Sunday, May 29, 2005

Well, I'm taking this holiday weekend off from blogging the ongoing train wreck known as KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show. I am, however, still watching the horror. I will be back tomorrow with a full report, but I just HAD to tell you about this. The Carnival of Carnage known as the Final Cut was in full swing. They got to the inevitable Michael Jackson trial "update." Since it's Sunday, there really isn't anything to tell the audience about, the court having been closed since Friday of course.

As if to prove that no one actually bothers to watch the video that KPTV puts on its "news" show, the pre-taped story kept referring to what happened "yesterday." In other words, it was from FRIDAY. Yup, in lieu of airing something actually relevant to the lives of their viewers, they aired tape (produced by Fox News Channel, I believe) from two days ago! Crack journalists, the KPTV bunch (or, perhaps, "journalists" on crack).

I'll be back Tuesday night/Wednesday morning with a full report on KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show.

Friday, May 27, 2005

The partial-birth abortion known as KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show again interrupted its Top Story with "Breaking News." The guy who climbed a crane in Georgia two days ago and stayed up there was "just" (I have no idea how long before the start of the "news" show this actually happened) shot with a Taser. So much for "First, Live, Local," huh?

OK, with that vital info out of the way, we're back to our Top Story. Girl "reporter" Jamie Wilson is out at Riverside Park where this year's installment of an annual festival will be held next week. In advance of that, the cops are issuing month-long bans to anyone found drinking, doing drugs or engaging in other socially-unacceptable activity in the park. Jamie cleverly employed a beer bottle as her prop for this story. She also informed us that "most Portlanders agree with the ban." Oh, I'm absolutely CERTAIN that Jamie went door to door, surveying Portland residents about this. I mean, a REPORTER wouldn't just pull a fake statistic out of her ass, would she? No siree Bob.

Fox 12's Most Wanted tonight was the same robbery suspect from the other day. This time around, though, we were told his name. It's attention to detail like that that's made KPTV the "news" show more ADD sufferers turn to.

Remember that story from the other night about ID theft at the Red Roof Inn? KPTV milked that dead cow once more by telling us that Jonathan and Jessica Gibson were victims of that crime. They'll never leave personal stuff in their car again now that KPTV has shown them the error of their ways.

A sex offender named Bishop Hamilton was released, having apparantly paid his debt to society. It's not that KPTV's policy is to attempt to frighten their viewers each and every night by implying that violent criminals are roaming every highway, byway, boulevard and street 24/7. Nope, it just looks incredibly like that.

Speaking of frightening the proletariat, it's time for Meth Watch! 2 people were caught in a drug bust. And just to show you that there's no limit to how far KPTV will go to gather "news" designed to make the middle class rush to Home Depot to buy more door locks, we were told about a routine traffic stop in Coos Bay (not exactly in the Portland Metro) which resulted in the cops finding drugs hidden in a fake car battery.

Well, it's the start of the Summer Season, so we're going to get an endless string of stories about contaminated water over the next several weeks, the better to frighten those who just want to cool off. Pity the poor Church of Christ members who won't be enjoying Camp Yamhill for the next few days because E. coli was found there. This just in: prayer is apparantly not an instant cure for diarrhea and cramps.

Hey, speaking of water, the ban on drinking H2O in Woodburn has been lifted. You may gargle with abandon once more, Woodburnians!

Next we got to hear a 911 call about a drowning kid. The rug rat's fine after some TLC from a rescue worker.

If you want to do some weekend camping in the forest, you need to get a pass. And now you know.

We couldn't have a holiday weekend without Pump Patrol. Gas is averaging $2.33/gallon in the Portland area.

There was a deadly accident in Tillamook when a woman driver drifted across the center line and proved the old axiom "A lumber truck can flatten you like a bug."

For the second time this week, a drunk driver went the wrong way on I-5. This appears to be the Wacky New Fad of the year. Kids today, huh?

Some sadistic SOB hung an eight-month-old puppy from a tree in the owners' backyard in Gresham. The family was understandably weepy over the loss of their pet.

Critical Mass, a radical group of bike riders (hey, it's Portland, dude!) took their monthly cruise around the Rose City. Unlike some other times, though, they didn't screw up traffic too badly.

Our panty thief was back. He's got a new lawyer. There's a rumor that his old lawyer resigned the other day because Panty Boy thought he was "conspiring against" him.

There was a fire in an adult foster care facility in Portland.

We got some stats about the results so far of that truck safety "crackdown." Sounded to me like they've hassled a LOT of truckers for little result, but hey, if it saves one life... That, by the way, was sarcasm (or "snark" as you young folks say).

Hmm, I wonder what happened in the Northwest Tonight. Not much, it seems. There was a brush fire in Washington state, a school coach in Oregon was arrested for sexual abuse and 11 local wineries are holding "seminars" which seemed to me to be an attempt to put an "educational" veneer on an attempt to get Yuppies to buy more vino. And that was everything newsworthy that happened in a geographically significant portion of the United States today.

Before our first commercial break, we got a technical snafu to chuckle at when the weather guy's microphone wasn't turned on as he tried to promo his upcoming forecast.

Back from the break, we were told that closing arguments in the Michael Jackson trial would be next week.

Then we found out how to stop unwanted credit card solicitations courtesy of "KPTV's Laura Mane" (sp?). At the end of her taped piece, however, she identified herself as "Laura Mane, Fox News" which isn't exactly the same thing. Actually, it isn't the same thing at all. She works for Fox News Channel, not KPTV, if you didn't figure that out on your own.

Commercial break.

"Tracking Teens" This was yet another in an endless series of stories on KPTV's "news" show advocating the notion that spying on everyone at all times will make the world a better, safer place (how has civilization lasted this long without Universal Surveillance?) "Souped-up" cell phones report to parents on how fast a teen driver is going and in which direction he/she is travelling. Let's just all line up to get the Homeland Security-approved tracking chips implanted under our skin and get it over with, already.

Speaking of computer chips, Intel has introduced the new Pentium D. I guess they've stopped using numbers for their products.

OMSI is hosting a show about The Science Behind Illusion which actually sounded interesting to me and made me want to see it.

I don't usually bother to talk about the KPTV weather forecast because it's nothing special but this was pretty funny. The fill-in Weather Weasel said that something-or-other was "subtle yet pronounced." I can't say exactly what exactly it was because our cable was having an intermittent problem with static, but I do know that there is NO context in which that phrase can make sense in the English language. Hey, Weather Boy, look "antonym" up in your dictionary when you get a free moment, OK?

Commercial break

Ah, smell that? It's the Final Cut:

*There was a runaway truck in Manayunk, PA (a suburb of Philly).
*The Crane Standoff in Atlanta is over thanks to Mr. Taser. (same story as at the top of the show)
*A city block went up in flames in Minnesota.
*The Runaway Bride (TM) was issued a warrant in Georgia. About friggin' time!
*There was a fatal Prom Night Accident in California.
*Racial tension has broken out again at a Los Angeles high school.
*Some desperately delusional people see Jesus in a window pane in Texas.
*Some nuns have been scammed out of $3 million in Lousiana. Now that's a "Vow of Poverty" I could sign up for!
*The parental units of some quadruplets, quintuplets, whatever, want to sell ad space on their kids' strollers. God speed, you child-whoring bastards!
*Some puppies were rescued from a dumpster, I think, in San Diego. (Sorry, I just can't write fast enough to get every detail of each of the six million stories KPTV crams into their "news" show.)

Hey, there's that wacky Breaking News logo again! Not only was this not what I would call "Breaking News" but it was barely worth talking about at all. A drunk driver hit one of those big electric signs you see on the highway that tell you about a lane being closed ahead. Seriously, this was worth sending a "reporter" out to cover?

Back to the Final Cut:

*"Reporter" Dave Wilson was at the Mobile Newsroom to tell us that some guy has been robbing banks lately (which they had already told us earlier in the week). Two things made this story notable. First was the clothes hangar that could be seen hooked on the open door of the news van (which I suspect was parked in KPTV's driveway as there was no particular place it needed to be for this story). I figure Dave threw on his jacket right before going on-air and stuck the hangar there to use as soon as he got off.

Second was the completely-unrelated-to-the-story-in-any-perceptible-way woman-on-the-street comment: "I don't know why he would rob a bank!" Um, because that's where the money is?

*Wow, turns out that Viagra can cause blindness. [Insert your own "Just 'til I need glasses!" punchline here] There have been 38 verified cases of men who used anti-limpness drugs losing their "periphrial" vision, as anchorman Wayne Garcia pronounced it. You'll be happy to know that this only amounts to one case of vision problems (which, by the way, are NOT known as "going cockeyed," wiseguy) for every 750,000 users of the drugs.
*Hooters Air is expanding to offer flights to Vegas soon. Make your own joke here. I'm getting typing fatigue.
*They pushed that stupid overly-complicated contest to win a trip to Disneyland again.

Hollywood Buzz (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Final Cut):

*Green Acres' Eddie Albert is dead at 99. Arnold Ziffel will deliver the eulogy.
*This Just In! Angelina Jolie did NOT sleep with her co-star Brad Pitt. Her Dad cheated on her Mom so Angelina knows the pain associated with getting some on the side and would never engage in that behavior. In your face, you moral inferior!
*The mostly-forgotten TV show "Moonlighting" will soon be out on DVD. Upon hearing of this news, the Earth stopped turning on its axis.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

Oh, you know the deal by now, right? They fill an hour of "news" show with total crap designed to scare you on a nightly basis and don't bother with anything that could actually affect your life. I can't tell you, for example, the last time I saw or heard anything about the mayor of Portland on their show. Throw a heavy object through your TV screen and go have a happy holiday weekend with your loved ones.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Time for the recap of another episode of Fear Factor...oops, I meant KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show.

Our lead story tonight: "Vanished" It seems two men abducted a woman in broad daylight in Albany, Oregon. When this story started unspooling, with shocked eyewitnesses describing the woman being driven off in a car, my wife said, "Fake! It'll turn out that they were her friends and they were all just fooling around." Am I married to a psychic? We'll find out later in this report (see, I've learned the art of the tease from the KPTV "news" show.)

