentagon anymore, and she wasn’t even on duty at the time... she was at home, and on vacation! But this military source trusted her so much, he reached out to her anyway. As a result, ABC was reporting the Zarqawi story a good hour before the competition. It’s an important lesson for journalists everywhere.

The other thing to remember? That Pentagon source was anonymous! Keep that in mind, next time you’re tempted to join the knee-jerk critics who want to ban “unnamed sources” regardless of the circumstances. As I’ve said before, good reporters know how to use anonymous sources properly. Management should back them up, and the critics should butt out.




Comedy Central Crew Masquerades As News Documentary Team

When I was a small child, my mother and I once inadvertently walked through the background of a Candid Camera film shoot in New York City. At the end of the block a representative from the show stopped us and carefully explained that we’d need to sign releases before the footage could be used. My mother, an Old World suspicious type, didn’t like to sign things, so she refused. The film was scrapped.

Now comes word that as part of its new show, Dog Bites Man, Comedy Central went to Portland State University and, posing as a news crew, interviewed students there, never telling them they were going to be the butt of some jokes. Yes, the students all signed releases in advance. For a company called “Central Productions.” No mention of Comedy Central or Dog Bites Man anywhere. Oregon’s Attorney General is angry. So is the school. So was Chapman University when a similar prank happened there. Comedy Central’s response? A pithy spokeman’s retort that “The academic community doesn’t want to play with us.”

Play with us??!!

You know, I can hardly wait until the adolescents trapped in 30-something bodies who currently run places like Comedy Central grow up.

Lying to people to get them on television is not a game. In the old Candid Camera days you found out very quickly who was filming you, and why. They were scrupulous about it. Privacy and individual rights are a serious matter. So is journalistic integrity. Newspeople have enough trouble these days maintaining credibility without this kind of ridiculous broadside. No one should ever be allowed to get away with masquerading as a journalist. No one being interviewed should ever have to wonder, even for a second, “Is this for real, or a joke?” Don’t you dare play with that.




Charlie’s Back!

With all the hype, hoopla and gossip surrounding the naming of Charles Gibson to anchor ABC’s World News Tonight, it was easy to overlook the return of that “other” Charlie to nightly network TV: Charlie Rose is back at his famous table, and what a joy that is!

Rose had been away from his PBS show for two months because of unexpected heart surgery. During his absence the program carried on with a stellar list of guest hosts, everybody from Barbara Walters to Salman Rushdie! They all did fine work, but they also served as a contrast that points up the inescapable fact: When it comes to intelligent, lively and entertaining conversation on TV, Charlie Rose is the master.

I’ve been a Charlie Rose fan since the old CBS Nightwatch program decades ago. Now in its 15th year, Charlie Rose on PBS is television for grownups, a show where interesting and important people can relax, be themselves, and communicate thoughts and ideas unrushed, unfiltered, unglitzed... and it’s equally riveting whether Rose is talking to a President, a movie star, a CEO or a serial killer! (he won an Emmy for interviewing Charles Manson!)

So, welcome back, Mr. Rose, and stay healthy. We missed you.




They Listened!

New York Times Changes Policy on Explaining Anonymity

Looks like readers of the New York Times are as irritated as I am by those silly and meaningless explanations given for granting anonymity to a source. The Times’ readership has been complaining almost nonstop about “tortured” and “phony” phrases like, “spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to be associated with the conflict,” or “because the information is closely held,” or “because he was not authorized to speak to the media.” (Duh!)

So the paper has modified its policy. Anonymous sources will still be used, as they should be. Some explanations for that anonymity will still be given. But more often than not, all you’ll see will be a simple “speaking on condition of anonymity.” Occasionally the editors will go further, not so much to give additional reasons, but to try and show why a particular source is reliable or authoritative.

I think this is a more sane and sensible approach. I’ll leave the last word to the Times’ Public Editor, Byron Calame:

“Some realities of anonymous sourcing negotiations deserve to be noted, even if some people think they’re obvious. When reporters accept anonymity demands, it’s almost always because of one overriding reason that is seldom explicitly acknowledged: the reporter wanted or needed information that a reluctant source possessed. That’s probably one reason some of The Times’ past explanations for anonymity have been so absurd.”




Tonight’s Top Story... Well, What Do You Think?

New York 1, the Time Warner cable news operation in New York City recently marked the first anniversary of The Call, a program where the public can vote on the top stories of the day. Using the NY1 Website, viewers create their own electronic rundowns by ranking the relative importance of each story. Producers call it an interactive newscast, pointing out that they broadcast only the stories their audience cares about.

The Call is an important evolution in TV News for several reasons.

Like MSNBC’s Countdown, where the top five stories are shown in reverse order. leading up to Number 1, The Call limits the number of stories in the show and plays up the “rankings” system to stress a story’s importance. This is very likely to be where most local and network newscasts will soon go. A half hour network broadcast can’t cover every story, and a local hour with 30-40 quickie stories is becoming old fashioned because viewers are bored with most of the choices. It makes sense to focus on a few big stories and make sure they’re communicated clearly and powerfully.
Even more important, The Call lets the audience dictate the show, up to a point. Asking viewers’ opinions is a good idea. Local Fox stations do a daily “Your Turn” segment now, where the “man on the street” can comment on a major story. The Call is simply an extension of that, but with journalistic controls. Yes, the viewers have their say, but the story list still begins with the editors and producers who make the initial picks. Viewers can shift the order or suggest additions, But the overall editorial product remains in the hands of the professionals, as it should.

Still, it’s interesting to see what the audience chooses night after night. Viewers want to know about stories that affect them, and they don’t care about local crime stories. "If it bleeds, it doesn't lead on The Call," says host John Schiumo. Nor do frivolous or “showbiz” stories dominate, as some executives may have feared. Hard news is the order of the day, proving that responsible, thoughtful and informed viewers are not only capable of making the right choices, they also make the best audience. Plus, when you give your audience a stake in the show, you build the kind of loyalty a million “My27”s can never match.




