Sunday, July 3, 2005

OK, let's get this jumbo jet off the ground, shall we?

Top Story

Unfortunately, the story of Matal, the murdered 4 year-old, is going to dominate the local news for the foreseeable future. Tonight, Jamie Wilson, on the "scene" in Milwaukie, told us that the autopsy determined that the cause of death was a blow to the head. We don't yet know what the weapon was, however. The case is being transferred from Milwaukie to Clackamas County jurisdiction. Oh, one cute little thing: J.W. said something about "neighbors speaking out tonight," then proceeded to show us the same clip of people bloviating that we saw last night.

A soccer player in Longview, Washington was shot to death. The shooter, who seems to have had an ongoing beef with the victim, got away.

There was a fatal hit and run accident in Portland. 27-year-old Samual Chad Parish, of Tualatin turned himself in Sunday.

Estacada was the scene of a fatal ATV accident.

A shooting suspect is sought in Portland.

A fire is under investigation in Portland.

There was a restaurant fire in Salem.

A car chase in Grants Pass ended up in the occupants of the vehicle being arrested for drug possession.

Northwest Tonight

*Remember last night when "KPTV's Adam Housley" "reported" on the case of the two missing kids in Idaho? Remember how I pointed out that Adam not only wasn't a KPTV reporter, but was filing his report from Los Angeles? Well, for reasons unknown, the story has apparently been handed off to "KPTV's Dan Springer" who is also not really a KPTV reporter but WAS in Idaho. As we recounted yesterday, the little girl has been recovered but her brother is still missing.

*A bridge near Lebanon, Oregon collapsed.

*A car's gas tank exploded while being refueled near Seattle, destroying it. We were told it was a Ferrari and that its loss cost its owner $30,000. Where does one find one of those $30k Ferraris, pray tell?

Break.

America Tonight (or News Across America, take your pick)

*"KPTV's David Lee Miller" told us that the suspects in the Natalee Holloway missing person case either will or will not be arrested--finally!--on Monday.

*A bus containing 50 kids rolled over in Maine. No one was seriously hurt.

*iPod Murder: Some guy in New York City made a very bad decision by not handing over his iPod when a robber asked him for it and paid for that decision with his life. Tell you what--I don't care if it's the Hope Diamond; if someone sticks a gun in my ribs, they can have the damn thing.

*There's a missing girl in Floyd, Iowa. No offense, but many people go "missing" every day in America. Most of them turn out to have run off with a boyfriend or girlfriend. The modern media, however, loves a "theme" so I'm thinking this is going to be the Summer of Missing Girls.

*A young man fell to his death on a carnival ride in Indiana.

*A man was struck by lightning in Florida. This story was two days late as the man was struck on Friday. We did get to see, however, some cool video of the pants that the lightning ripped through. It's all about the pictures, man!

*White supremacists stirred up some shit at a Hispanic cultural festival in Little Rock, Arkansas.

*We saw some footage of the huge mess the Live 8 crowd made on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philly.

World Tonight

*Monsoons have been flooding Bangladesh and India, causing many deaths.

*There was a giant waterspout off Iwo Jima, Japan. It is thought that an underwater volcano caused it.

Oh, for those keeping track, Hilary Huchison is still wearing her hair parted on the left. This will change, however.

Break.

Meth Watch

*Urban Lifeworks, NW is a Washington state treatment program for meth addicted mothers. It seemed to be a group home-type thing; the junkie mommies stay there until they're clean. It makes me sad that things like this are necessary, but they are.

Break.

War On Terror

*OK, remember that military helicopter that went down the other day in Afghanistan, killing 16 soldiers? Turns out it was looking for another helicopter crew that was lost in the Afghan hills. The Pentagon says there were 8 Navy Seals on that chopper, one of whom has been found.

*Although KPTV didn't think that a small plane flying over Washington, D.C. the other day, causing the evacuation of the Capitol building and White House was a news story, tonight they decided that a small plane flying over Camp David, the presidential retreat, was news. A consistent set of "news" standards is apparently beyond their reach.

Fight For Iraq

*A car bomb in Baghdad killed two civilians Monday, police said, a day after Egypt's top envoy to Iraq was reported kidnapped in an apparent bid to dissuade Cairo from strengthening ties to the US-backed government. Yup, things are going great in Iraq!