This story was notable for giving us tonight's first "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" style comment from a woman-on-the-street at 10:01. That's pretty early in the show, but by no means a record for KPTV's "news" show. The second "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" comment came almost immediately afterward, though, which is pretty unusual. Oh, the "reporter" on this story, Dave Wilson, informed us that "few feel safe." He was referring to people who live in the vicinity of the abduction, not to frequent viewers of KPTV's Scare Time.

We moved on to Fox 12's Most Wanted, which tonight featured a bank robber. Whatever.

Oregon state official have lost track of a sex offender. Gee, didn't they tell us just recently that the state loses track of a LOT of sex offenders? What's the big deal about one more?

There was a meth bust at the Red Roof Inn in Tualatin. It somehow also involved ID theft (and what doesn't nowadays, at least according to the Shock Troops at KPTV?) Oh, this story was related in some way to an earlier ID theft ring, which "Fox 12 uncovered." Oh, really? You REPORTED on it, sure, but "uncovered?" Uh, I think that's more properly credited to the police, but nice try, KPTV Weasels. You're going to throw your arm out patting yourself on the back like that.

Hey, remember that furniture store which got robbed of two trucks and enough furniture to fill them? Well, the cops found the trucks. Unfortunately, they were empty.

Some psycho woman got sentenced to 63 years in jail for murdering her two kids. She'll be eligible for release from prison when she's 95. I just hope she doesn't have any more kids when she gets out.

We now know the name of the drunk driver who went the wrong way on I-95 causing a big ol' pileup (but no serious injuries). John Farrel is your dipso (as Channel 8 reported 24 hours ago). There's a suicide watch on him.

We also now know the names of the four victims of that plane crash the other day. Although there were two men and two women in the crash, we only got pictures of the men. Something to do with the guys having been members of some service club. Yeah, I couldn't follow that either.

A hit and run driver was responsible for killing a toddler in Lebanon, Oregon.

Non-toxic water was delivered to some old folks in a nursing home in Hillsboro where the public water supply is full of cooties, although I don't think that's the scientific term.

Next up was "Team Coverage" of the unseasonably warm weather on Thursday. "Reporter" Jamie Wilson, wielding tonight's first prop, a thermometer, showed us that it was still a balmy 80.8 degrees (who says that KPTV isn't detail-oriented?) at 10 PM. We got video of cute little kids splashing in a fountain. I guess Jamie Wilson is a team unto herself, because she was the only "reporter" in this "team coverage." There's no "I" in "team," but there is an "I" in "Jamie" and I guess that explains that. Or something.

Break.

Back, it was time once again for "Meth Watch." What would a KPTV "news" show be without an update on our friends, the tweakers? Tonight's Meth Watch was a two-in-one kind of deal. Not only were we told about the cops in Keizer arresting a man and a woman for meth-related misdeeds, we also found out about a live-in meth treatment center threatened with closure because of money woes. We were showed a guy who used to be a meth addict who said that the center should stay open. OK, fine, but the problem here is probably that voters went against a tax increase which would have paid to keep the center open. Something's gotta give, folks. Can't have it both ways.

A house caught on fire on Thursday in Portland. We got tape of the conflagration.

Speaking of fire-related stuff, Portland Fire Department personnel trained alongside Mexican firefighters (called "bomberos" we were informed) from Guadalajara. Why were the Mexicans here and not, say, San Diego, a whole lot closer to Mexico? Who knows. They just were. If you're going to keep interrupting me with questions, I'll have to ask you to leave.

Tri-Met bus fares may increase soon. Then again, they might not, but that wouldn't make quite as good a story, right? Let's just say they might.

Northwest Tonight:

*No blood from those two missing Idaho kids was found. I don't know if that's good or bad.
*There are new sex abuse allegations against the anti-gay but gay himself mayor of Spokane, Washington.

A New Iraq (which is completely different from Fight For Iraq, silly):

*2 American soldiers died in the last 24 hours. Were either or both of them from Oregon? Dunno.
*There is a rumor that Al-Zarqawi is dead, but no one seems to know for sure.
*An Oregon soldier was welcomed home from Iraq at Portland International Airport. He plans to re-up and go back soon.

Break again.

Like an old friend who seems to always need to borrow money, Dirty Dining was back! The big gripe this week was bad food storage at a place called Canyon Pearl, a Chinese restaurant in Beaverton. They got a barely passing score of 70 from the health department because they store the eggs above the Kiwi fruit (a no-no because the eggs could drip onto the fruit) and the Windex with the fortune cookies (which is just plain odd). The manager said the problems have been cleared up, yadda yadda yadda.

Break.

Ah, here's that irregularly-scheduled feature, Pump Patrol. Some gas stations charge more for gas than others. Did you know that?

The Automobile Association of America says we should drive carefully. There will be a lot of cars on the road this holiday weekend. Really? Wow. They had statistics that said that a LOT more people will be on the road this year as compared to last year. I'm guessing that's because people have less money to spend on more elaborate vacations.

Speaking of road travel, there is a lot of bad pavement all across America. There's supposed to be money to fix it, but it's tied-up in Congress. So sayeth KPTV.

Say, did you know that there are GERMS in pool water?? As opposed to EVERY OTHER SURFACE YOU'VE EVER COME INTO CONTACT WITH SINCE THE DAY YOU WERE BORN? The Portland YMCA checks the water in its pool every hour, but not every pool owner does. A doctor from the Centers for Disease Control put on his lab coat the better to look authoritative while he told us we shouldn't drink pool water. Isn't anyone paying attention to those signs you buy at Spencer Gifts that say, "This is our OOL. Notice there is no "P" in it. We'd like to keep it that way"?

Finally, after a couple more commercial breaks with the weather sandwiched between them, we got the Final Cut:

Oops, wait! Final Cut was interrupted by Breaking News. Remember the "abducted" woman from earlier in the "news" show. Turns out she DID know the two guys who drove off with her. I AM married to a psychic! The cops charged her with disorderly conduct. KPTV did not apologize for that "few feel safe" crap they threw at us. Scare the audience first, ask questions later.

Anyway, back to Final Cut:

*A "disturbing" video of a car running a guy over in L.A.
*A despondent man climbed up a tall crane and refused to come down (he was still up there hours later).
*An underground transformer exploded near the World Bank in D.C.
*3 missing kids were found dead in Vermont.
*The state of California now offers free sex offender alerts online.
*There was an acid leak in Illinois.
*A deer fell into a pool in Michigan. Despite the promos that implied that it had trouble getting out, the actual video showed it climbing out fairly easily.
*Two idiots tried to drive their SUV across a raging river in New Mexico. They were rescued.
*Pot-flavored lollipops are on sale now in Missouri. Although they are intended for adults, parents of small children were shown on camera predictably expressing their outrage. In the words of Maude Flanders, "Won't someone please think about the children!"

Within the walled community of the Final Cut, we got News Around the World:

*There was a semi-violent protest about wine prices going down in France. Yup, that's all that happened in the non-American world today.

Back to the domestically-oriented Final Cut:

*"Reporter" David Freitas held up his prop for tonight: a laptop computer with a picture of Senator Gordon Smith on the screen. Why? Well, seems one of Smith's assistants got his car stolen by a meth addict. Why not put the assistant's picture on the laptop? You're looking for logic here??

Hollywood Buzz:

*A local actor has a part in the soon-t0-open movie Lords of Dogtown. He's excited about being in the movie. Go figure.
*Bobby Brown says that his wife, Whitney Houston, is really really really off drugs this time and is planning on making a comeback soon.
*Good Day, Oregon is still giving away trips to Disneyland via some overly-complicated process whereby you watch the show, find out the "Song of the Day," then turn to a radio station, wait for the song to play, then call in and hope against hope that you're the selected caller. Then, upon realizing that you have no life anyway, you put a gun into your mouth and pull the trigger.
*The judge in the Michael Jackson trial ruled that the prosecution could not introduce pictures of Jackson's Johnson.

Lastly, it was time for "Cyber Sting." Again. No perv "gotcha" tonight. This was a yawner about "Nannyware," software you can install on your computer which automatically drops a cyber-dime on Little Johnny by emailing you a list of every place he visits on the Internets. FBI Special Agent Nielson told us this was a good thing to do, so it must be. Special Agent Nielson has never lied to you before, has he?

Oh, Final Cut ended perfectly in sync with its dopey (and still-unexplained) countdown clock tonight. Now that's journalism! High fives to all.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*Moscow had a city-wide blackout.
*The U.S. closed its embassy and all other diplomatic offices in Indonesia Thursday, citing a security threat.
*9 dead, 17 wounded in Baghdad in the last 24 hours.
*Tom DeLay is pissed at NBC because of a joking reference to him on "Law And Order."
*Senator Voinovich of Ohio broke into tears over the contested nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Video of this was available, by the way.
*Still not ONE WORD about the real controversies over filibustering in the Senate of funding for stem cell research.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

I sat down with my little notepad, ready to document KPTV's 10 o'clock gorecast, knowing that there was one story absolutely guaranteed to be on the show. I was not disappointed. I'll tell you about it below. Anyway...

They kicked off the show tonight with a little trick they use frequently: the Breaking News graphic. They act like they were going to start with their lead story but the "breaking news" tonight is just so HOT! that they have to go to it right now. This, of course, is a load of crap as it takes time to get the "reporter" out to the scene, so they knew damn well they were going to "interrupt" the lead story with the "breaking" story. Anywho, the "breaking story" was about a body which was found in an apartment in Portland. Detectives were on scene RIGHT NOW (not that we actually got to see them.) Is it murder...or suicide?

On to the top story. A robber wearing a dust filter mask was "caught on camera" (a phrase almost as beloved by the KPTV "news" team as "identity theft" or "You don't expect that in this neighborhood!") This didn't seem like much of a top story, even by KPTV's loose standards, but that's what they went with.

We pushed on to a story about a suspected crack dealer who got arrested after being stopped for a routine traffic violation. Yawn.

Hey, remember octogenarian miscreant Louis Nemnich from every "news" cast for the past several nights, a former member of the Fox 12's Most Wanted club? He's fighting extradition from Wyoming. There's no point in pretending that we aren't going to hear MUCH more about this guy in the coming days.

