Friday, June 10, 2005

I'm still wondering just how much KPTV had to pay "their" reporter Wolf Blitzer to make the jump from CNN (see yesterday's report). Anyway, let's do this.

Top Story: A robbery in Beaverton was apparently committed while the residents were pushing their noisy lawn mower around. That's why they didn't hear Mr. Burglar walk in their front door. Of course, leaving the door unlocked didn't exactly hurt the burglary effort. "Reporter" Kerri Tomlinson, temporarily freed from her grueling Online Perv and Dirty Dining beats, used her keys as the prop for this story. Hey, didn't David Freitas do the same exact thing last night? You guys need to coordinate your prop usage better. The whole key thing is getting a wee bit stale.

Beaverton cops have a robbery suspect in custody. The implication was that this might be the same guy from the above story, but of course no one was sure at "news" time.

A King City cop has been charged with child rape. Brandon Tomkins allegedly abused a kid he met on the Internets (as our President says).

A California man is in a local hoosgow for assault.

Fox 12's Most Wanted tonight was a three-bagger.
1: The church rape guy from yesterday hasn't been caught yet.
2: Joe Maestas, registered sex offender, has moved without giving notice.
3: Ed Boss, from the other day's attempted rape/assault story might be in the woods, hiding.

Meth Watch
1: 2 people were arrested in Woodburn for ID theft allegedly connected to meth. The cops had to shoot a pit bull the arrestees were using for home security.
2: There was a meth bust in Aloha. 2 were arrested, 1 of whom was shot by a cop's Taser; their kids are now in custody.

Break.

There was another Amtrak accident near Seattle. The train hit a truck with propane tanks on it. Boom. BIG boom.

A man fell into a trench in Portland.

"KPTV's Jeremy Carlson" told us about some yahoo who drove his car into a semi, doing some serious damage to his car, then drove off. He got himself arrested for his (allegedly drunken) trouble. The driver, not Jeremy, that is.

There was a "home invasion" (formerly known as a burglary) at a home in Stayton, Oregon. The miscreant was armed with a knife.

Some Portland schools are closing for the summer early this year. As usual, this was treated as if it was an act of God or something instead of the result of voters rejecting a tax increase. Certainly, the electorate has the right to vote for or against anything they want to, but the results of their actions shouldn't be reported on as if they are inexplicable. We do know why these things are happening. As in all aspects of life, you gets what you pays for.

The Rose Parade is tomorrow (Saturday) morning. Some chucklehead family was camping out overnight under a canopy-kind of thing. The weather guy was there to do his report from outside for a change.

Northwest Tonight

*A woman lost in the woods for two days who thought she was going to die, managed to walk to safety.

*The mother of a National Guardsman currently in Iraq is accused of stealing his identity to support her video poker habit. This part made no sense to me: They told us her name is Eleanor Alloway, but they said they wouldn't give his name to protect his anonymity. This made sense to someone? Whatever.

Break.

"KPTV's Scott Sayers [sic]" told us that American Airlines, in cahoots with Microsoft and TiVo, is offering some kind of deal that lets you watch TV shows on a little portable screen while you're flying. How you choose exactly what you want to see was unclear to me.

*A former meth addict got herself a free house, courtesy of Habitat for Humanity. I've never done drugs or been drunk in my entire life; where's my free house?

Break.

Fight For Iraq

Some Marines got themselves killed since Thursday. Oh, this was a shock: KPTV actually gave us the number of American troops killed in Iraq so far! This should be part of every story that talks about the war in Iraq to remind the audience of the sacrifices being made in our name.

War On Terror

*We got a story about a Congressional hearing from Friday morning about the Patriot Act that managed to miss the single most interesting thing about the hearing. If you haven't heard, Republican Congressman Sensenbrenner was the chairman of the hearing. He decided that he didn't like the testimony being given by the Democrats and their witnesses so he unilaterally ended the meeting, walking out of the room with the rest of the Republicans in tow. This was against the rules of the House, which require a vote to end a meeting. No one seems to remember a similar event happening in the history of the House. It takes real talent to completely miss the most interesting and important part of a story, especially one for which video tape is available, but KPTV has it. In spades. Grrr.

*High-tech mail trucks have been developed so that Al Qaeda can't steal our Publishers Clearinghouse mailings.

In Jackson Scandal "news," "KPTV's Anita Vogel" gave us the vital information that the jury hasn't rendered a verdict yet (as if we wouldn't already know that by the fact that, if it had, every damn thing on TV would have been interrupted for "breaking news"). Some observers think that this might mean that the jury is hung. Oh, the Jackson people were driving around in "decoy SUV's" to throw off the paparazzi, or something.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

*One of the suspects in the Natalee Holloway case allegedly told the Aruba police that "Something bad happened to her" which is a little non-specific. I found a story on Yahoo that said that she had been found dead as early as 9:15 PM, well before the KPTV "news" show started. I don't know for sure if that's true, though.

*"KPTV's Tony Valdez" gave us a story involving a harrowing 911 call about a man with a gun who shot members of a California family in their front yard. We also got another 911 call from the next morning involving the same shooter who eventually committed suicide.

*There was a freeway shootout in Los Angeles.

*A deadly fire in Kentucky killed a 5 year-old.

*There was a deadly rampage in a police station in New Orleans.

*A pickup truck that crashed into a motorcycle shop was Caught On Tape. Yawn.

*A car hit an Amish buggy in Ohio. "Verily, we must share our insurance information."

*Lab specimens were spilled on a highway in Arizona. That's a good start for a horror movie, I think.

*A hurricane watch is in effect in Florida.

*The guy who robbed the local Wells Fargo bank the other day is still on the loose. "Reporter" Jamie Wilson gave us this story from the KPTV "news" van for no discernable reason. Is there some sort of tax write-off they get if they use the van as a "set," I wonder.

*Next we got a piece about preventing migraines. Don't eat chocolate is what I got from it.

*This year's American Idol winner, Carrie What's Her Name, did a show for Country Music Television where she sang...yes, you guessed it, country songs!

Hollywood Buzz

*Steven Seagal, who you'd be forgiven for thinking had disappeared from the face of the Earth, is being sued for allegedly screwing up production on two movies.

*Daryl Hannah (see comments above about Steven Seagal) is being sued for non-payment of bills by a P.R. firm.

*The producers of "Napoleon Dynamite," a movie no one over the age of 25 has seen, are making a movie in Oregon.

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

*Chicago's O'Hare Airport was flooded

*A widely-distributed email claiming that Michael Jackson has committed suicide hides a virus.

*Yermo, California, east of Barstow, has been evacuated because a seal on a train car carrying a Navy rocket motor appears to have been tampered with.

*And of course, stupid friggin' KPTV totally missed the fact that a Republican Congressman improperly terminated a hearing about the Patriot Act for partisan reasons, even though they did a story about the hearings! Yeah, I repeated it because it's so damn annoying.