Mt. St. Helen's lava dome fell in, making Big Steam!

The weather weasel pimped the Blues Festival now ongoing in Portland before consulting his Magic 8-Ball. Then there were commercials, many, many commercials.

Final Cut

*The young woman who survived the plane crash the other day in Yamhill pontificated again on how God "has a plan." This deserved airtime on two consecutive nights?? I'm fully aware that surviving such a thing must be very traumatic, but it doesn't make you an expert on God's intentions, sorry. Nor do someone's opinions on such matters constitute "news." There's an old saying: "Opinions are like assholes; everybody's got one."

*Ah, here's that previously-hyped "Most Dangerous Days" story. The Big Secret that we had to wait two days to hear is that two of the Most Dangerous Days to be on the road are July 3rd and July 4th. Wow! That was worth waiting for, huh? The other two Most Dangerous Days are December 23rd and December 24th. An educated guess would be that those days are the Most Dangerous because a lot of people are on the road. Go figure, huh?

Streets of Speed: This wasn't really a story, but a promotion for a story which will air on Monday morning's episode of Good Day, Oregon. It's about the new huge fines for people who drive over 100 MPH.

*We got a pointless story about fireworks. Yeah, it's the Fourth of July weekend and all, but a "news" story should have some actual news in it, shouldn't it?

*As a follow-up to that, we were told that we shouldn't call 911 for stuff like bitching about people setting off firecrackers. That isn't an emergency. A cop told us that if we don't like the fireworks going off now, we should wait a few days. Yes, that was really his advice.

*Next we were told that pets don't like the sound of fireworks. Really? There's a scoop for you, huh? If your dog or cat is spooked by the sound, stick them in the bathroom or basement where the noise will be muffled. And in other news, the sky is blue.

*A suspect was arrested for pushing his girlfriend out of his car at 35 MPH near Prineville. If only Shauna Parsons was working tonight, she could have told us if this was a New Trend.

*We next got a recap of the known facts in the story of the death of 4 year-old Matal.

Hollywood Buzz

*The singer who calls herself Pink is getting married to an X Games-looking skateboarding-kind of guy. I hope they'll be very happy for the four years I predict the marriage will last.

*12 of this year's American Idol finalists will continue their indentured servitude to Simon Cowell (who they are forced to work and record for by contract) by touring the country between now and September. If you go to one of these shows, pay close attention in case one of them mouths the words, "Please help me!" I think you're allowed to call 911 for that. This "news" story was brought to us by "KPTV's Trace Gallagher."

Oddly enough, tonight's Final Cut didn't end with the disposable Hollywood Buzz crap like it usually does. Lastly, we got a story about the NASA probe called Deep Impact which was shot into a comet earlier Sunday evening. It would have been nice if KPTV had bothered to tell its audience about this historic scientific event BEFORE it happened, just in case anyone wanted to try to actually WATCH THE DAMN THING. Nope, they saved their only coverage of it for after the event! Even then, they didn't have any actual video of the impact; they used an animated simulation, which of course was produced by NASA to show people what the real thing might look like. Even by the low journalistic standards of the KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show, this was really lame.

Hilary Huchison (whose part was still on the left, by the way) ended the Final Cut in perfect synch with the stupid Countdown Clock, although she had to ad-lib an awkward sentence to pull that off.

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

*Commemorating the first transatlantic flight 86 years ago, adventurer Steve Fossett and his co-pilot successfully flew a biplane across the Atlantic and landed yesterday. I know, you're thinking that Charles Lindbergh was the first man to fly across the Atlantic. Nope, he was the first one to do it solo.

*Did you know that a Chinese company has made a bid to buy the American oil company, Unocal? If you did, you had to have learned that somewhere other than the KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show 'cause they haven't said one word about this story. Keep moving, nothing to see here, folks.

*The United Church of Christ has officially come out in favor of same-sex marriages.

*Michael Moore's lawyer has defended him against a libel suit over his film Bowling for Columbine, calling on the judge to dismiss the "frivolous" and "silly" claims. The suit is being brought by Timothy McVeigh's brother.