Next was a story about a local school counselor accused of not reporting that a student had told her she was raped. The counselor claimed to have reported the incident and cried on camera about her career being ruined by the accusation.

Following that was a follow-up about the plane crash from earlier in the week. Actually, all this story told us was that the crash was being investigated. Duh. After the KPTV show ended tonight, I turned over to Channel 8 to catch something resembling real news. Channel 8 managed to report that the plane wreckage was accidentally set on fire earlier tonight by officials poring through it, a fact that KPTV completely missed. Sheesh. If you're going to do tabloid, DO TABLOID, for God's sake!

There was a car crash and fire somewhere or other. The driver is in critical condition. There was also a 9-car accident on I-5 caused by a drunk driving the wrong way on the Interstate. We got some chopper footage of the wreckage. Channel 8 also had the name of the drunk driver, which KPTV didn't give us.

E. coli bacteria has been found in Woodburn, Oregon's water supply. This story gave us tonight's first "reporter" prop. Jim Hyde held up a McDonald's cup and turned it over, spilling out its contents. This, apparantly, was intended to show us that, if we live in Woodburn, we shouldn't drink the water. According to his bio at KPTV.com,:

"When not working as a journalist Jim enjoys running, reading, backpacking, and cooking. He’d like to have more time in the day to spend with his wife Pam, daughter Stephanie, and son Connor."

Hey, Jim, aren't you tired of being forced to hold up visual aids so the troglodytes your "news" director thinks is your show's core audience can comprehend it? Maybe it's time to do the honorable thing and quit that excuse of a "news" show you work on so you can spend some time with your family.

Next we got a story about today's unseasonable weather. Eh, that's sort of a story, I guess.

Commercial break.

OK, what did I say earlier about a story that I was absolutely certain would show up on tonight's "news" cast? Make that TWO stories. Number One was a cross-promotion for tonight's American Idol season finale, which immediately preceded the "news." More disgusting than the fact that this was on a "news" show at all was the fact that this was, by far, the longest story on the show so far.

From that disgrace to the memory of Edward R. Murrow, they cut to some bimbo "reporter" on a red carpet in "Hollywood" (which these days can refer to just about any location in Southern California in which anything show business-related is happening or has ever happened.) She breathlessly told us about an American Idol "after party" she attended. If there's anything news-worthy about a party, it kind of needs to be accompanied by some video of the party, wouldn't you say? I guess not, because all we got was Miss Perky telling us about the party. Whee!

Remember how last night KPTV was asking viewers who were planning on having an American Idol party in their home to let the station know so they could send a camera there? Well, I guess they weren't exactly inundated with requests for a video invasion 'cause all we got was about five seconds of some people sitting in front of a TV, watching Idol. Watching people watch television--now there's riveting "news." Hey, maybe KPTV's viewers were afraid the camera crew would show up with the Perverted Justice goons in tow.

Speaking of those video vigilantes, next we got the third installment of the I-Team's "Cyber Sting." At the top of the segment, anchor Wayne Garcia told us that KPTV and Perverted Justice engage in this Junior G-Man crap because the police "don't have the resources to monitor chat rooms." The notion that police in a free country just might not have the Constitutional right to spy on people wasn't mentioned. Tonight's entraptee was Mike. KPTV warned us that the "Cyber Sting" segment was "graphic."

They showed us part of the online chat that Mike allegedly took part in with Perverted Justice's fake kid. Mike said he'd like to "eat a guy's a** and f***." The bleeps were KPTV's attempt to protect the sensibilities of the shut-ins who sit, unconsciously masturbating, in front of the set while the show is on. By the way, if any of you God-fearing people who were offended by that little bit of titillation want to see everything Mike allegedly said to the imaginary teenager, it will be available starting Thursday on KPTV.com. I wonder if KPTV and Perverted Justice got permission from any other people who might have been in the chat room at the time to use their conversation on their website? Just asking.

Mike who, we were told, claimed to be 30 even though he's actually 41, worked as a babysitter. "Worked" is the operative word, because KPTV informed his employer of his alleged fondness for underaged flesh and he was promptly fired. They also told us that he lives in public housing, although the relevance of that fact was lost on me. Would it be better if he owned his own home? KPTV and Perverted Justice have five more alleged child molesters to show us, which they will do in the coming days.

You'll be happy to know that "Operation Trucker Check" is in full swing. I gathered this entails stopping truckers and hassling them to see if they are complying with the law. So far, this "Operation" (am I the only one who has gotten really tired of everything being given a name like a World War II military assault?) has resulted in one meth arrest.

An accused panty thief who was featured on the KPTV "news" show night after night after night a few months back (it was thought that he might be involved in the abduction of a young girl, but, curse the luck, that didn't pan out) was back with us tonight. His lawyer has resigned the case because of unspecified ethical problems.

A stolen dog was returned because of a loyal KPTV viewer who ratted out her Mom, who allegedly took the pooch. Then we were on to our next commercial break.

Back, it was time for Fight For Iraq. They showed us a picture of the same dead Oregon soldier they've been shamelessly pimping for a couple of days now. If anything else happened in Iraq in the past 24 hours, KPTV didn't seem to know about it.


Following that was some hooey about an autopsy of a murder victim. Then we got Northwest Tonight. Apparantly, the only thing that happened in the entire upper left corner of the U.S. was an attempted kidnapping in Washington state.

Say, did you know that kids who play video games for hours at a time might suffer hand injuries? Well, if you watched KPTV's "news" show tonight, you do now. Speaking of "who the hell cares?" the next story was about Everclear, a Portland-area-based band that was popular a few years back but which has now gone back into obscurity. The band's singer, having survived divorce and bankruptcy, is trying to make a comeback. Good luck, my friend. The good wishes of the five people who give a shit are with you.

You know, I was planning on paying KPTV a compliment tonight. No, really. I was going to say that there has been a notable decrease in the number of technical screw-ups on their "news" show in the past few weeks. Well, as if to say, "We'll show YOU!" they gave us a good one tonight. The weather weasel was going into his segment when the "Breaking News" graphic popped up on screen, throwing him off track momentarily. That'll teach me to try to be nice to them, huh?

Eventually, the KPTV Crap Wagon dropped off the Final Cut.

*Say, remember that dead guy from the top of the show? Suicide. If you listened closely, you could almost hear the people in the control room say "Damn!" when the possibility of a juicy ongoing murder story they could milk like a Guernsey for the next several weeks slipped from their grasp.
*Some skinheads threatened a guy with a bike chain at the Beaverton Max station. Cops are calling it a hate crime.
*We got some video of a robbery suspect who got himself shot in Kansas. OK, so the video was from last week. You got a problem with that? Where is it written that "news" means "new?"
*A mugging in Brooklyn, New York was "caught on camera" (there's that phrase again!)
*The "Runaway Bride" was charged with filing a false police report in Georgia. That is the other story I absolutely knew would show up on the "news" tomight.
*Some high school kids were repremanded for allegedly flashing "gang signs" in their yearbook photo, although they say it was only some hand jive associated with their favorite rap star.
*A truck exploded in Texas.
*4 people drowned in a river in Texas. Sure, the drowning happened in MARCH, but the tape just became available...or something.
*It's Fleet Week in New York City. Every hooker in town is looking into buying investment property with the money he/she is going to make over the next seven days (OK, I made that last part up.)
*Some goofy kid in Wisconsin owns 29 Packers jerseys and he's worn one of them every day for like the last 1000 days or so. No, I didn't make that up!
*Miss Perky from Hollywood was back to tell us what happens to American Idol "losers" (otherwise known as runners-up). Uh, not much, according to the story. Oh, she had a fake Oscar as a prop.
*Speaking of American Idol, their live show is coming to Portland. Quit your job and go wait on line for tickets...NOW.
*The defense in the Michael Jackson trial rested. Hearing the word "rest," M.J. immediately climbed into bed with two pre-teen boys and a monkey. Did I make that up? You decide.
*And to kick this nest of near-news in the head, we got a segment called "Signs of a Molester." A local detective and his wife offer classes to terrified parents on how to spot child molesters. From what I heard, it sounded to me like any adult who is nice to your kid is a possible child molester. Pad the offspring with bubble wrap and stash them under the Hide-A-Bed. For the record, as far as I'm concerned, one child molester is one too many, but this kind of paranoia does nothing but makes people terrified of each other for no good reason.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*Again, not a single word about the filibuster compromise or stem cell research funding.
*The Congressman responsible for "Freedom Fries" says he is sorry he ever came up with the name and is now against the war in Iraq. KPTV didn't think that was worth telling you about.
*Still nothing about the state rare coin investment scandal in Ohio.
*Still nothing about the furor over copies of the Koran being put in toilets by American troops.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Time for another look at the Tabloid Tilt-A-Whirl which is the KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show.

Our lead story tonight was a plane crash in a Portland suburb which killed four people. I can't really say I have a problem with this being tonight's lead. Their coverage of it was predictably tabloid-y with shots of the grieving family members, but it's definitely a story worthy of prominent placement.

Next up was Fox 12's Most Wanted about the same attempted rape/attempted murder they've been flacking for several days now. Louis Nemnich, the octogenarian perp, was caught in Lusk, Wyoming. Since he was captured by cops about six states to the right of Oregon, KPTV couldn't claim to have played any part in his current incarceration. Aww, that's a shame. How dare the justice system work without the participation of KPTV??

A body was found in Alsea, Oregon. "Concerned Neighbors" said the Chyron. "No shit" said at least one viewer. The cops said that there was one corpse found at the scene. For God knows what reason, the local gossip pegs the toll at two. This discrepancy was dutifully reported to a breathless America (or at least northern and central Oregon and parts of southern Washington).

A murder suspect was charged somewhere or other. Sorry for the lack of details, but the mayhem goes by so fast on the KPTV "news" show that it's sometimes hard to keep up. If I tried to write faster, I'd get wrist fatigue.

Next to tumble out of KPTV's Horn of Plenty was a story about a local furniture store being robbed, not once but twice, in the past few days. The funny part was that the store in question is situated right next to the local cop shop. Who's running the joint, Clancy Wigguns?

