Tuesday, May 31, 2005

OK, I took the holiday weekend off, so I think I have the strength to once again tackle the thankless task of chronicling KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show.

Top Story? The weather. You know, the very rainy weather that they didn't predict. It caused some havoc and you know that KPTV is attacted to havoc like a moth to a flame. Jim Hyde took the mudslide/closed road part of the story and Debra Gill tackled the roof collapse. Yup, that's KPTV for ya--no coverage at all about a Constitutional crisis on Capitol Hill but TWO (three, if you count the weather weasel's cameo) about RAIN!

The Short Attention Span Theater known as Channel 12's "news" rolled on to a story about a house fire in West Linn, Oregon. Helicopter footage! Yippee!

Attractive young white woman Brooke Wilberger is still missing so we got another story about her. This one started off with a shot of a green van and the question was posed whether this van was somehow involved in Brooke's theorized abduction. There's a "person of interest" out there somewhere who might have been driving a green van and who might have abducted Brooke. The cops are looking for anyone who might have witnessed anything. Oh, eventually we were told that the van they showed us wasn't the van, but just maybe sort of looked like the van that might be somehow involved with the possible abduction. When I run the world, misleading "news" like that will be punishable by the death penalty.

A school in Tigard sent a letter home with its students about a guy who has been hanging around near the school, allegedly harassing some of the girls. He's Hispanic and between 25 and 30 years of age.

A warrant was issued for prostitution in Portland. The cops raided a reputed house of ill repute.

Commercial break

Back. It's time for Meth Watch, kids! The Feds raided a house in the middle of nowhere and busted what they called a Super Lab. It was supposedly capable of producing up to 90 pounds of meth at a time. We got tonight's first and only "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" type comment from a neighbor who told us he is a former addict. David Freitas, our "reporter" on this story, didn't use a prop! Hey, what's the deal, KPTV? How am I supposed to know what's news if I don't see PROPS??

Randy and Julie Baszler got busted. For what, I forget. These stories come at you really fast and I just can't keep up all the time. They're off the streets; that's what's important, right? Won't someone please think about the children!?

Jarrod Nixon (who is NOT the Subway sandwich guy) allegedly beat a woman with a golf club in the course of a robbery. They caught him thanks to DNA from inside his shoe. Yes, you read that right.

Some cops shot a guy. See my comments two paragraphs up.

Commercial break.

A sex offender changed addresses in Cowlitz County. You Cowlitzers probably thought you were safe, huh? Not on your lives. Crime is everywhere. Cringe in fear.

There was a deadly car crash.

A woman who killed a bicyclist the other day had her arraignment.

A baby almost drowned, but didn't.

They found the source of the E. coli at Camp Yamhill. IT'S THE DRINKING WATER!! Oh, and by the way, To Serve Man? IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!!

Two cretins hung from an overpass to see who could hang the longest. One lost. Ow. Police suspect that alcohol played a part in the wager. Gee, you think?

The anti-gay mayor of Spokane, Washington, who is not gay, even though he admits to having set up clandestine meetings with other men on gay.com, is being urged to resign. The city council voted to ask him to give up the job. He refused. It's sad when someone doesn't realize he's toast, isn't it? Did I mention that he isn't gay?

Break.

Next up was the story about Mark Felt, former FBI agent, admitting that he was Deep Throat, the source for Woodward and Bernstein on the Watergate story. It's such an interesting story, having an over 30-year background, that KPTV only delayed it by 24 minutes. You just can't compete with helicopter footage of house fires.

Break.

Didn't they used to call it the Jackson Trial? Now it's the Jackson Scandal. Whatever. Anyway, deliberations may start as soon as Friday. The smart money is on acquittal.

A potential strike at United Airlines is off, for now at least. The management has worked out agreements with two unions.

George Bush is pushing his energy bill and is P.O.'d at Congress for not moving more quickly on it. We actually got a little (not much, but a little) context about what the bill concerns. It was the usual he said/she said kind of thing, but it was more than KPTV usually gives its audience on complicated issues.