Daniel Schorr Turns 90

In 1976, CBS News Correspondent Daniel Schorr came into possession of a government report on CIA assassinations. Congress had voted not to make the report public. CBS would not air it. Deciding the story was more important than CBS policy, an act of Congress or his own career, Schorr sold the story to the Village Voice. CBS forced Schorr out. CNN hired him, and in 1985, National Public Radio did.

21 years later Schorr, now 90 years old, still holds forth at NPR. Aside from the fact that he’s a kind of walking encyclopedia and history book in the NPR newsroom, Schorr’s commentaries are some of the clearest, most pointed and thought provoking journalism on the radio.

How does Schorr view the current climate of websites, blogs and such? This is what he told USAToday’s Peter Johnson:

“What is good about it is people will not be able to suppress the news because you can always have a blogger who gets the story out,” Schorr says.

“But what we have here is a medium in which there is no publisher, no editor, no anything. It's just you and a little machine and you can make history. I find that scary. Nobody should get into print or on the air without some kind of editor. I have an institutional belief that nobody can be above having a good editor.”

Happy Birthday, sir.




Guest Column: Carol Jenkins



Carol Jenkins is an award-winning journalist who reported and anchored in New York City for over 30 years. She is now on the Board of Directors of the Women’s Media Center, and Founding Chair of the Board of Greenstone Media, the talk radio network for women.



Katie Couric’s First Day


Be cynical if you like, but this was one newscast that I would not miss - because it was the one I thought I’d never see in my lifetime.

When Katie Couric debuted on the CBS network news, I was there with millions of other women, cheering her on, confirming with my own eyes and ears that one more artificial barrier was gone. After all, one or two women had already become Supreme Court justices, senators and secretaries of state, heads of Fortune 100 companies, gone into space - yet until now, the anchor seat on network television has been a male preserve as sacrosanct as the priesthood.

I spent 30 years as a reporter and anchor inside the American broadcasting system. I watched many a gifted journalist work her whole professional life beside an impossibility: no matter how good she was, she was not good enough, serious enough, convincing enough, or popular enough for the network anchor seat. We can only marvel at the dramatic events that had to fall into place - scandal, death, war injuries - to create an opening large enough for a woman to step through; and wonder how many more years it would have taken for a woman to assume the network throne if Katie had said no.

She says she did not take the job to be the first woman - but because she’s a journalist, making a purely professional decision. And that’s the way it should be. It will be too, once we cross off all the “first woman” categories left. We still have a bit of work to do.

Since the Couric announcement we are reminded, in story after story consumed by trivialities of hair and clothes, that despite its democratic ideals, America has a hard time with its women. An immature fixation on the superficial combined with a culture that abides a continuing discrepancy in participation does us as a country a great disservice. Now that women run whole countries, we might as well be a backwards nation.

Of course women have made progress.

It is precisely because we see so many local women anchors and reporters (now 57% of the industry) that some people have started asking, in a panic, where are the men?  Not to worry: men occupy almost every top executive suite in media. As journalism programs have filled with women students learning the basic ropes of street reporting, the men have withdrawn to the boardrooms, managing the news and the reporters. Despite their on air presence, women news directors run only a quarter of the newsrooms; 85 to 90% of radio programmers and managers are men; several of our major newspapers have only one woman op-ed writer - against 14 or so men. According to Catalyst, the research organization that keeps track of these things, women hold only 3% of titles in media that actually have “clout.”

Katie’s real coup is not sitting at a desk, reading the news, which we all know full well she is capable of doing - and did well, with composure and aplomb, even under the enormous pressure of a first night. Rather, it is her title as managing editor, with the attendant influence on content and context, that gives rise to hope. Her arrival, bringing a taste of “woman rules,” comes just at the moment when all media rules are being torn up and rewritten: when broadcast viewership has dropped by half over 20 years, and new media has gotten so good at delivering the ever-breaking story that “old school” operations - networks and newspapers - are quaking.

The fact that the Couric broadcast runs simultaneously on some of the CBS radio stations and on the internet - re-playable at the viewers’ convenience - gets it right, I think. I haven’t regularly viewed a nightly newscast in several years now, but I will watch Katie at two in the morning just before I head to bed. Couric & Co, Katie’s daily blog, and a daily Couric e-mail alerting you to top stories are all standard communications tools now. I will be interested in what she has to say - and in responses from her viewers/readers.

But when all is said and done, the 20 minutes set aside for the “news” in a half hour newscast is still a slight affair.

I think Katie Couric can make the best of it - she is accepting ideas from a wide range of people and has said one of her goals is to bring civil discourse back into our lives. There could be many hard days ahead when Katie will have to challenge the executives who run the network - and they happen to be men: from the president of news, to the president of the network, to the chairman of the company. Let’s make sure she knows we appreciate her stepping through that door.

In Katie Couric’s case, it’s not so much a glass ceiling we’re talking about as a glass house of the future with the world peering in to see what develops.



Old Media...New Media...Dumb Media!


From Pages To Plane Crashes, Internet Dominates


When New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed his plane into a Manhattan condo tower, some of the earliest and most vivid images of the resulting fire came not from traditional media, but from ordinary citizens transmitting their pictures over the Web. One of the best examples is CNN’s “I-Report.” Witnesses with digital cameras and camera phones uploaded video of the burning building to CNN’s website, and within minutes CNN was broadcasting it on TV. A short time later CNN made those pictures available to local broadcasters through its Pathfire service, and that evening I used the footage in my story on the local Ten O’Clock News in Los Angeles.