There was an armed robbery at a local Subway sandwich shop. The comic relief here was that the thief didn't nab any money but did get away with two turkey wraps. That's all well and good, but what condiments, KPTV, what condiments?? Reporting is made up of such details.

To stick a feather in the cap of the first segment of the show, we got a report on a deadly accident on Highway 99E. On that macabre note, we went to our first commercial break.

Back from the break, we got some helicopter footage from Tuesday morning of an apartment fire. The residents of the building were Arabic, as one could tell from their garb as seen from the chopper. What KPTV failed to tell the audience was that one of the residents was arrested because the cops found what looked like an explosive device at the scene, but he was later released.

KPTV management must think that the I-Team's "Cyber Sting" crap is playing well with Mr. and Mrs. Poorly Informed because it got moved up time-wise in tonight's "news" cast. Matt was the Perv duJour. He thought he was calling on a 13-year-old girl, but instead he got a faceful of Perverted Justice. Matt is a 26-year-old Purple Heart soldier on leave from the Army. The KPTV "reporter" anguished over how such a brave soldier could possibly also be a child fancier, as if those two things were somehow mutually exclusive. I fail to see the connection, frankly.

Anyway, since this seemed to be a puzzling conundrum to the "reporter," she sought out two shrinks who opined on it. "Soldiers in battle live on the edge," one of the shrinks said, "and when they come home, they seek out more activity on the edge." Uh, okay. I figured that Matt was just a guy who had an inappropriate interest in young girls who also wanted to serve his country, but that's just me. I ain't got no diploma, so what do I know?

Our Fight For Iraq story (singular) tonight was about a soldier from Oregon who died in Iraq. No mention was made of the other eight soldiers who also died in Iraq in the past 24 hours. When KPTV gave a figure for the total number of American troops who have died in Iraq on their "news" show over the weekend, I had hope that they were actually going to start reporting responsibly on the war from now on. I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic, though, as tonight's 'cast was right back to the old "If they aren't from Oregon, we don't care about dead soldiers" paradigm. Time for another commercial break.

We came back to yet another story about Brooke Wilberger, the girl who went missing a year ago. Apparantly tonight was the real one year anniversary of her disappearance. I say "apparantly" because the KPTV "news" show has done a story about her disappearance almost every day for the past week and each night the word "anniversary" was used as if it applied to that particular day.

This was followed by a story about a woman in Walla Walla, Washington who feeds her cows wine. This allegedly makes their beef more tender. Whatever. It's Break Time again.

Next up after the commercials was a story about people who wake up during operations. I guess this, like "Sugar Mommas," is a New Trend or something. We were treated to video of a middle-aged man who apparantly semi-woke up during a surgical procedure and who is still haunted months later by the experience and a woman who has started a support group for people who have experienced "anesthesia awareness." Hmm, if it has a NAME, it MUST be a New Trend! I had no idea.

In connection with this craze, we got some figures. Apparantly, out of 21 million surgeries a year, 40 thousand patients experience "anesthesia awareness." If my math skills haven't completely atrophied, that means that fewer than .05% of patients experience this trauma. Is this really something to get exercised over? A far higher percentage of people die on the operating table. Where are the support groups for them, I ask you.

No time to ruminate on that though, as the city of Salem seems poised to introduce a new leash law! I wonder how many dogs suffer from anesthesia awareness? Why are you suppressing that information, KPTV?

We pressed on to learn about the "controversy" surrounding Burger King's cross-promotional deal with the new Star Wars movie. Some blue noses got their panties in a twist because the movie carries a PG-13 rating and...oh, who cares? It was the usual fear-mongering "What about the children?" crap. You know, if it wasn't for those bastards at Burger King and their cardboard cutouts of Darth Vader, kids would never know that there's a new Star Wars movie out! Damn you, Burger King, damn you!

Speaking of cross-promotion, what KPTV "news" cast would be complete without sticking mean-spirited music mogul Simon Cowell's mug in our faces? We were told that the American Idol judges think that this year's finalists are the best ever. Wow, go figure! I mean, they're completely objective about everything American Idol-related, right? They wouldn't just be saying that to get us to watch the season finale. Nah! What's wrong with me for thinking like that? Thank God that KPTV's "news" show is here to tell the public about the otherwise unheard-of American Idol show which just happens to also air on KPTV.

A resusitation dummy was donated to a local ski rescue team. How do they even find time for stories like this when they have fast-breaking American Idol "news" to report?

Lastly, before our next commercial break, we got some inscrutable something-or-other about people who dress sloppy at work and what businesses are doing about this crisis. There'll be more about this vital topic on Get Your Ass Out Of Bed, Oregon (or whatever they call their early-morning show) on Wednesday. Break.

Ah, finally here's that Final Cut you've been Jonesing for. For some reason, for the past few nights, Final Cut has incorporated the News Across America segment, to the point where they now seem to be one and the same. Anyway, here's what they told us about:

*There was a bus stop beating caught on camera in Minnesota.
*Somebody got shot with a Taser in Miami.
*There's been an arrest in the Satanic Sex Cult case in Lousiana.
*A Mom is auctioning ads on her kids on eBay. Some people think that's abuse.
*A woman gave birth in a car on the side of a highway in Kansas
*Some local rescue personnel happened to be at the site of the plane crash site in Coney Island over the weekend.
*Jay Leno testified at the Michael Jackson trial in California.
*An anti-spyware bill passed the House in D.C.
*A car break-in was caught on tape in Oregon.
*A suspected molester was arrested in Oregon. Finally, we got a "reporter" holding a prop: a photo of the suspect. Oh, this story was also a gold mine of "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" style comments from random neighbors of the suspect. We got THREE of them!
*Following up on that was a story about What To Do If Your Child Is Molested. A police detective gave some decent, if obvious, advice: Tell your child he/she is brave for telling you about the abuse; tell your child he/she didn't do anything wrong, etc.

And that was it for tonight's Final Cut segment (which, as always, was promoted as "everything you need to know"). Oh, Final Cut ended with 4.5 seconds left on the countdown clock, the purpose of which I still can't figure out.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*There still hasn't been one word about the REAL controversies over stem cell research or the filibuster. Funny, Channel 8 managed to talk about both subjects tonight at 11 and their news show is only a half-hour long.
*As mentioned above, a total of NINE soldiers died in Iraq in the past 24 hours. KPTV only mentioned the one who was from Oregon. Screw those 8 other losers.
*A "Christian" church in South Carolina which has on its signboard "The Koran should be flushed."
*President Bush's popularity poll numbers have fallen ever further.
*A Republican state representative in Florida offered a "special" tour of the White House to those who donated $5000 to his re-election campaign. (White House tours have always been free to any American citizen.)

Monday, May 23, 2005

Tonight, the KPTV crew grabbed a bunch of solidified infotainment, threw it into a blender, set it on "puree" and called the resulting goo a "news show."

Our lead story (and therefore, by inference, the most important story of the day) was about four people being arrested during a narc raid at a house in Salem. Oh, there was a mention of some alleged ID theft. We're off and running now. Whee!

After showing a sketch of a robbery suspect, we got another installment of KPTV's long-running non-reality segment Fox 12's Most Wanted. Tonight's Threat To Decent Society was a "parking lot prowler," whatever THAT means. Apparantly he stole a woman's purse, which, naturally, meant that our intrepid girl "reporter" had to hold up Tonight's First Prop: a PURSE! I wonder how they deal with the props on the closed captioning.

The next piece of fear-bait concerned a sex offender who moved. That was followed immediately by a story about how dozens of sex offenders move every year in Oregon and how one could even be living in YOUR neighborhood. Well, that's it, science simply MUST come up with a way to permanently dye convicted sex offenders some weird color so that we can identify them immediately on sight.

Like a rock dropped on a hill, the KPTV "news" show rolled on, giving us our next story, complete with yet another prop. There was an assault in Washington state which involved some zip tie-style handcuffs and duct tape, requiring the "reporter" to hold samples of each of those up to the unblinking eye of the KPTV camera. I can imagine that the news van might have some duct tape stashed away in a tool box but where does one get plastic handcuffs at 10 o'clock at night? Do some of the KPTV "reporters" have a secret life we really don't need to know about? Just asking.

That story also contained tonight's "you don't expect that in this neighborhood" comment courtesy of a neighbor of the suspect. I never tire of hearing that; it's like a visit from an old friend every time it comes up (which is damn near every night).

Pushing on, we next got a DUII arrest (yeah, they use the extra "I" in Oregon), followed by stories about a school vandalized with racist and violent graffiti, a cocaine bust in Washington, a dog stolen from a pet store and an overcrowded pet shelter. There you have 'em, the most important stories of the day, at least according to the crack "news" team at KPTV.

After the commercial break, we were told about the "controversy" over some movie theaters wanting to sell alcohol. It would be bad for the children, you see. Funny, several years ago when I lived in Maryland, I went to see a movie at such a theater and it didn't seem to be contributing to the delinquincy of any minors. Maybe I just hate America or something.

Then we were told about proposed new requirements to graduate high school in Oregon. I was attempting to take notes as I watched the show, so maybe I was distracted, but this seemed to veer dangerously close to actual news. Don't you just hate to see standards thrown out the window, willy-nilly, like that? Hey, KPTV, if I wanted to see real news, I'd turn to...uh, actually, I don't know WHERE I'd turn to for that.

Hey, remember that story about the Taft Middle School kids who made an anti-meth video from last night that was a complete recapitulation of a story about the exact same thing from a week or so ago? Tonight we got another story about the same kids. Seems they won an award of some kind for the video. If there's an award for "Most Times On The "News" For The Same Thing," they might want to clear a space on their trophy shelf. The Vegas line has them at 2-1.

Since we were on the meth tip, as the kids say, we got a quick piece on how people "profit" from meth. Near as I could figure, houses which were used for meth cooking aren't exactly on demand in the market (go figure!), therefore their price drops. People buy them, fix them up, I guess and make money by selling them. This wasn't exactly a story, but a tease FOR a story which will appear on Tuesday morning's Good Day, Oregon.