The Army Corps of Engineers is installing SLEDs (Sea Lion Exclusion Devices) in the Columbia River to keep the animals from swimming upstream. They looked like pretty simple gates to me, but you know the military and its affection for overly-complicated names for things. The Army loves it some nomenclature!

Commercials.

Weather (with no apology for not predicting the volume of rain which caused all the problems shown at the top of the show).

Finally, the reason I go on living: The Final Cut.

Tonight, F.C. incorporated News Across America (some night's N.A.C. is free-standing, some nights it isn't).

*There was a quadruple murder in Oklahoma.
*There was a daylight shooting in Thousand Oaks, California.
*Somebody found a "hit list" on the web concerning a school in Michigan.
*A nine-year-old girl stabbed and killed a friend over a ball in New York City. She is believed to be the youngest person ever charged with manslaughter in New York's history.
*Another cretin climbed a crane in Atlanta. This guy didn't last as long as the last one.
*A woman was allegedly chained next to cougars in her home by her husband on Long Island. No, his name was neither Siegfriend nor Roy. Like either of them would have a wife! Oh, unless I misunderstood (and if anyone can show me that I did, I will correct this), this story was introduced as being by "KPTV's Anna Barone." Anna Barone was the name of the wife in the story and at the end of the story, anchorman Wayne Garcia called the reporter by her apparantly correct name. Gee, if she's "KPTV's," you'd think they'd know her name, wouldn't you?
*An SUV crashed into a house (the surest way to make the KPTV cut is to drive your car into a house, it seems) in Fairfax County, Virginia.
*A climber was pulled off a cliff in California.
*Someone left some Dr Pepper in a shopping cart in a parking lot in Louisiana and bees, many, many bees, crowded onto the open cans.
*Last and therefore most importantly in News Around America, The Runaway Bride (TM) was photographed at a rehab center in Atlanta. What exactly she is "rehabbing" FROM, we weren't told.

Fight For Iraq (tonight also a part of the Final Cut, as the stupid countdown clock was still running)

*A marine from Eugene, Oregon was killed in battle.
*A marine from Snohomish County, Washington was killed in battle.

War On Terror (also apparantly a part-time resident of the Final Cut domain)

*2 Arabs were arrested for allegedly being part of Al Qaeda.
*Another Arab was arrested on weapons charges.

Back to Final Cut Proper:

*Hey, ever heard of "complicated grief?" Me neither, but apparantly it refers to when you're sad for a really really long time. There's some new theapy for sufferers, it seems.
*Tonsillitis may be genetic. Then again, it may not be. Perhaps this is one of those things Man wasn't meant to know.
*If you're in love, you're crazy. Or maybe it's just that brain scans of people newly in love look similar to people who are bullgoose loony. Oh, they also resemble the brain scans of those who are hungry or addicted.

Hollywood Buzz (always part of the Final Cut):

*Actor Christian Slater was arrested in New York City for grabbing a woman's ass. They couldn't pass off the on-camera reporter as being "KPTV's" because he referred to "Fox 5" (Fox's New York affiliate) a few times during the course of the story. If we ever run into each other, ask me to tell you about the great prank I played on Fox 5 two years ago, OK?
*There's going to be another Live Aid concert, this time called Live 8, this year. Lotsa big names involved in it. This story was reported by "KPTV's Rorie Sooshay (sp?)." Boy, they sure do have a big staff of reporters, don't they? OR they just lie when they claim that some people work for them. I report, you decide.

And with that, the great rusty hulk called the KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show ground to a halt (except, of course, for the sports).

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

*The report that some of the prisoners in Guantanamo were sold to the American military by bounty hunters and had no connection whatsoever to terrorism.
*France got a new prime minister, part of the fallout from the rejection of the European constitution.
*Oddly enough, the the chaos-happy crew at KPTV "News" Central didn't say anything about a plane crash at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, not far from NYC. The pilot of the private plane (the only one on board) was injured. How'd they miss that?? Maybe if he had died, huh?