Sinclair gives me gas, and not the useful kind like the old service stations

I’ll say it now, and I’ll say it loud – the concept of “liberal media” is a myth!

Many different faces all saying the same thing

If anything, we’re more likely to have a trivial media – over-anxious to feed us details about every stupid pseudo-celebrity and gory homicide, rather than report details about issues that the corporate execs who run many news organizations these days likely think are “boring!!!,” and also downright costly to cover.

Won't be Chicago's 'very own' much longer

SO WHEN I read this week of the reaction of Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., officials who said that all print news media are biased and that their collection of television stations are the only ones they trust to tell the “truth,” I couldn’t help but think that somebody is feeling a tad insecure about their status.

Or lack, thereof.

Although I suspect their lack of a corporate thick skin is going to result in many more diatribes by this entity – which is the one that is in the process of acquiring control of WGN-TV and the other television stations across the country that used to be known as Tribune Media.

Is broadcaster defaming oil company's name?

You’d think that Sinclair officials would be used to this. Although the company thus far has focused its properties on the South and in smaller media markets – the ABC affiliate in Springfield, Ill., is the only Sinclair-owned entity I’m aware of anywhere near Chicago.

WITHIN THE NEWS business, Sinclair has long had a reputation for the commentaries they put together – then expect ALL of their television stations to air unedited. I don’t doubt that for the Smith family that owns controlling interest in the company, their ability to get their ideologically conservative viewpoint out IS their primary reason for being in the broadcast news business.

And now that they want to buy up the old Tribune TV properties, they will have themselves in the New York, Chicago and Los Angeles markets – along with many other major cities across the country.

Its been a long while since Sinclair operated anywhere near Chicago

Their grasp over the nation will grow significantly (what’s the figure, 72 percent of the U.S. public will have the option to get their “news” from Sinclair-owned stations). Which has some people scared and hoping that the FCC is somehow capable of thwarting the deal.

But with the FCC a part of the federal government now under the control of President Donald Trump – who recently Tweeted us to say how much he approves of Sinclair’s spin of the news – I’d say it’s highly unlikely any federal regulators would do a darned thing to interfere.

PERSONALLY, I THINK the only people who complain about “liberal media” are the ones with such ideological hang-ups of their own that what they really want are “far right” programs to the exclusion of all others. It says more about their own leanings than anything that is wrong with what exists on television.

The idea that so much ideologue tripe is being spewed (and that there are those who think alternatives ought to be prohibited) is something that gives me gas.

And not of the type that is pumped into our automobiles at Sinclair Oil stations across the country – although not anywhere in the Chicago-area any longer (they only have three stations in Southern Illinois and four stations in Indiana – one of which is in Indianapolis.

Whenever I hear the Sinclair name, it has brought to my mind the green dinosaur that is part of the Sinclair logo.

BUT NOW, IT threatens to bring to my mind the nonsense being repeated everywhere – such as in that recent collection of commentaries aired on assorted television stations by many different broadcasters, but all containing the exact same wording regardless of where it was aired.

I’m sure it will be just a matter of time before someone on WGN (which for years has been “Chicago’s Very Own") will wind up having a Baltimore-prepared commentary for them to broadcast; informing us of how irresponsible and reckless Chicago is on whatever issue that Trump happens to have buzzing about in his pea-sized brain that particular day. As though we Chicagoans ought to feel shame at our opposition to this Age of Trump we’re now in. Rather than continuing our resistance.

Will broadcaster suffer a similar fate?

If we’re lucky, perhaps the Sinclair overbearing attitudes will have a similar effect as the end of the 1990’s-era children’s show “Dinosaurs.” In that show, Earl Sinclair (a dim-witted dinosaur nowhere near as lovable as Dino from “The Flintstones”) inadvertently caused the environmental calamity that brought on the Ice Age and made dinosaurs extinct.

Maybe enough dim-witted commentaries that go against the mood of the nation (Morning Consult’s latest poll has Trump with a 54 percent disapproval rating for March – and 60 percent in Illinois) is what will turn the viewing public against watching Sinclair-owned television properties or trusting anything they have to say,

  -30-

Bye, bye bridge. Are we truly more enlightened about our surroundings?

I have my own personal pet peeve when it comes to news judgment and the types of happenings that are proclaimed to be “news” by various reporting organizations making their money in the “news business.”

I can’t stand anything that is a story only because it was captured on video. Something that wouldn’t have been acknowledged at all if not for the fact that someone felt compelled to play with their video camera at a certain moment in time.