There's a reward for information about the missing kids in Idaho. Next, we got KPTV's first mention (to my knowledge) of the scandal surrounding the mayor of Spokane, Washington, an anti-gay Republican who was caught soliciting young men for sex on the Internet and who has been accused of molesting other young men in the past. He says he isn't going to resign. Is there a Vegas line on that? I got a C-note that says the guy's a goner by July 4th (as the furor about the mayor's extra curricular activities has been raging for about two weeks now, you'd think that KPTV would have taken note of it before tonight). The outcome of last November's gubernatorial election in Washington state is going to trial. Add a deadly mudslide, also in Washington State, and that's your Northwest "news" for tonight, truthseekers.

Another commercial break and we come back to a lovely attempt to induce fear. Did you know that delivery men go to homes and offices every day? Isn't it just possible that, instead of making a legitimate delivery, a delivery man could...uh, well, he could do bad stuff! I mean, you never know, right? That was pretty much the gist of this "news" story. As "proof" that delivery people could, might, maybe, do scary things, we were told about how a guy got into Windsor Castle a few years ago by pretending to be a delivery man and how terrorists tried to blow up the World Trade Center back in the 90's by parking a truck in the basement parking lot. I don't think that the terrorists actually pretended to be delivering anything, but hey, they could have, right? And isn't that what's really important here? Moral of the story: next time a guy in a brown truck and brown uniform rings your doorbell, shoot first and sign the receipt for that dog bowl you ordered from Petco later. If it saves one life...

After another commercial break we got tonight's War On Terror segment. Remember that pilot who got off-course and flew over downtown D.C., scaring the Freedom Fries out of everyone on Capitol Hill? The FDA has taken away his pilot's license. Exactly how that fit into the War On Terror theme I'm not quite sure.

President Karzai of Afghanistan visited George Bush who complained about the poppy crop (which has this funny way of turning into heroin). Karzai mumbled something about taking care of that in five years, which I think is the Afghani way of saying, "I'll get to that when I get to it."

Next up: Fight For Iraq.

*A mosque was car-bombed
*Some Washington state-based soldiers were killed in Iraq
*Soldiers returning from battle in Iraq are having a hard time readjusting to normal life. We were told that some of them freak out when they see a bag on the side of the road while driving as in Iraq something like that can be a bomb.

Before the next break, we got a quick reminder about safe boating for the upcoming holiday weekend.

Back from the commercials, it was time for the money shot known as the Final Cut. Tonight's F.C. was cross-pollinated with News Across America.

*Transplant deaths in Rhode Island!
*A rescue from a jetty in California!
*A building collapsed in Chicago!
*A baby was found in a dumpster in Chicago!
*A massage parlor was robbed in Las Vegas!
*Ku Klux Klan memorabilia was auctioned in Michigan!
*A building was deliberately imploded in North Carolina!
*A bear went for a swim in a private pool in California!
*Sheep got loose in Pennsylvania!
*Account information about thousands of Bank of America customers was stolen!
*Something happened at the Michael Jackson trial!

Whew! I'm exhausted just typing that.

We're in the home stretch now. Next up was the I-Team's "Cyber Sting" Part Two. Tonight's Creepy Perv was "Christian." The setter-uppers from Perverted Justice faked Christian into thinking that he was dropping by Entrapment Central to visit "J.J.," a fake 13-year-old boy.

Imagine Christian's surprise when he found out that there was no J.J. You gotta hand it to him, though; unlike last night's stingee, who folded like a cheap deck chair when confronted with the lights and cameras, Christian claimed that he was there to "council" the imaginary boy. Gay teens have it tough. He just wants to help them. It's like a Big Brother thing, I guess. A Big Brother who wants to commit sodomy with you. This guy's a regular Robin Williams when it comes to improv, huh? We're not done with this extra-legal Court of Public Opinion yet. We'll be treated to more "Cyber Sting" titillation tomorrow night.

Following up on the perv theme, the last "news" story of the night was about the Cyber Watch Program in Marion County which allows you to drop a dime on your neighbors from the comfort of your La-Z-Boy. Yes, there's no justice like getting-even-with-the-neighbors-who-play-their-music-too-loud-late-at-
night-by-telling-the-cops-they're-running-a-meth-lab justice.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*The parents of Pat Tillman, football star turned soldier, are mad at the Pentagon for withholding the fact that he was killed by friendly fire rather than the heroic fairy tale they made up.
*President Bush is threatening to use his veto power for the first time against funding research into stem cell use for the treatment of disease.
*The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of a decision to strike down a state parental abortion notification law.
*President Bush's popularity poll numbers are at a record low.
*Senate Republicans and Democrats reached a compromise to continue to allow filibusters for the time being. (to my knowledge, KPTV has not said a single word about the entire controversy over the filibuster on their 10 o'clock "news" show)

Sun. May 22, 2005

It wasn't the absolute worst KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show I've ever seen, but that's only because it wasn't aired during a Sweeps Week. They really kick out all the stops for those. Tonight's "news" show was a fine example of USDA Prime Tabloid Trash, nevertheless.

The lead story was about a "domestic violence sweep." Local cops went around and visited victims of recent domestic violence crimes, checking to see how they were doing. They also handed out copies of an emergency phone list, a copy of which KPTV's "reporter" brandished as his prop for the story. As it's staying light later these days and the sun appeared to be already down in the video for the story, I'm guessing that it was not shot today (I don't think there would have been enough time between sundown and 10 o'clock to have shot and edited the piece).

The Juggernaut of Fear rolled on. Before the first commercial break, we were treated to stories about an abused baby, yet another story about the cop-involved shooting from the other day (which gave us zero new information) and a non-story titled Crime On The Rise? which provided no statistics or fact which would help us resolve that question.

We were also privileged to see two stories about people rescued (one at the shore, one in the mountains), a piece about a "Taser Controversy" which concerned Portland police getting hundreds of those supposedly non-lethal weapons (the nature of the "controversy" was never explained, by the way. Catchy title for a story, though, huh?) and the inevitable Meth Watch segment. This, too, gave us no real new information. It was a recap of previous stories about upcoming laws concerning meth creation.

Before going to the first commercials, we got a story about kids at Taft Middle School who have created a video program to encourage other kids not to do meth. This, too, was a total recap of a story KPTV presented days ago, with no new information added. Well, no one can say that KPTV doesn't support recycling.

After the break, we got a story about how meth *might* be involved in the disappearance of two kids in Idaho (their dead relatives had drugs in their systems, it seems.) We were showed tape of the surviving relatives talking to "Geraldo" (who has apparantly ascended to the pantheon of celebrities who are known by a single name, like Cher, Charo and Siegfried and Roy). This report was brought to us by "Dan Springer, Fox News." Hey, wasn't he "KPTV's Dan Springer" just last night when he gave us that fast-breaking "Cougars vs Dogs" story? Wow, that guy sure changes jobs fast! OR someone just forgot to trim the audio where he mentioned his real employer. I report, you decide.

The "America Tonight" feature once again gave us a roundup of what must be the most important stories in America today:

*A missing young girl was found alive in Florida
*A toddler was killed in Georgia
*A hiker was rescued in Arizona where it was 112 degrees
*An ice cream truck driver with a history of sex offenses was arrested for approaching childrem in New Hampshire
*The media has found the guy who provided the finger in the Wendy's Chili story
*A pregnant girl defied her Catholic high school's administration and walked across the stage at graduation in Alabama

Yeah, it was pretty thin soup, but it's better than what KPTV gave us as "World News":

*A deadly bus crash in Peru
*A "toilet museum" has opened in India

Yes, that is the entire list of stories in the World News segment for tonight.

After our next commercial break, it was time for Fight For Iraq. We got a story about car bombings being on the increase in Iraq. Then KPTV showed us ACTUAL DEATH TOLL NUMBERS!! Yes, they not only acknowledged that people are still dying in Iraq, they gave us actual numbers! That might be a first! Real news?? Information?? On KPTV's "news" show? Quick, fan me! I think I'm getting the vapors. If I helped this happen then it's been worth it.

It must have been a heady feeling for the KPTV crew to handle actual news-like substance because the War On Terror segment which followed told us about Laura Bush being shouted at by a large hostile crowd while visiting the Dome of the Rock mosque on a tour to promote women's rights.

Unfortunately, this flirtation with actual news didn't last long because after the 10:25 commercial break, the crap was back, Baby! Our next story was about emergency nurses and doctors allegedly being assaulted more frequently than other medical professionals. No possible reasons for this were presented, although a guess would be that it's at least partly because they deal with more people in an average day than other medical people and a lot of the people they deal with are lower-class, many of them addicted to drugs (poor people in America tend to use hospital emergency rooms in lieu of the general practitioner doctors they can't afford to visit).

The only figure for the number of assaults in E.R.'s was from 1999 and we were told that it has gone neither up nor down since then, so this doesn't exactly seem to be a rising trend.

Another commercial break, followed by the Final Cut segment, a favorite of pseudo-news afficianodos. Tonight's Crap Fest did not disappoint, kicking off with the "Cyber Sting" story teased last night.

This was a classic of the genre, featuring the KPTV "I-Team" kickin' it with the cultural warriors known as Perverted Justice (see yesterday's entry). The P.J. gang set up a college-aged self-described masochist by pretending to be young girls online. When Tyler (apparantly his real first name) showed up at the imaginary girl's doorstep, he had a bandanna over his eyes and he was on his knees. He begged to be let in so that the "girl" could "kick the shit out of me" (it was bleeped). The bandanna prevented him from realizing that he was speaking to a "reporter" and that cameras were pointing at him. When the "reporter" told him that he was trying to "hurt girls," he apologized and started to leave. He took off the makeshift blindfold and suddenly saw the cameras. Tyler's eyes were the size of hubcaps when he realized he was being taped and he scampered into his car and took off. Now that's journalism! In your face, Woodward and Bernstein!

Not content with exposing the poor sick SOB on camera, KPTV went to his college and spoke to some of his friends, who were unaware of Tyler's little "hobby" and most of whom reacted with predictable shock. I am by no means defending those who commit sex offenses, whether with minors or not, but the practice of attempting to entrap people is highly questionable.

