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.