Regular commenter, “Jimmy”, is doing the heavy lifting today on the global warming topic so miserably bowdlerized by spin-crazed righties. (My dismissive, elitist position remains: “Let the fools rant on in their private echo chamber. They add nothing to the base of knowledge.”
Earlier though, “Jimmy”, asked only half-facetiously what I was ever doing watching Channel 5’s late news in the first place? (For the record, an Eyewitness News teaser in the middle of “Lost”, promising a Hubbard Broadcasting news organization’s “report” on global climate change, was just too damned irresistible.)
But the topic of the relevance and value of local TV popped up again a day or two later over lunch with another former media columnist. We gather occasionally to condemn all the various bastards, (more every hour, it turns out), and bore waiters with our deep thoughts on the low-brow mayhem we see at every point of the compass. That, and we get to play amateur restaurant reviewers, although my colleague rates as something close to a true gourmet. (Capsule review of the M&S Grill’s calamari — quite good. But the dipping sauce still doesn’t compare with Big Bowl’s. The Reuben though, was juicy and flavorful. … Now you know why I don’t write about food.)
Anyway, amid exchanges of the usual gossip and slander we touched on the likely fate of the 10 pm local news, a “product” neither of us consumes much anymore, mainly because of the absurd concessions broadcasters have made to commercial considerations. It isn’t just the monotony of breathless crime reporting and relentless self-promotion — although that’d be enough to drive any sane person back to print. But in age of so many alternative news sources it is more and more the ridiculous short-hand formulaic 22-minute newscasts apply to almost every type of story, the almost complete lack of analysis given government reporting — beyond which party’s ox is getting gored — and the sheer, numbing corniness of the whole content template.
I mean, don’t you ever watch the local news, here in the Twin Cities or anywhere, and get the eery feeling that you’re locked in 1970s worm hole? A time trap where 30 years haven’t changed the lighting, make-up, story selection, presentation or ambient chatter?
With all the ink and tears being spilled over the gutting of newspapers by their investors, it seems worth taking a look into the near term future of local TV news, particularly at this moment when gizmos like Apple TV have arrived to marry all the news sources on the internet to your television set. (OK, for the moment Apple TV will only play video first downloaded to your computer. But we can agree that is a very short-term limitation.)
“Hyper-localization” is this month’s buzzword among news managers, and TV news, with its satellite trucks able to pump out pictures of yellow-tape wrapped crime scenes faster and better than anyone else probably seem to have a solid lock on the “local news” franchise. But really, folks, tell me there isn’t an audience out there in a city as hip as ours for a lower-tech version oriented to more relevant topics than gang-bang murders and house fires, staffed by smart-asses willing to ask impertinent questions of public officials and flesh a truly relevant story out beyond 45 seconds?
The actual point of departure for this conversation was the internet video work already being done by first-tier newspaper reporters like the New York Times’ David Carr, David Pogue, etc. and the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank. Based strictly on telegenicity none of those gentlemen would get passed the first purge of photo resumes. But in the evolved world of 2007 video-news, (as opposed to the 1970 standard revered by network consultants), they are all natural “performers”, with, obviously, the huge advantage of being able to constantly assert and establish credibility by having three to five minutes to tell an actual story as opposed to silly, ghoulish, dumb-downed headlines.
Point being, the Star Tribune should have gotten hip to this evolution at least five years ago. If new owners Avista want a list of a dozen Star Tribune staffers who would make decent TV reporters they can e-mail me here at The Rake.
Also, for years PBS has danced around a full-scale union with NPR. Now THAT would make astonishing good sense at a point in our history where hoary commercial considerations have led otherwise serious news managers to conclude that the only way to survive is by aping and out bullshitting the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Nancy Grace.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply