Category: Media Watch

Speaking of news, however defined, the Tampa Bay TV market now has had a fortnight to size up the newest entry into the late evening sweepstakes, WTVT-Ch. 13’s NewsEDGE at 11. Early ratings are favorable for the local Fox station, which probably means enough viewers can never get enough frenetically-paced, tabloid-styled news. It is what it is. Mark Wilson presiding instead of Shephard Smith.

But one feature has no future. In a laudable effort to work commentary into the format, the station settled on a four-minute segment called “The Lightning Round.” It features Wilson, sportscaster Chip Carter, weatherman Paul Dellegatto and a community guest barely scratching the surface of three topics, which have ranged from the “happy holidays” controversy and domestic surveillance to a teenage sex survey and the licensing of strippers.

Wilson is personable and glib; the designated guest – ranging from a law professor to print journalists – adds presumptive heft; and Dellegatto and Carter are superfluous. Time, seemingly, is precious in the rapid-fire format and — then we’re privy to what the sports and weather guys think about licensing strippers in Hillsborough County.

This feature has to go. And Carter and Dellegatto should lead the lobbying.

It’s bad enough that the airwaves are polluted with “reality” flotsam, but do print and electronic media actually have to prominently cover – and even tease — this stuff like, well, “news”?

There’s hyperbolized eulogy rhetoric, and then there’s Chris Rock’s over-the-top homage to the late comedian Richard Pryor. Rock referenced Pryor as “the Rosa Parks of comedy.”

Please.

Rosa Parks mainstreamed civil disobedience to odious Jim Crow laws. Pryor, a genuinely hilarious entertainer, mainstreamed the N and MF words.

Two weeks ago I was watching the Sunday morning political talk show hosted by Chris Mathews on NBC. Among his guests: the conservative David Brooks and the not-necessary-to-label Andrea Mitchell of NBC, a mainstream media liberal as well as Alan Greenspan’s wife. The topic was illegal immigration. Economics. Legalities. Security. Sovereign borders. The usual mix.

Mitchell waxed apoplectic when Brooks referenced a “culture of criminality” that permeated much of today’s immigrants — because they were illegal from the get-go. Mitchell accused Brooks of cheap-shotting Hispanics and said today’s immigrants were no less worthy than their counterparts from Europe a century prior.

There then followed a commercial break and a new topic.

That’s show biz.

But it’s hardly the last word on a very sensitive, very politically incorrect aspect of this country’s volatile immigration scenarios. We’re all too easily at odds with our own “homeless, tempest-tossed” immigration ideals. In short, today’s immigrants are different – and not just because they’re not from Europe.

Those “huddled masses” of yesterday were looking for economic opportunity, and they were looking to assimilate. Topping their agendas: becoming Americans and Americanizing their kids in this unique melting pot.

Now we have the salad bowl of diversity. Assimilation (for those arriving from south of the Rio Grande) is not a priority. Or a necessity. Or even, presumably, a particularly good idea. Witness “Mexafornia.”

Those coming from other continents and hemispheres — with educations and skills – often seem more absorbed in skimming the economic cream and retaining national and religious identities in self-contained sub-cultures. Opportunity trumped by opportunism. Allegiance is elsewhere.

Other than that and some border issues, not much has changed since the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886.

Recently WTVT-Channel 13 announced that it was developing a new 11 p.m. newscast to accompany its incumbent newscasts at 6 and 10:00 p.m. It’s likely to debut before the end of the year.

I know we’re now the 12th largest TV market in America. And I’m as big an advocate of our supply-and-demand marketplace as the next guy. But can there really be a market, let alone a need, for another glibly co-anchored, news-Vipirized weather-sports triumvirate?

And even more perplexing, it replaces M*A*S*H reruns.

Just when you think the popular culture is Hades-bound in a handcart, we learn of “Stand In,” one of MTV Network’s hottest new properties. It’s about celebrities as surprise, guest instructors at institutes of higher learning. It’s actually the spin-off MTVu, which is aimed at college campuses.

OK, you go where your market is, and you have to do something when it’s not Spring Break. If you’re MTV, this is smart. But it also requires the considerable cooperation of the institutions. This smarts.

Granted, some guests, such as Bill Gates talking about new technologies and career possibilities to a University of Wisconsin computer programming class, are beyond reproach. The ultimate, real-world input for students that is also a promotional coup for UW and Microsoft. Hey, best of all worlds.