IF THAT MEANS I expect there to be some significance to the happenings that become news, then so be it. My own hang-ups about broadcast operations is that they’re more interested in showing moving pictures than they are presenting any information of significance.

And now that many newspapers are thinking in terms of their websites and wanting to capture video snippets, they are falling for the same level of triviality in terms of what they report.

Hence, I bring up my own personal non-news story for Thursday – the demolition of the Torrence Avenue bridge at Chicago’s farthest south border.

I only know of the bridge because I am by birth a 10^th Warder who was raised in Calumet City. Meaning that particular stretch of Torrence Avenue is one I have driven along so many times in my life I’ve lost count.

IT WAS THE connection between myself and the other parts of the family that remained living in Chicago proper – and not the poofy parts of the city, but in places like Hegewisch and the East Side (I don’t want to hear from some poofy downtown resident claiming Streeterville is the real East Side – it ain’t).

But that bridge over the Grand Calumet River (which is the city limits (to the north is industrial area of Chicago and to the south is Burnham – a community Al Capone and his cronies once used as a way of dodging law enforcement in Chicago) is now no more.

It seems the bridge had become so decrepit that Illinois Department of Transportation officials ordered it blocked off a year ago.

On Thursday, officials finally got around to setting up the explosives that knocked out the support beams that were holding the structure up. Now, the rubble can be cleared away and a new bridge eventually will have to be built at Chicago’s southernmost tip.

SUPPOSEDLY, THAT BRIDGE will be complete by next year. Until then, people will have to continue using the Bishop Ford Freeway (which, in all honesty, I still think of as the Calumet Expressway) as the way to get into and out of the city proper.

I first saw a video snippet posted by 10^th Ward Alderman Susan Sadlowski Garza, who also published notices on her own Facebook account to let local residents know of what was happening – just in case they happened to be driving around the area Thursday morning.

But I also noticed how many television stations, web sites and newspapers felt compelled to make a story out of this – because they now have video of a bridge being blown to bits.

Not particularly good video – all the images are grainy. It’s also not like anybody did anything with their stories to try to report how this change would impact the lives of people who actually live in the area (in all honesty, it has been a few decades since I have lived there).

IT WAS JUST moving pictures of a bridge being taken down, with large puffs of smoke emanating from the structure before it collapsed into a large pile of metallic trash. Somehow, I doubt the opening of a new bridge providing access to Chicago will get anywhere near the attention of this explosion.

Watching it all made me feel like I ought to be giggling that stupid laugh of Beavis (or was it Butt Head). “Heh, heh, heh, heh, blowing stuff up is cool,” is what they’d think, before flipping the TV to some headbanger music video.

Which seems to be the tone of too much news coverage these days.

  -30-

Does it mean much that one-time Channel 2 news anchor Holt now the big guy at NBC's prime newscast?

I kind of got a kick out of the way I learned the latest in the Brian Williams/NBC News saga that he is no longer the face of the evening newscast and has been permanently replaced by interim news anchor Lester Holt.

HOLT: From BBM to natl. newscast head

I woke up Thursday morning and started the day with a few minutes of Robin Meade at CNN’s Headline News channel, where the one-time anchor of WMAQ-TV’s morning news segments told us all of how Williams was “demoted” to MSNBC and how Holt, the former WBBM-TV news anchor, now has the top broadcast position at his television network.

IT SOMETIMES SEEMS like one can’t get away from Chicago no matter how much they may try.

But back to Holt, who hasn’t worked in Chicago television for 15 years. But he did leave a memorable presence on the CBS station back when he worked in Chicago – helping to keep the channel’s news presence alive in those years AFTER Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson completed their domination of the Chicago news scene.

He even left his image on our city proper.

I found it amusing when I had to do a day of jury duty back in February that the Cook County Sheriff’s police continue to use a decades-old video featuring Holt, as he explained to us exactly what a jury is and what would be expected of us if – by chance – we were picked to be on a jury and asked to render a verdict on some poor schlub who theoretically is among our peers in society.

THAT VIDEO LOOKED like it had seen better days; having been played over and over and over again throughout the years since Holt had left Chicago – even though the basic message hasn’t changed one bit.

WILLIAMS: Was he really demoted?

But now, Holt has moved up to the top of the broadcast news scene – being in charge of what is supposedly the top priority newscast that NBC puts on each night.

He has the same job title that David Brinkley, John Chancellor (himself a former Chicago Sun-Times reporter-type person) and Tom Brokaw once held.

Yet I don’t know that anyone views Holt’s job as being anywhere as prominent as the role those men once held.