Channel 10 in Philadelphia, an NBC affiliate, has also worked with Perverted Justice on some of these "stings." Police Chief Lee Hunter of Newtown Township in the Philly area where the "sting" was staged has said the station's actions were, "highly dangerous, totally unethical and immoral." I don't know what the position of the Portland Police Bureau about this sort of thing is but I doubt that KPTV bothered to check with them before they staged their little stunt, either. KPTV promised us another "Cyber Sting" on tomorrow night's show. Yay.

Following up on the "pervs are everywhere" theme, we next got a story about a "National Sex Offender Public Registry" the Feds are setting up. Then we got a story informing us that the Michael Jackson defense team may wrap up their case some time this week. Nothing new there.

Lastly, we got the indispensible "Hollywood Buzz." Warren Beatty "sounded off" about Governor Schwarzenegger. Arnold's administration responded with a wisecrack about how Warren was only mad because he was afraid they would cut his Social Security. Such is the state of "political debate" in this country today.

To put a big ol' bow on tonight's show, we got not one, not two, but THREE "news" stories about the new Star Wars movie. Gee, there's a new Star Wars movie out? If it wasn't for the incessant flurry of cross-promotion about it on KPTV, you'd hardly be aware of it.

Well, other than the weather and the sports segments, that was it for tonight.

What KPTV Didn't Talk About Tonight (a sampling):

* Anything at all about the ongoing struggle over Social Security
* Anything at all about the ongoing struggle over the filibuster in the Senate
* Time-Warner, the largest media company in the world, may sell off AOL
* Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected U.S. criticisms of his antidrug efforts
* President George Bush's approval ratings have fallen to an all-time low

So much real news, so little time devoted to it. *sigh*

Sat. May 21, 2005

Saturday night brought us another pant-load of quasi-news compliments of KPTV.

Lead story? The same attempted rape/murder they've been hawking for the past several days. We did get a little new information for once. As I noted yesterday, KPTV hadn't mentioned the perp's name. Turns out, this is because the cops asked them to sit on that for two days (at least that's what they said on tonight's "news" show).

Oh, this was amusing: We finally got an actual photo of the creep and it looked nothing like the sketch they've been showing for days now. It wouldn't be fair to blame that on KPTV, though.

Then we got a fast-fire potpourri of mayhem and chaos. Between the top of the show and the first commercial break at 10:11, there were at least 12 stories (I think I missed one while trying to writing everything down so the actual number may have been 13).

Even if any of those stories were about anything you needed to know, at an average of about 40 seconds each, you wouldn't have gotten much information from KPTV's speed freak presentation. I did manage to glean the factoid that the show which paid mucho dinero for exclusive rights to pictures of the Mary Kay Letourneau/Oversexed Adolescent wedding is Entertainment Tonight.

Oh, we also got tonight's first "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" quote in connection with a story about an explosion at a house that might have been a meth lab location.

Back from the first commercials, it was time for America Tonight. You know, it's fascinating to find out that in a 3000-mile wide country of 280 million people, there are no more important "news" stories than:

*A fire breaking out in Cleveland
*4 people dying in a plane crash at Coney Island
*A school bus driver hitting a child in Florida
*The wall of a school collapsing in Oklahoma
*A small boy crawling into and getting stuck in a novelty claw machine in Indiana
*Allegations of sex abuse and Satan worship at a church in Louisiana
*A cop's badge stopping a bullet in California
*A crazy old lady finding Jesus' picture on a piece of toast in Minnesota
*Some guy selling a car formerly owned by the Pope

On the other hand, the most important "news" in the rest of the world is:

*Doctors are trying to separate conjoined twins in Singapore
*South Korean scientists are making breakthroughs in stem cell research

Gee, that last one resembles ACTUAL news. Someone screwed up, KPTV!!

Next on the KPTV nightly Cavalcade of Crap was the Fight For Iraq segment. Gee, did the new Iraqi government do something that affected the people of their country? Would the segment be about the American general who said recently that "we could still lose this thing," referring to the war in Iraq? Yeah, right! Get real. Nope. The "Fight For Iraq" "news" was more hooey about the British tabloid The Sun running new embarassing pictures of Saddam Hussein. Oh, and there was a second fast-breaking story about young Iraqi men RACING THEIR CARS!!!!

Apparantly, somehow, this is an indication that things are getting better in Iraq. And here I thought that large parts of that country still not having reliable electrical or water service and suffering from almost daily bombings MIGHT be indications of continued instability. If they've got street drags though, well, things ARE looking up!

The short piece of tape of Iraqi car racing, by the way, looked to me to be identical to a piece Fox News Channel ran months ago about the same subject. I can't absolutely swear it was the identical piece of tape, since I'm doing this from memory, but even if it wasn't, the premise of the story was the same as FNC's from last year. It's never too late to distract your audience from the unpleasant truth with propaganda, I guess.

After the next commercial break, we came back to a story titled "Cougars vs. dogs" about hunters using dogs to chase down wild cats. This one ended with the anchor intoning, "That was KPTV's Dan Springer reporting." KPTV plays a little fast and loose with the notion of possession. A lot of the stories on their 10 o'clock "news" show are actually produced by reporters at TV stations in other markets. As near as I can determine, these "foreign" reporters are NOT employees of KPTV, bringing into question their use of "KPTV's so-and-so." Just because you use a piece featuring a particular person, I wouldn't say that entitles you to call them "yours." In the past, I've even caught them referring to a CNN reporter as "KPTV's Jeannie Moos." They had to chop off the end of the audio on the piece (where she referred to CNN) to pull that off, but they did it anyway. This little subterfuge, I believe, is intended to make the audience think that KPTV has reporters all over the country. I doubt this is illegal, but it's pretty sleazy.

Eventually we got to the certain-to-win-an-award-someday segment The Final Cut. Brooke Wilberger, the girl who was missing yesterday and every day for the past year, is still missing. We got an interview with her Mom who, you'll be surprised to find out, is still upset that her daughter is missing but who tries to keep her chin up and keep going. I'm not making fun of the Wilberger family members who must be going through absolute Hell, but is there really any NEWS VALUE in this?

Next was another KPTV "Cyber Sting." About two or three times a year, KPTV's "news" show hooks up with an organization called Perverted Justice (yes, that's their real name) whose members go online, pretending to be underage kids in an attempt to set up would-be child molesters. Using Perverted Justice in these "stings" means that KPTV's "news" weasels aren't the ones doing the actual entrapment. They get to tag along for the ride, cameras in hand, "covering the story" when the pervs show up at the doorstep of the "kids." The fact that some police departments have condemned what Perverted Justice does is no deterrent to the KPTV Tabloid Team/Morality Enforcement Squad.

After whetting our appetite for a heaping helping of Perverted Justice, including the first usage of the phrase "blow job" I have ever heard on a "news" show, it turned out that this was merely a tease for the REAL story, which will air tomorrow night. KPTV, sleazy as always.

We also got some cross-promotional nonsense about Star Wars 3, a Fox movie of course. This was immediately followed by a breathess story about how bootleg copies of SW3 are already available on the streets of New York City, as well as on the Internet. DVD bootlegging, we were informed, "costs movie studios millions of dollars a year." This, of course, is not an established fact, but the opinion of the studios themselves, who have never demonstrated that it is true.

Think about it: Who would go to the effort to download a copy of a Star Wars movie, other than a hardcore fan? How likely is it that such a fan is going to be satisfied by a copy, grainy and partly obscured by a time code (as the reporter informed us), to the degree that he will never go to see the movie in a theater in 35 or 70 mm and glorious Dolby stereo? If he does go to the theater, not a single dollar is "lost." Anyone who downloads the movie and doesn't go to the theater must not have liked the movie enough to bother to go see it "for real." Again, no actual money lost.

If a person steals your wallet in which you had put $50, you have lost a total of $50, NOT the thousand dollars you HOPE to put into it some day. The "losses" "suffered" by the studios are theoretical at best. I fully understand why copyright holders want to clutch tightly to their property, but news stories should contain FACTS, not conjecture, even conjecture supported by the movie studio your employer owns.

We finally got to a doozy of a "news" story which the show had hyped several times: Gangsta Elmo. Yes, you read that right. Seems some jokers have made a game in which Elmo from Sesame Street goes around shooting and stabbing other Muppets. Did this "news" piece feature outraged and shocked parents of young kids? Duh. We got to see a mom give the entirely predictable knee-jerk reaction that it could be "damaging" for little kids to encounter this. No one, of course, remarked on the extreme unlikelihood of a four-year-old surfing the Web unsupervised, as would be required for he or she to come across the Muppetcide. This little piece of classic outragertainment was brought to us by "KPTV's Melinda Spalding" who I've never seen before on a Channel 12 "news" cast. Why, it's almost as if she doesn't actually work for KPTV!

THINGS KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a small sampling):

*The promised laser warning system for planes is now up and running at National Airport in D.C.
*Despite anti-war protests, President Bush gave a commencement speech at a Christian college.
*The Washington Post is reporting that billions of dollars spent on "homeland security" since 9/11 has either been wasted on useless and obsolete equipment or is unaccounted for. Oops.
*Continuing violence in Iraq is screwing up a multi-billion dollar rebuilding effort. So much for KPTV's ongoing "things are getting better every day in Iraq" theme, huh?

Eh, it probably just slipped their mind. It's easy to forget minor stuff like air passenger safety when you have to make sure to report that Topher Grace has just signed to play a part in the next Spiderman movie.

Friday, May 20, 2005

The KPTV "news" team threw great steaming heaps of shit at the wall tonight, pretending that what stuck was journalism.

Our lead story? There's a manhunt on for a guy who committed an assault/kidnapping. This story would have qualified as a lovely little piece of fearmongering, even if it wasn't merely a repackaging of stuff from a week ago, with no real new information to impart. Must have been a slow day in the Northwest for lurid crime.