The series actually began last year with the maestro of self-promotion, Jesse Jackson, and has included Kanye West, Ashley Judd, Snoop Dogg, Sting and the ever-edgy Sen. John McCain. Madonna has appeared at Hunter College, Marilyn Manson at Temple University and Cameron Diaz – speaking on building designs that protect the environment – at Stanford University.

Let’s call this what it is. Absent a Gatesesque guest, it’s a sell-out by universities that would allow their good offices to be commercialized in such a cheesy, pandering fashion.

But if they need the publicity and a link of “relevance” to their “market” so desperately, at least book these self-serving acts into Marketing 101, where they belong.

It’s not often that Tampa is referenced on the front page of the Wall Street Journal — let alone in the lead of the top story. But thanks to this city’s integral role in a Verizon piece, that’s what occurred two Fridays ago.

Nationwide, Verizon is battling to hold its own in the free-for-all that is today’s telecommunications marketplace. According to the WSJ , Verizon’s upgrade plans involve spending some $20 billion to fiber-optic its service areas. Part of the scenario includes “squaring off against local governments” as it seeks to offer additional service, such as cable TV. And these local governments, such as Tampa’s, can be pretty demanding when it comes to a quid pro quo for granting permission.

City officials, noted the WSJ, presented Verizon with a “$13-million wish list, including money for an emergency communications network, digital editing equipment and video cameras to film a math-tutoring program for kids.”

The WSJ chronicled Verizon’s pique, suspension of talks and subsequent deal with Temple Terrace, which resulted in ads that sardonically urged Tampa residents to move to Temple Terrace if they wanted more TV choices.

Verizon later “turned on the marketing charm,” noted the WSJ , and the two sides resumed talking. According to the Journal , “Verizon says it’s confident any outstanding issues will be resolved and that its video plans eventually will get the city council’s blessing.”

Not editorialized in the WSJ article: These days Verizon better make sure that it’s anticipating a blessing — not a rubber stamp.

Maybe, just maybe, we can start to exhale — meteorologically speaking. We missed Wilma’s havoc-wreaking wake, although somewhere, we all fear, is an undodged, categorical bullet with our name on it. And the hurricane season officially has almost another month to go. The Greek alphabet is not just for fraternities.

A few postscripts from another crucible in the tropical cross-hairs:

*Frost warnings, of course, will next loom, but landscape concerns – after having emotionally rationalized the loss of everything for the second consecutive year – seem kind of whiney . How bad can it be if it doesn’t come with infra-red imagery, cones of Armageddon, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. subplots, FEMA alerts, presidential cameos or looting scenarios?

*The media will always do what they do — some better than others. But public service is hardly their raison d’etre . They keep score. Hence, the affiliates’ foreboding teases and the marketing of “teams” with on-site, histrionic reporters and high-tech forecasting systems with Hummer-like names such as VIPIR and Vortex and Titan.

*I’m still boycotting any station with a meteorologist wearing suspenders . A little too contrived and show bizzy for my taste in a time of trust. I am, however, accepting of that look-at-me look when car shopping.

*As for the national coverage, two words: Al Roker . The “Today Show” weatherman may re-think that gastric bypass the next time he risks becoming a ballast-challenged, hype-seeking missile.

*The ongoing challenge we all face is to be informed – but not bludgeoned by the drumbeat, impending doom hurricane coverage. As a coping device, I resist the urge to frequently flip on the TV, even if it’s for a market update or West Coast scores. There are official weather service trajectory updates a couple of times a day. That’s enough. It keeps me out of the colorful, continuous loop of all Caribbean hurl all the time.

*It’s also advisable, for the same reason, to check e-mail less often. Never, I noticed, did the AOL headlines seem so benignly welcome as the day after Wilma’s destructive dash through South Florida. You had to look hard to find “Wilma Pushes TV Reporters Around.” Otherwise, it was practically refreshing to see: “Who’s Phishing in Your E-Mail?”, “Cheney Implicated in CIA Leak Case,” “Vote: Is It A Lost Year For Bush?”, “Your I.Q. Going Up In Smoke?”, “Tea Sales Boom But Are Results For Real?” and “Tonya Harding Strikes Again.”

*Where is it written that all hurricane coverage must include requisite, trite footage and photos of surfers doing their imbecilic best to trivialize impending disaster – or at least severe distress — for the rest of us with families, houses and different priorities?

*Two more words: Anderson Cooper .