THE FACT IS that fewer people tune in to a scheduled newscast to learn news – preferring the notion of being able to tune to a news channel for 20 minutes or so at a time to get a jolt of information about what is happening in society then tuning in to whatever entertainment program it is they’d really rather watch. Just think of all the odd-hour newscasts our local television stations have created for those who can’t wait until 6 p.m.

MEADE: Is she now more prominent than Holt?

It may be that people seriously interested in news are still turning to the newspapers with the declining circulations – which could show that fewer people are seriously interested in “the news.”

So what should we think of this latest move – brought about by the fact that corporate officials felt the need to demote Williams without actually firing him. That would have brought too much shame to the network.

I’m not going to get too worked up over what Williams is alleged to have done – the whole account of whether he exaggerated his experiences while reporting in Iraqi war zones. It is proof that the memory is flawed.

I ALWAYS GET concerned anytime I have to write copy about some past event based off my own memory of it, rather than being able to look through the files of notes and old clippings I have accumulated during the past three decades. Invariably, some of the details are off. (Insert premature senility gag here).

So Williams is no longer on the network proper, but he’s now a reporter-type for MSNBC, the cable channel – which in some circles may actually be regarded as a promotion of sorts. A more prominent spot that gets watched by some, rather than an evening newscast whose timing isn’t convenient for people who want a fact or two right now!

Holt from the old days lives on in Cook County jury rooms

Holt winds up getting the allegedly prominent post when it no longer means as much as it used to.

And in Chicago and suburban Cook County, at least, some people are bound to stumble across the NBC Nightly News in coming weeks and say to themselves, “That’s the guy from the jury duty video. What a mustache he used to have!”

  -30-

EXTRA: If Obama didn't appear on network TV, did he really speak?

WTTW-TV was the best local bet to catch President Barack Obama's address to the nation concerning immigration reform.


The local PBS affiliate aired the speech live during its "Chicago Tonight" program, then had a two-person panel -- Kathleen Arnold of DePaul University and David Applegate of the Heartland Institute -- give their quickie, instant analysis.


OF COURSE, THERE also were WGBO and WSNS, the Chicago affiliates of the Spanish-language Univision and Telemundo networks respectively, with the former preempting a portion of the Latin Grammys program to carry the presidential speech that lasted about 15 minutes in total.


People with access to cable television channels could also check out the national-oriented news channels if they wanted to see the speech. I also saw several other places offer a chance to watch the address on their websites -- including the Chicago Sun-Times, to name one.


The point being that people who were interested in hearing what the president had to say had several options to pick from. So it probably wasn't the biggest of deals that none of the major networks chose to air a presidential address that will be key to comprehending the final two years of the Obama administration.


Yes, the White House has made it clear Thursday night they're upset that neither ABC, CBS nor NBC preferred to keep their standard prime time programming in place.


ALTHOUGH TO TELL you the truth, I'm not sure what any of those networks would have added to our understanding of the immigration reform issue.


Besides, after seeing how on Election Day, only independent station WGN-TV chose to give any early airtime to initial vote tallies and analysis (the other stations waited until their late-night newscasts before doing any reporting), I'm to the point where I expect next to nothing from local news broadcasts.


If you really want some detail about what this proposal could mean, you probably will have to turn to the newspaper accounts that already are turning up on various websites by now.


Either that, or go in search of yet another station carrying old "Friends" re-runs that bolster the stations' financial bottom line.


  -30-

EXTRA: Bulls/Magic beats Quinn/Rauner? So says local TV

For those people who might think that election results were everywhere and were unescapable, the reality was significantly different Tuesday.


WGN-TV was the only local broadcast outlet that pre-empted their usual evening programming to have news reports. Everybody else carried on with their usual prime-time shows, and waited until the late-night newscasts to tell people what was happening.


PERSONALLY, I FOUND CLTV, the Tribune Co.-owned local cable news station that likes to think it is around the clock local news to be most intriguing.


They stood with their pre- and post-game shows, along with a live broadcast of the Chicago Bulls' 98-90 victory over the Orlando Magic.


Somehow, I suspect few people will find objection to that decision.


  -30-

“WGN America” programs have little, if anything, to do with Chicago

I remember back the seven years I lived in Springfield, Ill., and had much of my focus centered around the Statehouse scene. I’d make the semi-regular trips back to Chicago when I could.

It's changed a lot since the early days

But much of the way I kept in touch with what was happening officially in Chicago was through WGN-TV.