This is an important development that’s been germinating for some time now, on both sides of the media divide. Standing in line at the movies a few years ago, I saw a young woman behind the popcorn counter pull out her cellphone, read the text message alert she’d just received, and gasp, “Omigod! Aaliyah was killed in a plane crash!” Word of the singer’s death had spread to her young fans over a 21st century network most of us “old folks” were barely aware of.

Traditional broadcasters have started to catch up to the “kids” who’ve been getting their news in unconventional ways for years... on the web, through email, from text messages and other means. Now Brian Williams blogs. Local stations and networks have overhauled their websites, cross-promoted them with their broadcast product, and all but begged viewers and web surfers to send them footage. The result? In New York City, the so-called “Media Capital Of The World,” somebody with a digital camera and access to I-Report scooped everybody else... and, more important, the Old Media guys did not hesitate to take advantage of it.

All of this is very good for our business, where more information is always better than less.

The internet also played a critical role in the Mark Foley Congressional Page scandal. The story broke wide open when pages who knew about Foley’s inappropriate internet messages emailed details to Brian Ross at ABC News. Here again, Old Media and New Media worked together, and within hours, Foley had resigned. Live by the e-sword, die by the e-sword.

While we celebrate this explosion of new sources of pictures and information, we also need to remember that a source is still just a source, no matter what form it takes, and it needs to be verified before it goes on the air. More avenues for information also provide more opportunities for hoaxes, lies, manipulation, spin, agenda-pushing, rumor-mongering and fraud. Broadcasters need to be extra careful when using unconventional media because as yet there are no rules out there, no standards and nobody enforcing anything.

Heed the words of Syracuse University Media Professor Robert Thompson: "This marks one of those watershed periods where you can use the Internet to cast an enormous net for people who may have information, (but) the pre-Internet ethics of how you check out that information has got to prevail.”




Networks Challenge Laws Barring Exit Polls


It’s nice to see news organizations standing up for themselves.

In Nevada and Florida, the AP and the five major networks went to court to challenge laws that bar or restrict exit polling on Election Day. They claim such laws are unconstitutional, and they’re absolutely right. It’s a simple question of free speech. If the media can’t put a camera crew on a public street and ask a citizen a few simple questions, we’re in serious trouble.

Supporters of the law want to treat the media the same way they treat so-called “electioneering” by keeping cameras 100 feet or more away from voting areas. But the comparison is flawed and unfair. Electioneering is about undue influence before the fact. Exit-polling is about legitimate, First Amendment dissemination of speech and information. And it’s after the voting takes place! Advocates of these restrictive laws claim they want to protect voters from harassment. Nonsense. Anyone who doesn’t want to talk can simply say, “No thank you.”

Networks challenged similar restrictions in Ohio in 2004, and won. Look for a similar outcome this time too.




Connecticut Station Tries To “Own” A Debate, Then Relents


Happily, the corporate insanity at Hartford’s WFSB-TV lasted only a day or so.

The general manager tried to exclude reporters (other than his own) from a station-sponsored debate between Sen. Joe Lieberman and the challengers running for his seat. Somewhere in WFSB’s warped proprietary consciousness someone thought, “We hired the hall, the event belongs to us.” (The debate wasn’t even going to be shown live, but that was primarily because of a conflicting Gubernatorial debate).

But the media keeping out the media? When voters need to decide whom to choose?

A reporter at a competing station said it for everyone: "You don't embargo bona fide news events."

And in the end, they didn’t. After 24 hours of vocal criticism from many quarters, WFSB reconsidered. Good for them, and for us, but let’s remember this temporary lapse in judgment. I hope it helps us keep in mind why we’re out there in the first place.






Ed Bradley 1941-2006

Allow me to add my small voice to the many tributes, all richly deserved, for Ed Bradley.

Although we never actually met (I managed to snap the picture of him at the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles) our careers crossed in an unexpected way back in the 1980’s. It left a lasting impression and changed the way I do my job.

I urge you to read Ear Of The Beholder, an article about newswriting and racism, inspired by that encounter.

For now, let me just say that Mr. Bradley will be missed, and long remembered, not just for his impressive work, but also for the unique qualities that made him a very special human being.














General Manager Blows Hot Air Over Global Warming

Michael Palmer, the general manager of two TV stations in Maine ordered his news department to stop running stories on global warming, saying the issue has “evolved from hard science into hard politics.” He also called the overwhelming scientific evidence “far from conclusive.”

All the wire stories on this incident sought out environmental experts to rebut Mr. Palmer’s assertions. Tempting as it may be to challenge Mr. Palmer on the facts, I’m not going to. There’s a bigger issue here.

A good general manager hires the right people, trusts them to do their jobs, and tries to run his station profitably. Butting into the news department to kill a story (or to run one!) is plain wrong, whether you’re a right-winger, a left-winger, or just clueless.

Mr. Palmer, you damaged your stations’ credibility. Why would anyone in your viewing area ever tune in to your newscasts again, once they know the “news” they’re getting is colored by the GM’s political opinions?

Count your money and stay out of the newsroom, sir.




Insurgents, Sectarians And Civil War

By Abe Rosenberg


Civil War has broken out in Iraq. NBC says so.

The network took a great deal of criticism for deciding to use what apparently is quite a controversial terminology. Most of the finger-pointing, I believe, is undeserved. But maybe not all of it.

It’s ludicrous to accuse NBC, as some on the right have done, of having a “political agenda” or even of being “anti-White House.” Reasonable people understand that a news organization’s agenda is simple: Be absolutely accurate, be absolutely clear, and be absolutely impossible to ignore. This agenda remains in place regardless of who’s in power in Washington. NBC News, like most legitimate news organizations, has a long history of annoying leaders from both parties who never seem to get the fact that what’s news and how it’s defined, isn’t up to them.

