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)