THEY WERE STILL the “superstation” back then whose broadcasts were carried to remote parts of the nation (and the globe) through cable television and satellites. From a purely parochial perspective within the news business, WGN-TV had a certain significance.

They were the one Chicago-area television newscast that was carried across the entire state of Illinois.

People at the Statehouse could see the Channel 9 news on a regular basis – as opposed to the Channel 2, 5, 7 or 32 newscasts that could only be seen locally. Although I should admit that I remember Springfield residents who had satellite dishes rather than cable television programs would get our very own WFLD-TV for a local Fox affiliate.

Yes, people in Springfield got a little bit of exposure to the concept of Walter Jacobson, 1990's style – and I remember having to explain his significance and influence in Chicago. They just didn’t get the appeal.

BACK TO WGN, which gave the Chicago Cubs national exposure and made their losing ways seem cute (because the Tribune broadcast types knew how to make the overall atmosphere of the ballpark seem more important than a winning ball club). They also gave us exposure to the local newscasts.

But no more!!!

Or can we?

For WGN officials have let it be known that the local news we think of as being a natural part of 9 p.m. will no longer be carried on their broadcasts outside of the Chicago market. Only us in Chicago and the number three media market will see it.

WGN officials say the rest of the country that tunes in to WGN broadcasts will get to see the “Rules of Engagement” program (which I must confess to not having a clue what exactly that is).

THIS SEEMS TO be offending many people, some of whom actually went so far as to create a “Bring Back WGN News at Nine” page on Facebook – and one I actually indicated I “liked.”

Would these programs be too local?

Which I did so because I remember how often I made a point of tuning in to WGN news at 9 p.m. (followed up by WCIA-TV out of Champaign at 10 p.m. -- which doesn't even air in the capital city any longer). But I’m not under any delusion that the people in positions of authority are going to be swayed.

They seem to think that anybody who’s tuning in to WGN in other parts of the world (actually, they’re watching WGN America, not WGN-TV proper like we are) has little interest in Chicago proper, and views anything about Chicago as “too local” for the larger audience).

Personally, I think that WGN America is a little too generic. The times I have been outside the Chicago area and tuned into the channel, I found programming that could have aired anywhere. It seemed like the WGN label was somehow being misapplied.

I READ SOMEWHERE that someone wisecracked that it was becoming the equivalent of the Hallmark Channel. That may actually be a step up in programming quality.

So what will happen in those other parts of the country where there were some people who were counting on WGN to give them a little taste of where it is they come from? They’re going to have to adapt to whatever it is the news broadcasts in their current locale give them.

Perhaps something along the lines of that opening scene from “Broadcast News” (which I happened to be watching while writing this commentary) where Holly Hunter’s “Jane Craig” news producer character rants on and on about a story about a domino maze, while the people she speaks to love every second of it. And probably think the people demanding to keep a Chicago newscast on a national-focus station is somehow stupid.

So what should we think? Maybe, in a sense, this serves those people right for leaving this wonderful city on the shores of southwestern Lake Michigan. Although the punishment seems a bit steep, to me at least.

  -30-

EXTRA: Chicago native “integrates” Utah TV news; a long overdue move!

CROW: Will she return home?

Nadia Crow might not have been born in Chicago, but she grew up here and is as much a native as anyone else.

And like a lot of people trying to get into the news business, she has shown a willingness to move to wherever work is. Her career path includes a stay in South Bend, Ind., and it now has her as an anchor of the local newscasts for KTVX-TV, an ABC network affiliate in Salt Lake City.

BUT WHAT MAKES the 27-year-old unique? She’s African-American, and it seems she’s the first black person to be an anchor for a television newscast in Utah. Who’d have thought such a “first” would still be possible this late into the 21^st Century.

But it’s true. The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper gave Crow a decent write-up. It also is encouraging to see that station management acknowledges that her hiring has been a positive and there hasn’t been open resistance to the idea of a black woman being the face of the news.

Even though Utah (at 2.76 million people, only 29,287 of whom are African-American) isn’t exactly a place loaded with black faces. The Latino (358,340 people), Asian (55,285 people) and American Indian (32,927 people) populations are larger.

Although it would seem that there were more black people living in Utah in 2010 (according to the Census Bureau) than there were native Hawaiians (24,554 people). So there!

AND INTERESTING TO read her observation that Chicago television news could have used more black females as role models when she was growing up here, considering how the city itself (at 2.7 million people, the whole state of Utah is barely bigger) has so many differing ethnic groups that no one group can claim to be an all-dominating presence.