Among other things we "learned" tonight from KPTV's 10 o'clock "news show:

*Local cops have a secret list of the Top 10 Meth Cooks (Who's on it? Who knows? It's SECRET, silly!)
*Some crazy lady got arrested for calling 911 for non-emergencies and fighting with a deputy
*A couple of men impersonated water company workers, with the intent of robbing the homes they got into (this story, like the assault/kidnapping piece was days old and gave us no new information)
*A house burned down in Beaverton
*A missing teen was found, unmolested and unharmed, at his friend's home
*Brooke Wilberger, who disappeared a year ago, is still missing
*A case of hantavirus was found in Oregon
*Mary Kay LeTourneau got married to her molestation victim in Washington state. She has a deal with an unnamed TV show (must not be on Fox) for the rights to the wedding footage

HOWLER OF THE NIGHT

It's a toss-up between the "Sugar Mommas" story (in which we got to meet some local women with inflated senses of their own worth and hotness) and the story about the street sweeper car chase. Seems a local woman who is addicted to meth stole a street sweeper from the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme donut shop. Doesn't sound to me like it could have been much of a "chase"--there's a reason, after all, that street sweepers are never used as Indy 500 pace cars--but that wasn't the funniest part.

As I've explained previously, KPTV's hapless "reporters" are required, for most "field" pieces, to brandish a prop of some kind, in the apparant belief that a physical object is the Philosopher's Stone which turns crap into journalism. David Frietas was tonight's propholder. Since a street sweeper would weigh too much to lift, Dave employed a DONUT as tonight's prop! So, those toroid-shaped objects are what "donut shops" sell? I had NO idea! Who says Channel 12 doesn't inform its audience? My wife and I actually burst out in laughter when we got the tight, glazed shot. "Hot 'news' now" indeed!

At 10:31, we got treated to the follow-up to last night's "Sugar Mommas" "story." A couple of semi-attractive local women were given valuable air time to bloviate on their love lives. It looked like a load of time-wasting crap to me, but Shauna Parsons assured us that "Sugar Mommas" are a "new trend" and who am I to argue with New Trends?

Tonight's Final Cut segment was a runaway cement truck chock-full of vital info. Many people died in various gruesome, statistically-unlikely ways all across the Fruited Plain; Six Flags has a new policy of banning sex offenders (how will they know? Details, details); a blonde is selling ads on her body parts on eBay; a family of mental cases in Sacramento has covered their home with sheet aluminum to protect them from the "radio waves" they believe their neighbor is aiming at them; 6 churches are for sale in Missouri. My head's swollen from having all those fast-breaking factoids stuffed into it.

At 10:44 the War On Terror graphic appeared. Wow, was I about to be informed about how many soldiers died in Iraq today? Was the U.S. government announcing a pullout? Was I about to get some actual NEWS at last? Duh.

Tonight's "War On Terror" segment was about the pictures which appeared in the press of Saddam Hussein in his underwear. We were told that the pictures appeared in the British paper, The Sun. No mention was made of the fact that the same pictures were also in the New York Post. Interestingly enough, The Post and The Sun are both owned by News Corp., the parent company of Fox Broadcasting, the network with which KPTV is affiliated. They didn't mention that either.

President Bush and the administration is ticked about the release of the pictures, even though Bush says that he doesn't believe that they will incite violence in the Middle East. Uh, why does the administration claim that a single sentence in Newsweek started riots but they're certain that photos of Hussein in his tighty-whities are harmless? As usual, KPTV provided no context that would help a viewer understand this seeming contradiction (nor even addressed it, actually).

Oh, there was also a story about today's "stand down" of military recruiters; they were required to undergo training about what is and isn't acceptable to say and promise when recruiting. This story contained no background about the recent incidents where one recruiter told a kid that he could get into the army even though he claimed to have a drug problem and no high school diploma (the recruiter actually promised to help the boy pass a urine test and obtain a fake diploma) and another falsely told a boy that if he didn't come in for a "talk," he would be arrested. If you wondered what the cause of the "stand down" was, you wouldn't have found out by watching the KPTV "news" show.

Oh yeah, we also got to hear that Gwyneth Paltrow "spoke out" about her theories on child rearing. Phew. I couldn't have lived another day without getting that info.

There were many other stories, but you get the idea.

THINGS KPTV DIDN'T TALK ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*The ongoing fight between Democrats and Republicans over the filibuster.
*The fact that the FBI wants to be able to arrest anyone, anywhere without a warrant.
*The continuing story about how the Ohio GOP has put $50 million of a state employees pension fund into a questionable rare coin investment which has lost 120 of the coins. Insider trading seems to be involved as well.
*Donald Trump trying to inject himself into the process of constructing the replacement for the World Trade Center.

Eh, who needs to know about any of that stuff? Gwyneth Paltrow has opinions on child rearing and David Freitas is holding up a donut! Airtime is valuable. Priorities, my friend, priorities.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

This initial posting for KPTV News Watch may be a little longer than subsequent ones. I want you to get a feel for just how wretched this alleged "news" show is and to aquaint you with the usual suspects and their modus operandi.

Well, it was a fairly typical night for the KPTV 10 PM "news" show (with one notable exception which I'll reveal later in this post).

The show hit the ground running, leading off with a story about a local Realtor convicted of identity theft (KPTV's new favorite crime, it would seem). There was no apparant violence connected with this crime, violating the "if it bleeds, it leads" credo but hey, you can't have a hot hand every night, right? Besides, it was identity theft, the scary crime du jour.

When they cut back from the video tape to the reporter on the scene (where, as usual, absolutely nothing was happening, raising the question of what exactly the purpose of having the reporter "on scene" is), she was holding a fistful of pictures of the perpetrator. A few months back, you see, KPTV instituted this thing where a reporter out on a "field piece" has to hold an object which relates, usually in an irrelevant way, to the story. This has led to such absurd sights as a reporter holding a pizza box while reporting on a story about a pizza delivery guy who was robbed. Just in case you had never actually seen a pizza box, I guess. Hey, it's possible.

From there, the "news" moved on to the next piece of intentional emotional terrorism: a story about criminals being released early from a local prison. Wayne Garcia, the male half of the anchor team, informed us via his voice-over that the sheriff "wants" to cut the budget. This, almost certainly, isn't even in the same zip code as the reality; the sheriff HAS to cut the budget because he has less money to operate with.

Oregon is a referendum state, allowing voters to decide a lot more issues than some other states, including tax increases. Despite KPTV's daily attempts to convince people that violent, frightening crime is everywhere at all times, voters have been reluctant to raise taxes even to give police departments more money. This, of course, leaves local law enforcement little choice but to release some low-level offenders early to free up cell space. This should have been explained in the context of KPTV's "news" report but, of course, it wasn't. There was, of course, the requisite video of criminals leaving the jail. Cower in your homes, citizens!

Next up was a story about a deadly shooting by the police. The alleged perp/dead guy had a knife, so see if you can guess what the reporter on the scene had as a prop? Did you guess "knife?" See, you're catching on already! Yes, David Wilson was holding a big ol' scary blade while reporting from the scene (where, of course, absolutely nothing was happening). Every night is Show And Tell on KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show!

The next story was such a tear-jerker than I'm surprised that they didn't lead with it. It seems a local woman, who is a cancer victim currently undergoing chemotherapy which has made her hair fall out, suffered a fire which destroyed her home. She's got cancer, is bald AND just lost her house? Whoo! That's at least a triple, right? Wait, it gets better. She actually cried on camera, talking about how she was suddenly wiped out. If THAT isn't the Grand Slam of Tabloid Journalism, well, I don't know what would be.

It's now 10:08 and time for our first commercial break. Not before we tease a couple of upcoming stories, though. "Cyber Spies On Your Computer" and an "American Idol Conspiracy Theory." Wake the kids and drag them in front of the TV! Irrelevancy Ahoy!

Back from the break, we get a story about parents fighting back against school violence in Salem. The reporter had a box cutter to show us. Do the KPTV news vans have prop closets? I wonder.

Stop the presses! The next "news" story was about a sex offender who moved! No, he hasn't committed any new crime that you need to know about. He just moved. Hey, he's a convicted sex offender! Isn't that enough for you?? What sex offense did he commit? What level of offense was it? Where exactly did he move to? Details, details. A sex offender moved from somewhere to somewhere. Lock the kids in a closet, bar the door and sit on the couch with a shotgun on your lap.

Before the next commercial break, we were treated to a flurry of stories about chaos and crime all over this great land of ours, including:
*A bowling alley's roof collapsing
*Some kids missing and their adult relatives dead in Idaho
*A Roseburg, OR cop shot
*A hazing investigation at the University of Washington
*A slippery freeway in Seattle
*Mary Kay Letourneau reportedly getting married this weekend
*A new shopping center opening in Tigard, OR

A rational viewer might wonder if the story about the cop being shot didn't deserve better placement in the show, seeing as how it resembled actual news. Is the order of stories on KPTV's "news" show determined by the spin of a carnival wheel? The Universe is full of such Cosmic Mysteries!

It's 10:20 and time for another commercial break. Before we go, though, we get a tease about the upcoming Dirty Dining segment.

Back from the break, it's time for Dirty Dining! This is something that KPTV does once a week, in a simulation of real investigative reporting. The local health department releases "report cards" which grade restaurants on a scale of 1-100. KPTV sends out someone (an intern?) with a hidden camera to the most recent restaurant to get a failing or barely passing grade. Yup, they're a regular 60 Minutes there at Channel 12! This is followed by the requisite non-hidden camera interview with the manager of the offending eatery, who dutifully explains that the problem has now been corrected and that it won't happen again.

This week's sacrificial lamb was a hamburger joint which received a barely passing score of 66. Of course, since 66 is a passing score (even if just barely), ambushing the establishment could be construed as harassment, but hey, it's a weekly feature! They have to fill it with something, right?

10:26. Time for another commercial break. First, though, there's a tease for the "Cyber Spies" story (again) and Larry King's appearance at the Michael Jackson trial.

Back. We get a story about U.S. Airways and America West merging. Will this raise ticket prices? Who knows? Not KPTV apparantly, nor do they seem particularly concerned with the issue. This is followed by a story about "Sugar Mommas," whatever the hell THEY are. Near as I could make out, there are men who go online, seeking to meet and date women with money. Wow, that has never happened before in the history of humanity! The women are "Sugar Mommas." Didn't seem like much of a story to me, but Shauna Parsons, the other anchor, informed the audience that it was a "new trend" and that KPTV would be telling us more about it soon. Thank God. We wouldn't want to not be informed about a "new trend," now would we? (Side thought: does appending the word "cyber" to something automatically make it newsworthy? Seems so.)