Some of the critics, however, come from within the journalism community and are anything but “right wing.” I suspect their main complaint arises from that third part of the news agenda. They believe NBC took this step not only in the interest of accuracy and clarity, but to stand out among its competitors, to grab some attention and perhaps even get some higher ratings, temporarily at least.

NBC will swear it isn’t so, and I hope that’s the case. But the drive to be “first” is part of every news operation, and it very likely played a role here (yes, technically they weren’t “first.” The Los Angeles Times and others have used “Civil War” from time to time, but NBC got there first in the only race it cares about... the TV news ratings race). Also, NBC had to know its decision would create an uproar and plenty of attention. That’s hard to resist, even when your motives are pure.

Then there are the critics who take a semantic tack. They raise up a centuries-old definition of Civil War and make the claim that, in the strictest terms, Iraq isn’t there yet. In other words, until a row of gray-uniformed men point their muskets at a row of blue-uniformed men, it ain’t Civil War. I’m neither semanticist nor historian, so I really can’t say much here, except to point out that definitions evolve with the times, and ultimately, the media, as a reflection of the larger culture, will play the greater role in defining these terms... they won’t be imposed on the public by scholars, or by government entities trying to manage events and perceptions.

Political agendas come from politicians. They call armed militias “insurgents” and “dead-enders.” They call wave after wave of religious and revenge-fueled mass murder “sectarian violence.” When they knew the country couldn’t stomach another war after WWII they called Korea a “police action.” And they never called Vietnam a Civil War, and they’ll never call Iraq a Civil War, because once they do, support at home will evaporate. So Vietnam became the central front in the Cold War, and Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror.

The media’s job is to speak truth to power. NBC is doing its job.











Hey, We’re Above Average!

Cutting through the hype, buzz and frenzy surrounding the so-called “blogosphere.” Google is out with a sobering analysis of this latest “must-have,” “must-do” technology.

Google says a new blog is created every second of every day.

Google also says the typical blog is read by -- get this -- one person!

Just goes to show, like all other versions of “new” media, there’s really nothing new under the sun at all. They all follow the same pattern. First it’s the Wild West. Everybody jumps in, nobody follows any rules, and you start to hear stories about instant billionaires working out of basements and newly-minted pundits whose daily scribblings are required reading for those “in the know.” Then reality returns. A few well-financed big players dominate, capturing most of the attention and profit. All the rest are, well, all the rest. Single reader blogs.

Still, it’s nice to know that Newswriting.com ranks above the average.

My brother reads it, too.




Caretaker?

By Abe Rosenberg


Please don’t call him the “caretaker” President.

“Caretaker” conjures up an image of some mindless clockwatcher who shuffles through his daily chores and turns out the lights when he leaves.

This website has always been about words used by journalists, and, in my opinion, too many newspeople are playing follow-the-leader and putting the “caretaker” label on President Ford.

Sure, he wasn’t elected. He never even wanted the job. Maybe his administration had less than monumental achievements. But Gerald Ford did achieve something few U.S. Presidents have been able to do.

He took away the hurt.

I’m a lifelong Democrat. I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. But I was a fan of Gerald Ford, and I always will be.

Ford took office at the end of almost a decade of painful turmoil in this country that ripped us apart. Vietnam. Watergate. If you’re old enough to remember, you know exactly how it felt. If you’re a little younger, let me tell you. It was excruciating. Watching the daily news reports tracking the destruction and body counts from a war no one supported. Then the slow twisting of the Watergate knife, as the country came to the realization that its chief executive and many of the people around him were criminals besmirching the Presidency. The inexorable closing in, the committees, the Saturday Night Massacre, the Tapes, the Expletives Deleted, the Articles of Impeachment, the uncertainty... would he or won’t he?

And then he was gone. And Gerald Ford took the oath and said, “We’ve got a lot of work to do. Let’s get on with it.”

You could almost hear the nation exhale. The long national nightmare was over!

All of a sudden, Mr. I-Am-Not-A-Crook gave way to the Anti-Crook. The Imperial Presidency dissolved. The Down-To-Earth President was here. The conniving Enemies List compiler was gone, replaced by a man who, in Bob Dole’s words, didn’t have any enemies!

Before he carried out a single Presidential act, people liked Gerald Ford. Not because of anything he’d done. Because of all the things we knew he would not do. That was enough. Decency had returned to the White House. And it felt good.

Sure, he pardoned Nixon, and some folks still can’t forgive him for that. I can. And I give him extra decency points for going up to Capitol Hill, and letting Congress grill him over that pardon. Can you imagine our current White House occupant doing that? Can you imagine the last White House occupant doing that, without a battery of lawyers advising him what “is”, is?

I have other memories. Watching him good-naturedly doing a bit on Saturday Night Live, the show that relentlessly ridiculed him. Or hearing him repeat the one line he maintained, all the years of his life, whenever the question was asked of him: “Betty and I have always been pro-choice.” He knew where his party stood. He didn’t care. The man was fearless and he told the truth. And then there was The Speech. Not the inaugural address everyone remembers. The acceptance speech at the 1976 Republican Convention, after fighting off a challenge by Mr. Charisma, Ronald Reagan. What a pleasant surprise! The guy dismissed as a plodding, flat speaker, coming out on top, and then giving ‘em rhetorical Hell (well, Heck, maybe) and the crowd loving it.

A couple more votes and he would have won in November, too.

He was a moral man who didn’t moralize. He didn’t preach at us, talk down to us, or ignore us. He never got high and mighty, and he stayed the same until the day he died.

And he respected the press.

Much more than a caretaker, Mr. Ford could be better compared to a first responder. The guy who sees you lying there, battered and bleeding, and tells you reassuringly, “Don’t worry. You’re going to be just fine.”

Rest in peace, sir. And thank you.



New House, Old Rules

By Abe Rosenberg


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has rejected a request by C-SPAN to take control of the House TV cameras.