Perhaps what we get to look forward to in the future – should Crow decide she ever wants to come back to Chicago. She certainly couldn’t be worse than some of the television knuckleheads we now endure on our nightly newscasts!

  -30-

EXTRA: Al Jazeera’s U.S. take not cutesy enough for “American” masses

Al Jazeera’s U.S.-oriented television channel (meant to help cleanse the Qatar-based network of claims that it is radical Islamic in nature) is up and running, and isn’t anywhere near as radical as the ideologues of our society will want to believe it is as their justification for not watching the channel.

A news alternative, for some of us

Yes, it is likely a label that will stick, and may harm the channel’s chances of success – apparently since some cable television operators already are going out of their way to cut off access to the channel.

MEANING THAT SOME people who would be willing to give it a try will not even be capable of viewing it.

In my case, that isn’t true. I found the Al Jazeera America channel on Tuesday without much trouble (Channel 107, Comcast) and have tuned in on occasions.

In fact, as I write this Thursday, my television is tuned to the channel – which is airing a report (Slavery: A 21^st Century Evil) about conditions in Haiti and how some children live in ways that aren’t much different from slavery.

Not exactly the kind of report that’s going to get much airtime (if any) on any U.S.-based network. Some people are going to get bored by such subject matter. While some ideologues are going to get squeamish at the subject matter because, deep down, they’re going to realize they’re the descendants of the people who would have defended the concept as being within the “letter of the law.”

I ALSO JUST saw a promo for a program to air Thursday night by Ali Velshi where he claims to have read the entire 900-page document related to President Barack Obama’s health care reform initiatives. “Can Congress claim the same?,” he asks. Probably not!

They’re more likely to tell us about the latest reports about how Kim Kardashian is trashing Katie Couric (I still don’t understand why, although personally I could care less).

I have heard Al Jazeera people describe their new news channel as a serious news report perhaps along the line of National Public Radio on television. If there’s a better description, it is the British Broadcasting Co., which devotes serious amounts of time to the happenings of nations around the globe. I have heard quite a bit during my tune-ins on Al Jazeera America about the latest happenings in Egypt.

Although I also felt a similarity between the Al Jazeera programming and that I have seen on the news programs put together by the Christian Broadcasting Network (the channel operated by Pat Robertson).

THEIR REPORTERS OFTEN are willing to venture into underdeveloped countries and report on misery in the world – provided they can find a Western-oriented Christian to come in and try to resolve the problem.

Those stories may also get airtime on the new network – albeit without the hero coming in to save the day!

Personally, what I have most noticed about this network is the fact that a lot of faces I used to see on CNN or the other networks are now employed here – evidence to the fact that this network has created jobs within the news business.

Which is more than we can say these days about U.S.-based newsgathering organizations. Who’d have thought Al Jazeera could wind up being a boost to the U.S. economy? Albeit one that could turn to a blow if they fold a year from now.

  -30-

It’s becoming hard to ignore Jodi Arias. That’s a shame, because she’s ignorable

Stumbling around the television this past weekend I had to go out of my way to ignore the CNN Headline News channel – one of those outlets that is treating Jodi Arias as though she’s somehow someone interesting.



ARIAS: Reknowned for less than nothing

Arias is a young woman facing criminal charges out in Phoenix, Ariz., for the shooting death of her boyfriend.

HER TRIAL HAS been ongoing since January, and that cable news channel has tried to give us every single moment of what really is a tedious criminal case. A non-story, when you think about it realistically.

So what happened when the case finally wrapped up and it went to a jury?

That jury deliberated for less than an hour on Friday, then quit for the day. They’re scheduled to resume deliberations on Monday.

Yet anytime I tried turning to the Headline News channel for a quickie summary of weekend news, all I stumbled across was “Jodi Arias Watch” – with endless, and breathless, commentary meant to pass the time until the moment we get the verdict.

WHICH MIGHT MAKE sense if the jury had been sequestered and was actually deliberating during the weekend hours. As if we might literally learn at any second what the verdict is.

But we’re not! Anyone with sense would use this weekend to take a break from the endless babble we’ve been subjected to about a “story” that really isn’t of any interest outside of the Phoenix area.

I know that goes contrary to the news judgment being espoused by these television programs that like to turn trivia into something pretending to be significance. That really is what is at work with this particular story – which I have gone out of my way to ignore because I just don’t see the point of it.

As a reporter-type person for the past quarter century, I have covered countless criminal cases. Trials of all sorts! Which means I understand that some cases get tremendous amounts of coverage, while others are lucky to get a three-paragraph brief written about them when the verdict is reached.