10:32 and time for the weather. Gee, didn't they have a story about "cyber bullies" to push the weather segment back tonight? Guess not.

Not much I can really say about the weather segment. If you've seen a TV weather forecast, then you know what this one looks like. Let's move on.

After the weather, we take a break, but not before we are told about the upcoming Final Cut segment.

The Final Cut is something that was introduced a few months back. Near as I can tell, it's nothing more than a fast-paced compilation of stories (many celebrity-based) that happen to involve visually interesting video tape. KPTV's "news" show, like Early Man, is attracted to shiny objects. Oh, one other thing: During the Final Cut, there is a small countdown clock at the lower right corner of the screen. Why? Who knows? It is sort of entertaining, I admit, to see if the Final Cut segment ends in sync with the clock reaching zero. It's kind of like the digital timer on the bomb in a James Bond movie except no one gets to cut a wire at the last second. Maybe they can introduce that in Final Cut 2.0.

By my count, the Final Cut segment included no fewer than 17 individual stories, including the much-hyped "Cyber Spies" piece. After all the hoopla, you'd be forgiven if you thought it somehow involved Al Qaeda. What this story turned out to be was KPTV lending a local family a laptop computer for two weeks. When the time was up, the "news" people took the computer to The Geek Squad (a company which makes house calls to repair computers) for analysis.

I know you're just dying to know what The Geek Squad found on the hard drive, right? Well, did you know that some companies actually install tracking cookies on your computer without your permission so they can track where you surf and sell that information? Oh, you did, huh, probably because you've actually used an anti-spyware program to remove crap like that from your own computer. Well, KPTV managed to find an upscale-looking white family who apparantly was blissfully unaware of that common fact. They were appalled, I tell you, appalled! Yup, that was the story.

Among the other vital stories crammed into the Final Cut segment: some cross-promotion for Good Day, Oregon, (KPTV's wake-up show); some more cross-promotional crap about the Fox show The O.C.; "Hollywood Buzz" about Lindsay Lohan looking skinny these days and, oh yeah, that fast-breaking American Idol "conspiracy theory" story. That turned out to be twaddle about how some people believe that the order of performers on an "Idol" CD reveals the order of the final contestants on the TV show. As Shauna Parsons informed us, however, it isn't true. Thank God! I was worried there for a moment that the show might be fixed. What about the allegations that Paula Abdul slept with one of the contestants, thereby skewing the outcome of the contest? Isn't rigging a TV game show illegal?? You're still worried about that? That is SO last week!

OK, the only thing left after the next commercial break is the sports. I don't really care about that, so I didn't take notes. As with the weather, if you've ever seen a sports segment, you know what this one looks like.

OK, what was that disappointment I mentioned at the start of the commentary? Well, unlike most nights, tonight's show didn't include anyone saying, "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" or a variation on that phrase. Most nights you get a crime story--usually early in the hour--which includes a neighbor of the victim saying that. As I said in the introduction to this blog, this, in my opinion, is intended to frighten the viewer into believing that crime is on the increase everywhere, even in "good" (read: WHITE) neighborhoods like his and that he needs to watch the news every night to keep abreast of the latest affront to civilized decency.

So, did you happen to notice anything missing from the list of stories? Did you notice that there wasn't one single word about the war? Is that wacky war thing even still going on? Did any soldiers die in Iraq in the last twenty-four hours? If they did, you'd never hear about it if your only news source was KPTV. Did the mayor of Portland cut a ribbon today? Did the city council pass a law which might affect you? Don't look to the KPTV "news" show for the answers to those questions.

KPTV hasn't seen fit to say one single word about the Scottish Member of Parliament who told off an American Senator to his face (video of which exists). Nor did their 10 o'clock "news" show mention anything tonight about the ongoing fight over the filibuster nor any about several other national stores. To my knowledge, they have never so much as mentioned the Downing Street Memo, which proves that George Bush conspired with Tony Blair to get us into a war illegally. Hey, when you have important stories about non-existant American Idol conspiracies, you can't fit everything into your "news" show. You gotta have priorities, for God's sake!

Starting to get the picture of what a festering piece of manure the KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show is? If not, don't worry. You will as the days pass and I continue to chronicle this trainwreck.

Why The Blog Exists

I'm a middle-aged man. I grew up in New York City and have now lived in eight states. A few years ago, I moved to the Oregon Coast. Our "local" TV news comes from Portland (I put "local" in quotes because we are about two hours away from Portland; it's the nearest large city so we get all the stations from there on cable and by satellite).

KPTV is Channel 12 in Portland. It is a Fox affiliate which has the only 10 PM news show in Portland. Put simply, KPTV's 10 o'clock news show is THE SINGLE WORST TV "news" show I have ever seen. It is particularly embarassing for the product of a major market TV station.

On any given night, KPTV's 10 o'clock news is a cornucopia of stories designed to frighten the viewer into believing that they are in constant danger from criminals who want to break into their homes, rape their women and pets, smoke crack and steal their identities, punctuated by stories about pseudo-scientific nonsense and celebrity puff pieces seemingly torn from the pages of Star magazine.

It is a rare night when KPTV gets more than 10 minutes into their "news" show without a crime story featuring a man on the street or neighbor of the victim "speaking out" (one of KPTV's favorite phrases--no one ever just "talks" on Planet KPTV) about how "you don't expect that in this neighborhood." That exact phrase or slight variations on it appears on almost every KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show. This is, of course, designed to make the viewer believe that no one is ever safe anywhere and that he better watch this abortion disguised as "news" every night to keep up on the latest alleged threat to his liberty and security.

When KPTV isn't trying to frighten its viewers into thinking that meth smoking rapists/identity thieves are freely roaming the streets of the Portland suburbs (like reanimated corpses from Night Of The Living Dead), it's wasting time which could be better spent on informing the audience about the REAL issues in America by breathlessly "reporting" on which contestant was just voted off American Idol or showing tape of the fans lined up outside a theater waiting for the new Star Wars movie to open. Only a cynic (or observant viewer) would point out that American Idol airs on KPTV or that the Star Wars movies are produced by Fox, with whose network KPTV is affiliated. The industry term for this sort of thing is "cross-promotion"; a less charitable term would be "whoring out your news show."

As if content scraped from the bottom of the barrel isn't enough to make KPTV's "news" an embarassment, the actual production of the show easily rivals it. It is a rare night indeed when the 10 o'clock "news" show on KPTV manages to get through an entire hour without a technical snafu. I have made something of a game out of watching the show with one eye on the clock, checking to see how soon the first screw-up occurs. Since I have been keeping track, the record is three seconds.

"Chyron" is the name of the machine which creates the text you see on the screen during a news show. Chyron errors are as common on KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show as white people at a Republican convention. My wife and I have long suspected that KPTV had interns operating the technical equipment for their show. This was confirmed a while back when they wasted some valuable time with a "behind the scenes at the 10 o'clock news" segment, showing an intern operating--wait for it!--the Chyron.

A Chyron machine is far from the most difficult-to-operate machine in television production; one might think, however, that a TV "news" show on a station in a major market would want to at least make the attempt to look professional. TV is, after all, a mostly visual medium. Saving money by not paying competant people to operate critical equipment, however, is apparantly MUCH further up KPTV's list of priorities than creating a show that isn't an embarassment to all concerned.

So What Pushed Me Over The Edge?

I've been threatening for some time now to create a site chronicling the continuing desecration of the "news" represented by KPTV's 10 o'clock show. Tonight's show finally pushed me over the edge.

It was 10:37 PM. My wife spoke out (to use KPTV's favorite euphemism for "said"). "Hey, shouldn't the weather be on now? Did I miss it?"

She was right. The usual format is that the weather segment starts at 10:32 or 10:33. She hadn't missed it. What was KPTV airing in place of the usual start of the weather? A story about "cyber bullies" (whatever the hell THEY are). Yeah, it's crap disguised as news, but even that wouldn't be enough to make me finally take the step of creating this blog. After all, it's exactly the same kind of crap they populate their "news" show with seven nights a week.

No, what finally pushed me over the edge is the fact that THEY HAD AIRED THE EXACT SAME SEGMENT THE NIGHT BEFORE. Yes, the same story about "cyber bullies" which had aired on KPTV's "news" show the previous night was being aired again with no changes whatsoever. This was not an "update"; it was the exact same story! KPTV's "news" department has now voyaged beyond the mere airing of crap to the uncharted New World of repeating the same crap twenty-four hours later. Apparantly, they can't even be bothered to come up with NEW garbage.

The weather finally came on at 10:40, after KPTV stopped treading water with the latest entry in their never-ending parade of fear-mongering stories. By the time the "meteorologist" commenced contradicting his previous night's forecast, I made a decision. These circus clowns had to be exposed for the fake "journalists" they are. This blog is the result of that decision.

What This Blog Is Going To Be

I am going to make an attempt to post every day (or as close to it as I can) and chronicle the mistakes, crap, lies and nonsense with which KPTV fills its 10 o'clock "news" show on a nightly basis. I will list the inaccurate and misleading information they put on the air along with their technical screw-ups. My hope is that others who watch the show will contribute to this blog via messages.

What's The Point Of This?

I believe that the American public is entitled to accurate information. The survival of participatory democracy depends on the public being accurately informed about the issues of the day. Unfortunately, a majority of Americans report that they get all or most of their information from TV news shows and/or late-night talk show monologues. As TV news is perhaps the worst source for accurate and comprehensive information, this is unfortunate. Where Americans get their news from doesn't seem likely to change any time in the near future, however, so the least we can do is demand that our TV news shows give us accurate information about important stories. I'm hoping that I can contribute to this effort via shaming KPTV into doing a better job in the near future by exposing the poor job they do now.

It is my hope that others will follow my example by creating similar blogs about bad "news" shows in other markets. Local TV news shows are a large source of profit for their stations. The least they can do is make the effort to give their audiences accurate information about important issues.