Since 1979 when the system was installed, those cameras have been under sole control of the Speaker (Tip O’Neill at the time) and the rules have permitted only head-on wide and close-up shots of the proceedings.

C-SPAN, which has carried House and Senate sessions for decades now, wanted the ability to pan the House chamber, take reaction shots, and give a more complete and thorough sense of what’s taking place on the floor. C-SPAN chief Brian Lamb made the same request of the Republican leadership in 1980 and was also turned down.

C-SPAN had clearly hoped that a change in leadership and direction in Congress would translate into a more open atmosphere regarding TV coverage, but apparently this is not the case, and it’s not hard to figure out why.

In a word, power.

No politician who achieves power is apt to give it up voluntarily. Control of the camera is awesome power. The Speaker can make sure the public never sees that angry exchange between two Members off in the corner. Or Republican and Democratic representatives laughing and chatting with each other when a supposedly “bitter” House debate is taking place. In short, the facade is kept in place.

In rare cases, that power of the camera can be wielded in an act of partisan vengeance, as Speaker O’Neill did in 1984, when he wanted to show how Republicans were making Special Orders speeches before an empty chamber. O’Neill violated the very rules he had set up, and ordered the cameras to pan all the vacant seats.

Awesome power. So why should Speaker Pelosi give it up?

Because this is America, the work of the Congress is the people’s business, and the people have a right to see it. All of it. Not just the parts the politicians care to show us.

The argument against C-SPAN’s request warns against TV broadcasters, with their thirst for “drama” and “conflict”, going too far, abusing their new privilege, and hyping the coverage with exaggerated shots, out-of-context moves, and who knows what else. The fear is that the completeness of the record and the dignity of the House will be compromised.

Please.

This is C-SPAN we’re talking about! The guys who salivate at the chance to televise four-hour subcommittee hearings, onerous think-tank presentations, and endless news conferences in their oppressive entirety, with all the “drama” of watching grass grow. Nobody plays it straighter. Or duller, frankly, but in this case, dull is a good thing.

C-SPAN can be relied upon to bring us the House as it really is. C-SPAN is independent, non-partisan, non-profit, and not concerned with ratings or dollars.

I also suspect the public trusts C-SPAN a lot more than any politician of any party.

Speaker Pelosi, I urge you to reconsider. Show us it really is a new day on Capitol Hill.





An Unexpected Benefit of HDTV

I’ve long believed that there’s nothing more unnatural than trying to look natural on television. The public sees two neatly dressed anchorpeople sitting comfortably side by side at what appears to be a handsome desk in a well-lit, tastefully decorated room.

That’s what they think they see, anyway.

What they’re really seeing is two people with a variety of wires snaking through their anatomies, seated in a strictly marked and tightly confined spot, with blinding lights shining in their eyes, words scrolling in front of their faces, instructions and countdowns blaring in their ears, floor managers pointing fingers at them, all in a very dark and usually very cold room decorated mostly by cables, girders, and fake walls.

Oh, and they’re usually wearing way too much makeup, because without it, they’d look like ghouls.

And there they sit, giving us our daily dose of reality!

Most experts have assumed that High Definition TV, with its super-sharp picture, would knock some overly-wrinkled personalities right off the air. A TV image that can show every last facial imperfection, they thought, would spell doom for anyone with crow’s feet. Some TV talent types are experimenting with even more makeup than they used before. And at least one cosmetics company is producing a special line of HD-friendly face makeup.

But then there’s Bill Clarke, anchor at Denver’s KMGH-Channel 7. He told the Denver Post, "For old guys like me (he's 60), the best thing, I think, is probably not to use any makeup except light powder to cut the shine. I'm way past the point where I want to look attractive to strangers."

Ditto Patti Dennis, news director at rival KUSA-Channel 9. Her crews now use less, not more, makeup. "Our experience was the opposite. When we first brought in the first (HD) camera, everyone was, like, 'Wow!' We found people look more natural. You wear a little less makeup."
We knew HDTV would bring increased clarity. Could it be it’s also providing increased sanity? I sure hope so.



NewsTube

By Abe Rosenberg


KFTY Channel 50, a rare independent television station (no CW, CBS, FOX, MOUSE or whatever) and the only station based in Santa Rosa, California, has fired its news staff and canceled its news programs. Station managers say the newscasts weren’t a hit with advertisers.

Instead of traditional news, KFTY will experiment with content provided by viewers. The station is soliciting material from, well, anyone! A form of “citizen journalism,” to put it kindly. Or YouTube with commercials, to put it realistically.

KFTY hasn’t decided whether or not its “citizen journalists” will be paid. But apparently the sales department has decided there’s money to be made here.

What a great idea. Fire all those overpaid professionals. Kick out those lazy trained journalists. Who needs them when kids have camera phones? Let amateurs do the “news” for free.

Will news coverage in Santa Rosa suffer?

''There will be a loss in local coverage, I'm not going to lie to you,'' station executive Steve Spendlove said. ''But there are a lot of other places to get most of that information.''

Really? Where?

Remember, KFTY is the only station in Santa Rosa. Its website, however, boasts of its reach into San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. So perhaps Mr. Spendlove expects stations in those cities to reach into Santa Rosa and report the local stories KFTY no longer will.

Santa Rosa does have three radio stations. One Rock. One Religious. One NewsTalk. During traditional hours for TV News, like 6pm and 11PM, the NewsTalk station broadcasts a syndicated consumer show and a national talk program that specializes in UFO’s.

Perhaps viewers should forget about broadcast news and just read their local daily newspaper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, or the alternative daily, once known as the Sonoma County Independent, but now part of a larger enterprise called the Northern California Bohemian. That's about it.

“A lot of other places??” Like, CNN?