OR SOMETIMES, ONLY when the lengthy prison sentence is imposed.

I honestly believe this Arias case falls into the latter category. I certainly don’t see anything about it that makes it worth the blow-by-blow coverage that places like CNN or Inside Edition are giving it.

For those of you who don’t know, this case amounts to a domestic dispute that got out of hand.

Arias was dating a man named Travis Alexander, who ultimately decided he wanted out of the relationship. They broke up (it seems that he dumped her).

DEPENDING ON WHO one wants to believe, she killed him because she didn’t like being dumped. Although there are others who would say he was beating her, and that she finally got fed up and defended herself with a firearm.

Which must make this case confusing for the conservative ideologues. On the one hand, the “law and order” types probably like the idea of the death penalty being administered against Arias.

But then again, many of them are the types who also want to believe that more access to firearms means that people (particularly defenseless women) will be able to protect themselves.

As I see it, neither Arias nor the victim are any kind of celebrity (like Football Hall of Fame member O.J. Simpson), nor is there anything particularly unusual about the tactic used by Arias (she’s not Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband’s penis when she got fed up with his abuse of her).

NOR COULD ONE make the juvenile determination that she’s some sort of babe who will provide a titillation factor that will attract viewers (which was supposedly the reason that the “Casey Anthony case” in Florida was a BIG story).

This is nothing more than a domestic dispute. Outside of the Phoenix area (where it can be argued that this is a local crime story), what possible reason could there be for paying attention to this case?

PACINO (as Corleone): Stuck like the rest of us

Yes, I am venting several months’ worth of contempt because the coverage I have stumbled across has never managed to give me any reason to pay attention to this case. Because I sense for the next few days, there are going to be significant sections of my cable television package that I’m going to have to avoid watching unless I want to be burdened even more with this trivial mass.

Which makes me feel like Al Pacino’s aging version of “Michael Corleone” from Godfather III; as in the one line that gets quoted as much as anything from the other two films – “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

  -30-

Gee, she produced trivial, meaningless content that’s now on the Internet. Is that really a fire-able offense?

Let me state up front that I do not know Susannah Collins. I have never met her, and for all I know I never will.

COLLINS: Looking for work

And since I don’t pay much attention to professional hockey, I have to confess that I never saw the now-former Comcast SportsNet Chicago reporter-type person at work.

AT LEAST NOT until she had the on-air flub earlier this week (letting the word “sex” instead of “success” slip into her report) that caused people to start paying more attention to her; thereby digging up her work from past broadcast jobs that showed a body of work that was downright trivial.

Some might even call it stupid.

So stupid that the Comcast sports people felt compelled to let her go from her current job – which strikes me as being hypocritical. Because I suspect the “content” that some are now claiming to push the boundaries of sports journalism and good taste (that’s how the Chicago Tribune phrased it) was completely in line with what her former employers expected.

And which is oh so similar to much of what appears on so many Internet sites – the ones that supposedly are providing people what they’re really interested in and why newspapers and other organizations (the alleged “legacy media” that some like to dump on every chance they get) are supposedly on our way out of business.

FOR THE RECORD, Collins used to work for an entity called Middlebrow Media, and was co-host (with another attractive female) of a program called SportzNuts – some of which still exists in video clips posted on YouTube.

As far as I can tell, she did a lot of interviews with “fans” that devolved into double entendres, although the Tribune dug up the video of a parody of a dramatic reading of the sex stories included in former pro basketball player Darryl Dawkin’s ghost-written biography “Chocolate Thunder.”

Quite frankly, I just can’t get outraged – except at the thought of Comcast SportsNet Chicago now thinking it can play all high and mighty and claim it is shocked, shocked to learn that trivialities and nonsense were uttered during a broadcast report.

I have just seen and heard way too much non-news committed by people who want to think they’re journalists to think there’s anything at all unique about this!

HECK, THE SAME kind of people who thought it was so titillating to hear Collins say “sex” instead of “success” that the Comcast video went “viral” are the same types who motivate alleged news outlets to produce the trivialities that Collins (and many others) are producing.

If that is what some people want to fill their minds with, it may well be their choice. Just don’t expect me (or anyone else with sense) to take them seriously.

Because I’m sure these are the individuals who think there’s something legitimate about that study last month by CareerCast.com that claims being a newspaper reporter is the “worst job” in the United States.

Although the report that got to me was one published by Yahoo! That pointed out five “dying” careers – and labeled “reporters” (all, not just newspaper types) who ought to look into an alternative career of “public relations specialist.”

