Category: ABC News

In the News QUESTIONS

I’m recalling that the guy who did the In the News segments on Saturday morning s for CBS died last year. What WAS his name? He had a great voice.

Anyway, an extension of a recent Lefty question.

1. Where do you get the news?
Local newspaper? Yes, I read the Albany Times Union, more for the local stories.
National newspaper? Yes, the Wall Street Journal, even though their editorial policy is obnoxious. I do like the cool sabermetric stuff they have on the Friday sports page, their movie recviews are usually spot on, and I like the wine, small business and and technology columns. I USED to read the NY Times daily; those were the days, he sighed. Someone tortured me by getting me a free NYT last Sunday; still haven’t read the book review or the magazine.
Local TV news? I used to, back when this guy was anchoring. But now, I might get “News in a Minute” from the Time Warner folks, unless some major story has broken, when I’ll usually tuirn to the NBC or ABC affiliate.
National news? ABC in the evenings, ABC and CBS on Sunday morning; the ABC show does a best of the late night comedians segment. Also 60 Minutes, for stories such as Brundibar: How The Nazis Conned The World by using a children’s opera to deceive the International Red Cross, which, frankly, made me weep; and GIs Petition Congress To End Iraq War, which frankly gave me hope – check out The Appeal for Redress website for more information. The Today show on those rare times I watch in the morning.
Radio news? About four minutes worth on NPR at 6 a.m., usually. If I’m in the car, I’ll sometimes catch NPR.
Internet news? I tend to note the pieces on Google or AOL, but don’t tend to read them unless they’re breaking stories, usually a storm (Alabama, Florida), a death (Molly Ivins), or a rampage (Utah mall). Occasionally, I’ll check out the local paper’s website, usually when the weather’s dodgy, and I want to know about school closings.
Internet commentary (e.g., Daily Kos)? Rarely, unless someone sends me a link.
E-mailed news? I get a notice from Hispanic Business, which often has news elements.
Most of the above I do NOT watch in real time.

2. Why do you get, or don’t get, the news?
As a librarian, I’ve found it useful context for future questions. Someone reads about a new tax policy and wants to know the implications for themselves. I COULD look it up when asked, but I have found it easier to answer when I have some idea what they’re talking about. Besides, I have that JEOPARDY!-champion-know-it-all burden to maintain. Everyone assumes I know everything (except about cars, where they KNOW I haven’t a clue).
That said, sometimes, I tune out certain stories: another helicopter going down in Afghanistan or Iraq, or the next car bombing that kills scores of civilians, out of self-preservation.

ROG

Torture: I’m Against It

Well, that does seem obvious, I suppose. But this winter, ABC News was doing their Basic Instincts series, and they broadcast a piece on The Science of Evil. They replicated the Milgram experiment:
“The Milgram experiment was a series of famous scientific studies of social psychology, intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant’s personal conscience.”

Then I discovered Ella Mazel. She is a…vintage woman who, in 1998, had put together a “treasury of quotes on the past, present, and future of the color line in America” called And don’t call me a racist!, which a colleague of mine had received at a conference, and had given me a copy. Ms. Mazel doesn’t sell the book, although she appreciates money for the postage.

Subsequently, she’s compiled Not in MY name!, a collection of quotes on the past, present, and future of the practice of torture. Even without photos, or specific descriptions of torture, I found it to be a disturbing read. This latter book is available only online.

Finally, I found a compelling read which matched my opinion as to Why I Stopped Watching “24”.

ROG

Jennings

I was content to post not too much today, I really was, but then I heard that Peter Jennings had died.

When I was growing up, it was Huntley/Brinkley in our household (the reason I know the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 9th), then Walter Cronkite. When Cronkite retired in the early 1980s, I tried a number of folks: Chancellor then Brokaw, Rather. But eventually I found myself gravitating towards this Canadian fellow.

I think I found him more credible because he was somehow more the observer. I think his disastrous first shot at the anchor in his 20s made him work harder. Perhaps my favorite moment was on September 15, 2001 when he was talking to kids about the attacks, compassionate, yet not jingoistic.

When he said he’d be back when he went off the air in April, I figured, for a while, that maybe he would be.

The network has no clear choice to replace him. The folks who have been substituting for him already have a job (Elizabeth Vargas on Prime Time) or two (Charles Gibson on Prime Time and, more importantly for ABC’s bottom line, Good Morning America.) Koppel is set to leave Nightline soon to do his own thing.