Station licenses used to carry a responsibility to serve the public. KFTY’s remaining marquee programs now include a four-hour simulcast of a local morning radio show, and a magazine program about wine. And, soon to come, “citizen journalism,” or Santa Rosa’s version of the Time Magazine Person of the year. You! You! You!

Here’s a suggestion. When the sales staff says it can’t sell the news, keep the news department and fire the sales staff.



Lights...Camera...Insurgents!


Speaking of YouTube, the user-driven video service has been getting some unwelcome customers lately. Iraqi rebels are posting videos of attacks on U.S. troops. A search of YouTube can easily uncover footage of snipers killing U.S. soldiers or bombs blowing up American convoys, all set to Islamic music while the photographer shouts Allah Akhbar!

YouTube says it removes any video flagged by viewers as “unsuitable.” It also says, and the State Department agrees, that it’s impossible to stop the videos entirely. Take down one offending video, and another pops up elsewhere. Experts say this problem will only get worse, with rebels producing ever more grisly videos with even higher production values.

One wonders what it takes to flag a video “unsuitable” when these abominations make it through.

A reminder, perhaps, that the brave new online world of user-provided content has its dark side. We should keep that in mind even while we celebrate this revolution in mass media.

I am also a little skeptical of the throw-up-your-hands attitude of the overseers who say there’s nothing they can do.

Curiously, YouTube took an entirely different approach to another category of unwanted video: copyrighted material put up by users who didn’t have the proper permission to do so. YouTube (owned by Google) went after those folks with a vengeance... and an eye toward profit. They are already negotiating with various media companies, offering them a suite of filtering tools, in exchange for a long-term business relationship.

In other words, to be cynical about it, for a few bucks, we can get those videos off and keep them off.

Certainly the two situations are very different, each with unique circumstances. Still, it makes you think.

Bottom line, in my non-expert view: YouTube is still a brand new phenomenon that has yet to work out many problems, not the least of which are ethical considerations. I’m not yet prepared to trust YouTube as a new source of news. I also think it’s way premature for legitimate news departments to disappear in favor of YouTube-style formats. That does not bode well for our profession or the millions of people who depend on us for accurate information.




What Sports Is...And What It’s Not

By Abe Rosenberg


When the Mets got into the 1986 World Series, Tom Brokaw anchored from Shea Stadium. When the Red Sox won the 2004 Series, it was the lead story on local newscasts across the country. Whenever a popular pro or college coach is hired or fired, AP runs an URGENT that BEEEEPs newsroom computers from coast to coast. And when a big name player of any sport gets into some kind of legal trouble, you’ll see it on Page One, not just in the sports section.

Yep, we Americans have always loved our sports, and our sports figures. And since newsroom staffs have always had generous helpings of supercharged sports fans, it’s only natural that the Big Game... or the Big Move... or the Big Player’s Big Blunder will get Big Coverage... perhaps even Excessive Coverage, but hey, we may be journalists, but we’re also human, we’re fans, we’re entitled to our occasional excesses, and we usually get our perspective back in balance fairly quickly.

And sometimes we don’t.

Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals was recently arrested for drunk driving. Certainly a dumb move on his part, and one would expect some media coverage to jump past the sports pages and bleed into the A block. Especially if it’s a slow news day.

Only it wasn’t.

On that same day, the public schools of St. Louis lost their accreditation. A state takeover loomed, and thousands of children... not to mention their parents, their parents’ property values, the city’s image and most likely its bond rating... would all be negatively impacted. A huge embarrassment and a huge story. Just not sexy.

That night, three St. Louis television stations led their newscasts with La Russa’s indiscretion.

We heard the usual justifications. News directors said yes, the school story was much more important and affected many more people (it’s not clear who is affected by the La Russa story... perhaps his bartender), but the La Russa story was what most viewers were interested in hearing about. Statistics from newspaper websites appear to bear that out. The La Russa story was read ten times more often than the schools story, even on sites where the schools story was the lead.

Look, this is not another bleat from an old-timer who wants to go back to the fictitious good old days when newscasts broadcast only what viewers need to know, as opposed to what they want to know (never happened). Nor is it a plea to turn every local newscast into PBS or C-SPAN.

But newspeople get paid to use judgment. Not just to take polls.

The local media latched onto La Russa the way the rest of us latch onto Paris Hilton. They turned a piece of gossip about an individual’s stupid mistake into World War III, and the real news of the day suffered for it.

Whether or not that’s the current news climate, it is still bad news judgment and wrongheaded priorities.

Ironically, a St. Louis sports guy got it right:

"You'd think the president had been assassinated, the banks had been robbed,” says Kevin Slaten, a sportstalk host on KFNS Radio. “Is it a big story? Absolutely not! We live in an 'Entertainment Tonight' society.''

Sanity from the sports department!

Indeed, a perfect segue to a few personal thoughts about a man who personified that kind of levelheadedness. Jerry Girard, who recently passed away.

Jerry did sports at WPIX-TV in New York City. I worked in that newsroom for two years, and I was privileged to watch Jerry work and get to know him.

Jerry was a nice man, quiet and self-effacing, but with a razor sharp wit that could send you falling to the floor laughing with just a couple of words... on or off the air. He knew his sports cold. He approached the job as a fan (for my money the best sportscasters do that) and as a writer (his previous gig before getting his on-camera break). That combination of qualities made him a unique talent, and a star for 21 years in a city that’s famous for unceremoniously casting out less-than-authentic sportscasters.

With all that, Jerry also stayed grounded in reality. He handled sports as it should be handled... as fun and games, not the Apocalypse.

I think Jerry would shake his head in disbelief over the La Russa coverage. He’d probably unleash an appropriately pithy remark that would crack us up, and pull us back to our better selves. He’ll be missed.