WHAT ABOUT THE fact that if reporters really do die off as an occupation there wouldn’t be any need for corporate types to hire PR spokesmen to deal with reporters? I suspect the kind of people who think that the stuff Collins was doing was fully legitimate are the ones who think there is something logical about this thought.

They’re probably the ones who think that the problem with “the media” all these years is that they have focused attention on “boring” stuff like “news!” They’re the ones who think that Collins’ work was legitimate, and are only dumping on her now even though she produced what her bosses wanted.

Which is why a part of me is hoping that Collins manages to become something other than the “sex reporter” from Chicago and manages to find work elsewhere, other than as someone's public relations spokeswoman.

Does the world really need another PR hack?

  -30-

A “new” news outlet in Chicago?

At a time when many people are downgrading the local newsgathering scene for having one newspaper being incapable of paying its printing bills and the other having been so weakened by bankruptcy that the only people now interested in buying it are ideologues more intrigued by political possibilities than reporting; it’s almost encouraging to see someone talking about creating something new.

Will we watch Chicago on Al Jazeera?

But that “someone” is Al Jazeera, the broadcast network funded by the government of Qatar, that most people became aware of in recent years as a source of propaganda for the Middle Eastern interests who viewed the U.S. military and western society as their enemy.

NOT THAT WE’LL be seeing any such programming here any time soon.

For in recent years, there has been an English version of Al Jazeera. Aside from the fact that its stories don’t center around the United States (their worldwide weather forecast usually spends just a few seconds on U.S. storms and spends the bulk of its time on Arab countries), it doesn’t differ much in tone from the network newscasts many of us don’t pay much attention to.

But the Al Jazeera folks have hopes of expanding their programming in the United States. They see a market that could help them make even more money, IF they can tap into it.

I have to praise the Al Jazeera types for one thing – they realize that producing an improved product means having more staff. Crain’s Chicago Business reported Tuesday that they plan to have a Chicago bureau of six reporters and producers – along with the rest of their world-wide staff.

MANY NEWSPAPERS AND networks have reduced their Chicago bureaus, or erased them altogether (the Washington Post is in the latter category) – all in the name of saving money. Going along with that old cliché, “You can’t spend what you don’t have.”

Although it would seem the Al Jazeera people are following the other old cliché, “You need to spend money in order to make money.”

After all, a worthwhile product is what is most essential to make any money from the news business. Nobody wants to read something that is cheap and shallow in terms of content.

So the answer is “yes.” I think it is a good thing that somebody is thinking in terms of hiring people to report the news. Considering the number of people who’d like to remain in the business after being told they were damaging some other company’s financial “bottom line,” they probably won’t have much problem finding qualified people to work.

BUT I’M ALSO wary of Al Jazeera – even though I don’t think their political spin is any more harmful than the nonsense we’d get if the Koch brothers really do take over the Chicago Tribune and make it in their own image.

Spin over fact is harmful in all circumstances – regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the viewpoint being expressed!

The English-language versions of their newscasts that I have seen (usually broadcast on PBS affiliates) try to make themselves seem like a version of the BBC. Except that instead of thinking of England as the center of the universe, they focus on Arab nations.

But that may be because those were programs meant to air on other networks. We’re talking about a separate cable television channel they would control – and some of the observations I have heard are that Al Jazeera in English is much more neutered than the versions being broadcast in the Middle East.

WHICH COULD MAKE this whole effort an attempt to cleanse their own image around the world. Which is something the company desperately has to do.

Because there is the chance that these newly-hired people won’t get seen much. There are few cable television systems in this country that even include the channel in their lineups.

It may well be nativist paranoia that makes many people reluctant to even consider such a channel. But if Al Jazeera can’t overcome it, it will be the “Capitalist Way” – that causes it to fail.

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EXTRA: News broadcasters finding employment (still) in entertainment

Watching the Friday night episode of “Boss,” I couldn’t help but get a kick out of the sight of Nancy Pender playing the part of a television reporter.

She was, after all, a 13-year veteran of WFLD-TV until she was let go in a cost-cutting measure a couple of years ago.

NOT LIKE PENDER playing a reporter asking questions of Kelsey Grammer’s “Mayor Tom Kane” character is anything unique.

It reminded me of that Harrison Ford film from a couple of decades ago based on “The Fugitive” television series, where real-life television reporters played the part of reporters in the film.