As I’m sure all the news analysts are saying, the triumvirate is over, which is neither here nor there for me. But the passing of Peter Jennings is one that fills me with some sorrow. It’s strange that when you “invite someone into your home” electronically, you can get feelings of sadness when they’re gone.

ROG

Slippery affiliation

I was going to request a tape of the season finale of Gilmore Girls on this blog, but I’ve already been helped by a certain blogger.

It has been one of the very few shows that Carol and I watch religiously, ever since we caught it in summer reruns during its first season. It’s a soap opera, and I don’t mean that pejoratively at all. (N.Y.P.D. Blue, ER, Hill Street Blues are all soap operas.)

I had set the VCR to tape at home. But I neglected to tell Carol that she needed to put in a FRESH (just like the WB!) tape and the incumbent tape ran out of space about 20 minutes into the show! (I would have changed it myself except that I was still in Lake Placid.)

And since I was still in Lake Placid Tuesday, I went up to my room after the SBDC awards banquet at about 10 p.m., turned on the TV, flipped through the channels and came across an episode of Gilmore Girls. Initially, I assumed it was a rerun broadcast on ABC Family cable, but it soon became evident that it was THAT NIGHT’S episode, which I watched.

Most of the buzz about this series has about the rapier-quick dialogue between Lorelei and Rory, the relationship of Lorelei (and Rory) with Lorelei’s parents, and the Luke and Lorelei relationship- Will they? Won’t they? They did – now what? (An aside: I’ve long wondered if their names are nods to Luke and Laura from the daytime soap General Hospital.)

But the best thing about this show is about the parallel construction that the show tends to provide. I don’t always pick it up until the show is over. This season ender was about quitting. Will Rory quit Yale? Will her best friend Lane Kim quit her band? Where they each end up, and how they got there, was a real treat.

But why was it on at 10 p.m.? Was there some (amazingly rare) Presidential news conference or some major catastrophe that backed up the programming?

Nah.

In the Plattsburgh, NY/Burlington, VT television market, there is no WB affiliate, so WFFF in Burlington (actually Colchester), FOX 44, broadcasts the 8-10 pm WB shows from 10 pm-midnight!

Those of you in large markets may not appreciate this fully. When I was a kid, there were 7 stations in New York City, 2 (CBS), 4 (NBC), 7 (ABC), 13 (PBS), and 5, 9, and 11 (all independents). Eventually, 5 became a Fox affiliate, 11 became the WB’s outlet, and 9 went with UPN (and moved to New Jersey).

(Incidentally, this numbering is the reason most fictional TV stations in those days were 3, 6, 8, or 12, the remaining numbers on the VHF dial, or some upper number on the UHF dial, Channels 14-83. Most notable is WJM, Channel 12, Minneapolis, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And if you don’t know what the heck I mean by VHF and UHF, look here.)

But in a smaller market, such as Binghamton, NY, where I grew up (and at a time when there were only the three “major” networks), there were only two stations, WNBF, Channel 12 (CBS) and WINR, Channel 40 (NBC).

Then one Saturday morning in the fall of 1962, I turned on the TV just before 7 a.m. to Channel 34. Where there had nothing, suddenly we had a third station! It was WBJA, an ABC affiliate. My TV viewing choices had just increased by 50%!

What I didn’t realize until later is that Channel 12 (and perhaps Channel 40) were broadcasting some ABC programming before
Channel 34 came on the scene. I specifically remember Lawrence Welk, an ABC show, showing on Channel 12 Saturday nights at 6 or 6:30 pm. I recall that other ABC shows such as Bachelor Father, The Flintstones, Hawaiian Eye, Leave It to Beaver, Ozzie & Harriet, The Real McCoys, and Top Cat would show up on the schedule, often on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, outside of prime time (which was usually 7:30-11 pm in those days.) I remember these shows quite clearly, and most of them were off the schedule by the fall of 1962. I must have seen them SOMEWHERE. Cable didn’t exist and I didn’t go to New York City that often.

Apparently, shows broadcast by one network appearing on the affiliate of another network was common in most small markets, going back to the days when there was a fourth network, Dumont, in the mid 1940s to the mid-1950s.

You big-market folks just don’t understand the confusion!¦

ROG
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