*One final word: Geraldo .

Among all the possible scenarios to be played out in the Valerie Plame CIA-leak investigation, the one that always seemed most likely has come to pass. Reporter Judith Miller will write a book.

Karl Rove might skate and Lewis Libby may scoot — and Dick Cheney likely can pull a plausible-deniability card from his sleeve. But the Miller Lite of confidential-sources martyrdom was the wire-to-wire constant. She will take a leave from the New York Times to work on her version of who winked, nodded and said what to whom. Probably include some major musings on the First Amendment as well as a first person peek inside the Alexandria Detention Center. Larry King will doubtless get the first promotional pop.

But it won’t be a tell-all tome. That’s because she doesn’t remember all. For example, she maintains (in a recent New York Times piece) that she “didn’t think” she got Plame’s name first from Scooter Libby. She wrote: “I said (in grand jury testimony) I believed the information came from another source whom I could not recall.”

Oh.

Maybe it will be revealed in her book.

No less fundamental to Miller’s credibility outsourcing is the question about the timing of the waiver of confidentiality that Miller received from Libby, Vice President Cheney’s top aide. Libby’s lawyer says the waiver had been there all along. Miller actually had a chance to clear that up at a news conference but punted the question back to her lawyer who passed.

However you rationalize and nuance it, how many people would have opted for nearly three months of contempt-of-court slammer time without exhausting all recourse? Who wouldn’t have checked to make sure a (White House) source – not to be confused with a revenge-wary, conscience-stricken whistle-blower — really wanted you jailed?

Unless 85 days of down time at the detention center was a career move.

Unless journalistic “martyrdom” was the ticket that would override the humiliation of being told by your executive editor that you were off the Iraq-and-WMD beat because some of your reporting turned out to be, well, wrong. Recall that Miller had allowed herself to be a conduit for Almad Chalabi, the exiled leader of the Iraqi National Congress, who had been feeding her self-serving, faux intelligence about Saddam Hussein and WMD. Miller aided and abetted the rush to war, if you will.

The Fourth Estate didn’t need this case. To many Americans, the media’s societal standing rivals that of FEMA cronies and telemarketers.

However unique and critical its calling, the press – which has its own amendment, the 1st – is still not above the law. There is no exemption that permits journalists to ignore a good faith subpoena in a criminal case.

The lesson yet to be learned is this: If you’re going to the mattresses over a protected source, it better be seen as an ethical stand for a greater good. However, when the confidential source is no whistle-blower, but an agenda-driven Administration operative, the moral high ground becomes an ethical sinkhole.

And for those keeping score, chances for a federal shield law for reporters and their sources has rarely looked so remote. So be it.

Perhaps Miller could devote an entire chapter to that.

As I watched a hard-hatted President Bush hammer a nail into some plywood at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in Pass Christian, Miss, I had a flashback.

I’ve been on a few HFH sites that were heaven-sent for politicians looking for the perfect photo-op. Newt Gingrich’s drive-by near Atlanta comes readily to mind. What’s not to like about being associated with HFH? It’s doing for others while requiring those others to also do for themselves. It’s an affiliation that transcends party labels.

Perhaps the president did more than a cameo appearance in Pass Christian. Given his plummeting popularity ratings, he can ill afford for the media to portray him as cynically using HFH for some cheap, populist, public relations boost.

But I hearken back to construction sites that featured HFH’s long-running VIP, former President Jimmy Carter. Say what you will – and most of us have – about Carter’s preachy, micro-managing ways, he was – and is – no photo-op carpenter. He is the real deal – a master woodworker and craftsman who knows what he’s doing and doesn’t want the media in the way. He does the requisite interviews because it helps the HFH cause — and then he’s all business.

I can still see him being deferentially cajoled into coming down from a roof in Houston because it was so humid and he was so, well, old and in jeopardy of dehydration.

And then there was the time – on the same HFH “Jimmy Carter Work Project” in Houston – when he lapsed back into Oval Office ethic. The project, involving about 30 homes, was essentially done. All that remained were landscaping touches and dedication ceremonies.

A couple of volunteers were planting a tree in a front yard. They were re-gauging the depth and sizing up the location of the hole when a disembodied voice rang out. “Now you’re gonna want to move over about four feet and dig a little deeper,” intoned the voice through an open window.

The unstartled response was knee-jerk and immediate: “Yes, sir, Mr. President; appreciate the help.”

Some micro-managing is better than others.