Broadcasters such as WBBM-TV’S Pam Zekman and John Drummond. “The Bulldog” lives on in cinema – as does the sight of Roland Burris as a “Chicago politician” trying to look Irish in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Or that firefighter film “Backdraft” that used one-time WLS-TV reporter/anchor Joan Esposito on a television set in the background. Or an episode of “The West Wing” that had WMAQ-TV’s Warner Saunders read copy on a television set in the background that was relevant to the political plotline of that episode.

BUT AS FOR “Boss,” tt intrigues me the way this program attempts to bear some resemblance to the real Chicago. Such as having Pender’s face and voice appear on camera. Even though some of its moments are so overly-hyped as to be ludicrous. Such as an alderman being arrested and incarcerated at a moment when her vote in the City Council was crucial. Or that same vote ending in a brawl ordered by "da Mare" himself on the City Council floor.

But I will be watching in coming weeks as the program works its way through a second season (I also am among those who purchased the DVD package of episodes for the first season).

To what devious extremes will Grammer’s character go to hide his rapidly-becoming-more obvious (and soon-to-be fatal) illness?

And just how many times will we get to see actress Kathleen Robertson (who plays a now-disgraced former mayoral aide) be nude this season. She kept her streak alive in Friday’s episode – albeit in about as unerotic a moment as possible for such a beautiful blonde woman.

  -30-

Somebody ‘splain this to me!

Who’d have thought that Rod Blagojevich (or his image, actually) still has the ability to sell?

Who thinks this image sells?



Because it seems that for as many people who claim they can’t stand the former Illinois governor-turned-federal inmate, perhaps there are those who will find some appeal in him.

MAYBE IT’S THAT hair? I honestly don’t get it.

Because what got me to start thinking in these terms was while I was out driving Thursday night. I was headed through suburban Calumet City north on Burnham Avenue (which city-dwellers know is really named Avenue O) when I stumbled across an advertising billboard for the Chicago news-oriented radio station WIQI-FM.

Actually, it is one of those stations that doesn’t seem to like to think of itself in terms of call-letters. It calls itself FM101.1 – which my guess the letters IQI are meant to look (sort of) like the numerals 101.

As for why they didn’t just go for the call letters WIOI, it seems a radio station in Portsmouth, Ohio (which plays the “music of your life” for people across Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia) has beaten them to it.

ALTHOUGH PERHAPS THE “Q” can also be perceived as a “tribute,” of sorts, to the days when the 101.1 frequency in Chicago was used by the old Q-101 pop music-oriented station that also gave us Mancow Muller (whatever became of him?)

But back to the point of the billboard. I nearly lost control of my automobile when I saw Blagojevich’s pre-prison image (his hair was still dyed jet black, rather than the shades of brown that it has supposedly turned to since his incarceration began earlier this year).

Along with the slogan, “He NEVER listens to FM101.1 News!”

These people do!



I suppose being out in the suburbs of Denver, it would be difficult for Milorod to pick up the signal on any radio he might be permitted to own.

AND INSOFAR AS trying to listen to the station through its website, I’m not sure how much Internet access federal inmates get. Considering that it might not be much, I’d hate to think he was wasting his time tuning in to Chicago news-oriented radio.

It’s just that I find the combination of these images to be a bizarre one. I’m not sure what message the station is trying to send.

I’m serious when I say if anyone can explain it to me, I’m willing to listen.

I would think that the Blagojevich mug on the billboard would be enough to turn off so many people. Even for those news-oriented geeks who want to know every trivial detail that is happening, who cares much about Blagojevich these days.

HE’S NOT GOING to be making much in the way of real news, unless we literally get a prison riot and he somehow gets hurt (which is something that I’m sure a few twisted individuals in our society are too eagerly hoping for).

Of course, there’s also the smart-aleck in me that reads the “He NEVER listens” portion of that slogan and says something along the lines of, “Nobody EVER listens” to that station.

Seriously, I haven’t heard anything to indicate that it’s doing much in the way of ratings. Then again, just about every radio station is down, ratings-wise, because so many young people are so determined to listen to their iPods or other portable devices that making them turn to a radio seems, to them, quite quaint -- even more so than picking up anything printed on paper.

There’s also the fact that the station (in my opinion, at least) seems a bit trivial. I have heard some say they are trying to put a “hip-hop” spin on the news of the day. Which strikes me as being an odd characterization.

ANYBODY WHO SENSES “hip-hop” in listening to the station probably thinks Vanilla Ice is cutting edge in urban pop.

And apparently, they also are deluded enough to think that Blagojevich’s face will encourage anybody to tune in to listen to the news headlines.

  -30-