After Virginia Tech

By Abe Rosenberg


The horrible story followed the predictable media track. The initial shocking events, newspeople scrambling to figure them out, spotty coverage evolving into full-blown, wall-to-wall, music-and-graphics-enhanced “special reports”. Anchors flying to the scene. Satellite trucks sprouting on campus like weeds out of control. “Camp O.J.” redux. Anyone and everyone remotely connected to the story getting his or her 15 seconds of fame. It all had a very familiar feel. We’ve done this before.

Then Cho’s package arrived at NBC.

Suddenly, on top of all the usual excesses, the media had a piece of grotesque perversion to examine, and to air. But should they air it? And should they air it again? And again? And again?

Yes. And no. No. NO!

Watching Cho’s maniacal rantings reminded me of the twisted “manifesto” offered by the Unabomber years ago. You really didn’t need to watch or read all of it. A few lines, a few seconds, and you had everything. You clearly understand it came from a crazed mind, and no matter how much more of it you ingest, that’s all you’d ever know.

So, once you know it, stop showing it.

It was not wrong to broadcast Cho’s video once, despite concerns about the feelings of bereaved families or the possibility of copycat threats. One can feel sympathy for the victims’ loved ones, but news organizations cannot afford to censor themselves based on that sympathy. If we did, no war, no terrorist act, no earthquake, no story of any consequence involving victims could ever be covered properly. As for the copycats, they’ll be out there either way.

But once the story has been told, enough is enough.

I sincerely hope the responsible news media will put the Cho material away, never to be shown again, certainly never to be used as conventional “file tape” or “wallpaper video.” Like the pictures of the planes hitting the World Trade Center. Store it for historical purposes, and issue the appropriate warnings to your people not to pull it off the shelf. I suspect most news organizations will comply. The tabloids, the infotainers, the talk shows, and now the webheads, the bloggers... they’re another story. Restraint is not their calling card. And that’s a shame. It may be wishful thinking, but one would hope even they pull back a little this time.

One more thing. May God bless the memory of Liviu Librescu, the heroic professor and Holocaust survivor who put his body in the doorway so his students could escape Cho’s bullets and get away through a window. Think about it. Think about that confrontation. A young, twisted individual mad at the world for the “evil” he imagined... like rich kids who ignored him. A 76-year-old man who saw real evil in his lifetime, and instead of turning evil or violent himself, he sacrificed himself for his fellow man without giving it a second thought. The best, and the worst of humanity, on two sides of one door.







Bloggers Get It Wrong...So What?

Rumors are not news. It should go without saying, but as the blogging universe grows, rumors get published and circulated around the world before anybody has a chance to check them out. This is what happened when John Edwards announced he would continue his presidential campaign even though his wife Elizabeth’s cancer had returned. Hours earlier, bloggers claiming to have a “scoop” were sending out word that the campaign was over. The broader media picked it up and reported it, then looked foolish when the real story came out.

My problem is not with the bloggers. We have free speech in this country, and, short of libel, slander, and shouting “fire” in a theater, anybody has the right to say anything online or elsewhere, even if it’s not true. Moreover, bloggers are not newspeople with standards of journalism to follow. They may be exasperating, but the first amendment protects them.

The real problem is with legitimate news organizations that ran an unverified story. By picking up an early rumor spread by blogs and airing it, real journalists violated their own core standards. It should not happen. But it’s going to, more and more, because the blogosphere is a tempting place from which to snatch potential stories quickly and gain a competitive edge.

Now, we in the “conventional” media are far from perfect, and when it comes to mistakes, we’ve managed to make some doozies on our own, without any help from bloggers (see photo).

I just hope news organizations learn to treat blogs like any other source. The material must be carefully evaluated and the trustworthiness of the source weighed.

It would also be nice to see more blogs adopting the same standards of journalism as the older media. To a degree, that’s happening, especially with blogs created by those media, such as a newspaper reporter’s personal blog, for example. But it’s still very much the Wild West out there, with nobody watching the pot, so we’d all best be careful.




Imus

Yeah, I know, his sorry story has nothing to do with Newswriting per se, but it’s my website, so...

As a young intern just starting out at NBC in New York, I was concerned that a 20-something Orthodox Jew wearing a kippah (skullcap) on my head might not be readily accepted. My concerns dissolved on my first day when a gruff baritone voice behind me bellowed, “Your hat’s too small, babe!”

It was Don Imus’s way of saying Hello.

Imus said a terrible, outrageous and inexcusable thing about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Imus has been saying terrible, outrageous and inexcusable things for 30 years, about everybody, every race, every religion, every orientation, every political affiliation. It’s his shtick. It may even be his real personality. Does that make it OK? No. But anyone who thinks Imus singled out one particular group for extra verbal abuse, is wrong. Which is why I found it surprising that one group took it on themselves to single him out, why it mushroomed into a crusade, and why Imus is no longer on the air.

Granted, I’m prejudiced. I know the guy. I also don’t belong to the group Imus offended, so I can’t fully grasp their outrage. That’s the normal human condition in our still-racist world. We protect our own first, and even if we’re evolved enough to show outrage when another group is hurt, the passion is never the same. So on that basis alone, I’m not objective. Still, shouldn’t the criticism be spread more evenly, and at a level that properly fits the crime?

Imus apologized. He met with the Rutgers team. He was suspended. It wasn’t enough for the interests bent on “winning one.” So the advertisers were pressured, and Imus was gone. Meantime Ann Coulter calls a presidential candidate a faggot, smirks her way through an “Oh, grow up” non-apology, a couple of papers pull her column, and she’s back on Fox News a few days later like nothing happened. Makes you think.






It's Personal

By Abe Rosenberg


My friend, reporter Christina Gonzalez has returned to work. Limping. Can’t move her shoulder. She may need surgery. Our colleague, photographer Patti Ballaz has a broken wrist. She may never lift a camera again.

On May 1, 2007, Patti, Christina and a bunch of other journalists were pushed, shoved, struck, knocked to the ground and otherwise roughed up by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department.

This incident has made me so angry I’ve had to struggle to find the right words to express my rage responsibly. The incident at MacArthur Park is being investigated half a dozen different ways. There will be personnel changes. There will be lawsuits. There will be reforms. And frankly, I don’t want to get in the way, mess anything up, or say more than the victims themselves have already said.

But the very idea that members of the media landed in the hospital because cops put them there makes my blood boil and turns my stomach.

Yes, police were trying to clear out a group of rowdy protesters who were throwing things at them. And yes, the officers’ superiors have offered up stuff like, “an aberration.” “over the top,“ or, incredibly, the rationalization that the cops lost control because, well, cops lose control easily!

Sorry, not buying it.

In the first place, law enforcers should not be lawbreakers. California law clearly allows journalists to be exactly where they were, and to do exactly what they were doing. None of this “We gave you those press passes and we can take them away” hogwash. No, you can’t.

Second, “losing control” doesn’t begin to explain what happened out there. It doesn’t explain why one journalist got knocked down and heard laughter from the cop who did it. It doesn’t explain why another reporter got shoved to the ground and was immediately told to get up again, by an officer who clearly was making it up at he went along. And it doesn’t explain why officers fired pellets at a crew in a news van. A stationary, parked news van.

Third, where’s all that great LAPD training? Is anyone going to say, with a straight face, that Los Angeles Police officers are incapable of clearing a crowd without breaking a cameraperson’s bones??

You also probably know this is not the first time, which is one reason why the LAPD remains the only police force in the country under the scrutiny of a Federal consent order.

But will things really change now? Can anyone or anything break the disgusting Us Against Them culture so inbred at the LAPD?

Maybe. Because like it or not, fair or unfair, it makes a difference when you attack a journalist.

Had those police batons come down only on protesters’ heads, it would have still been reprehensible, but a day later nobody would be talking about it. But the cops smacked reporters who were doing their jobs, and those reporters’ colleagues got mad and made sure the whole world saw it, again and again. Chief William Bratton, the most media-savvy police chief L.A. has ever had, desperately wants to maintain his almost mythical reputation as America’s Top Cop who brings down crime rates wherever he goes. He also wants to keep his job, now up for renewal. And he knows he blew it. So he just may work extra hard to fix it.

The early signs are encouraging. Bratton demoted two commanders and expressed his own personal outrage. More important, two weeks after the MayDay Melee (we media types have to give everything a catchy name) another protest took place in the same park, there were plenty of police, everything was peaceful, and no one laid a hand on any journalist.

Let’s hope it stays that way. I promise you, we’ll be watching.






Tom Snyder

By Abe Rosenberg


He was always my favorite.

The cigarette smoke...

The unforgettable laugh..

The HAIR!

Tom Snyder was one-of-a-kind.

An anchorman who seemed too big for the job.

An up-close-and-personal talk show host who always asked the questions we wanted to ask. A conversationalist who at least sounded well-prepared, even when he really wasn’t!

After watching just a few editions of his Tomorrow show in the early ‘70’s, I was hooked. Here was a talk show you could curl up on the couch with, sink into the back-and-forth between Tom and his famous, infamous and often outright weird guests, as if they were right there in the room with you. There was nothing else like it.

Everybody noticed.

In those early years Don Imus was asked about TV personalities. Imus said he hated them all. Except one. “Snyder,” he said.

NBC was so high on Snyder, there were almost daily rumors about him taking over the Nightly News or even The Tonight Show. The network rolled out one magazine show after another to showcase him. Dan Ackroyd did Snyder almost better than Snyder did. Tom even showed up in the movies, sort of. One memorable scene had a crazed criminal suspect surrendering to police while saying, “Where’s Tom Snyder? I want Tom Snyder!!”

When WNBC brought Snyder to New York to anchor the 6pm hour of NewsCenter4, I was able to watch him twice a day, doing two entirely different things. Tom never seemed as comfortable behind the anchor desk as on his talk show set. For one thing, the smoking had to go. Only it didn’t. Once, as a reporter’s package ended, they cut back to Snyder with the offending cigarette still in his mouth. For a split second he looked terrified. Like a shot, he put down the cigarette, then, realizing it was too late, he smiled broadly, held up the still-smoky butt, looked right in the camera and said, “Hey, why should I deny it?”

Another time he closed the newscast with his favorite Thanksgiving turkey recipe, which basically involved marinating the bird in six different kinds of booze, throwing away the turkey and drinking what was left. “You won’t really have a Thanksgiving dinner,” he said, barely stifling his trademark laugh, “But you really won’t care!” NOW the laugh burst forth, and when it finally died down, Tom invited us to tune in next month... for his Christmas goose recipe!

Tom had that rare quality that jumped right through the TV screen and grabbed you. It almost didn’t matter what he was saying. He was just fun to watch, and I always made a point of getting as much Snyder as I could. It was a shame when his star began to decline. NBC paired him with gossip reporter Rona Barrett on Tomorrow, a disaster. Not long after, when Tomorrow ended, Tom made a classy exit, simply fading to black (he said he wanted to go out the way he came in) with his simple “Good Night Everybody!”

He had some tough years. He made a health club infomercial. Then he got a radio gig, another shot at local news in New York which flopped, then a CNBC show, thrown into a mix of mediocre talkers. Only when he surfaced on the CBS Late Late Show, which David Letterman created for him, did some of the old spark appear to return.

TV hasn’t been the same, or as good, since he retired. And it’s sad that there won’t be another Snyder comeback. Can you imagine what he would have done with a Paris Hilton? Or a Lindsay Lohan? Or a George W. Bush! And who else out there today has the whimsy to invite us to “fire up the Colortini and watch the pictures as they fly through the air?”

He will be missed.

Photo: CBS