Thursday, July 7, 2005

Before 10 PM last night, my wife, her sister and I were debating whether KPTV would have the audacity to NOT lead their "news" show with the London bombings. They wouldn't dare start off with a kitten up a tree in Hillsboro or something, would they? Well, it may have been a temptation but, thankfully, someone acted like a grownup and went with the REAL news of the day.

Top Story: Terror Overseas. For once, the screaming headline wasn't entirely unjustified. The London bombings were obviously the work of terrorists, even if no terrorist group has verifiably taken "credit" for them yet. This terrible story actually brought out the best in the KPTV "news" people. The stories at the top of the show were fact-filled, with one exception which I'll outline in a moment. By the way, I'm deliberately not going into the details of the deaths and injuries because I figure you've either already heard them and/or they've been updated since the 10 o'clock show aired.

Wayne Garcia spoke on the phone to Lee Wallick, identified as a jounalist in London. What she had to say wasn't incredibly illuminating, but you can't reasonably lay the blame for that at the feet of KPTV. They've tended to set the journalism bar so low with their 'casts that I'm impressed they made the effort to get someone actually in London on their air.

Next we saw Marilyn Deutsch standing on the Max platform at the Rose Quarter where she talked about how local transit officials were increasing security in response to the London situation. She showed how the trash cans there were see-through, which I didn't realize. OK, here's the mistake I alluded to above. Deutsch said that the national terror level had been raised to orange. Not exactly. The terror level has been raised to orange ONLY for bus lines, subways and commuter train lines. The raised terror level does NOT apply to airlines and airports which is a little baffling to me, but them's the facts, folks.

Shauna Parsons next gave us a timeline for the London bombings. In short, the top of Thursday night's 'cast was devoted to actual NEWS for a change and was competantly done. With a minor quibble about Deutsch's error, high marks all around. It's just a shame that it takes a horrific story like this to provoke KPTV into doing something resembling real journalism.

Hey, got any friends in London you want to get on TV (or just looking to prank KPTV)? From kptv.com:

Have a friend or relative in London? If you have a friend or relative living in or visiting London, please email the KPTV Newsroom at kptvnews@kptv.com, or call (503) 548-6550.

Back to the local stuff. Anthony Dente has been arrested in connection with the murder of Carlea Cooper. It's going to be interested to see what his defense will be given that they found her body in the trunk of his car. Yeah, "innocent until guilty" and all that, but that's a tough one to bullshit your way out of. Neighbor Ruth Smith gave us tonight's "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" type comment. We also found out that Ms. Cooper's kids haven't been told yet about their Mom's death. I feel so bad for whoever will get that thankless task that I'm not even going to make a tasteless joke here.

The local cops have an Explorer program and 4 boys in blue are under investigation for some assaults that took place in the program 5 years ago. You know as well as I do that we're going to be hearing more about this story. Cops and child abuse: a winning combination!

A Crazy Cat Lady in Camas had 25 animals in her house. Actually, she was more of a Crazy Generic Animal Lady as she was housing dogs, cats, birds and GEESE! The animals have been removed and the lady is in the hospital because of a stroke. "Reporter" Hilary Huchison still has her part on the left, by the way. Time to change things up, Hilary, you enchantress!

Break.

That scumbag plastic surgeon who was injecting a cheap version of Botox not approved for human use into his patients has finally been charged.

Meth Watch

*Kurt Quinn and Ivory Williams, the parents of the 16 month-old boy found wandering along the side of the road in Keizer have been charged with child endangerment. Quinn's other son died last year in a traffic accident. I don't think he should wait by the mail box for his Father Of The Year plaque to show up. For some reason, he is out of jail although Williams is still on the inside.

*The Deputy Drug Czar (is that what it says on the door to his office?) was in town and praised Oregon's law enforcement for their work against meth.

Fox 12's Most Wanted (Yay, it's back!)

*Earl Caliste is supposed to check in with the cops. He hasn't done that lately.

*Jeremiah Prueitt is also off his leash.

A Beaverton woman drove her car into a bakery for some odd reason. She tested negative for alcohol and drugs.

An employee of the Rose City Cemetery and Mortuary was accused of making racist comments. His boss blamed a disgruntled former employee for the complaint.

An Oregon National Guard chopper rescued three of four hikers who were injured when they fell into a crevasse on Mt. Rainier.

The Hubby For Hire guy who lost thousands of dollars worth of tools got his stuff back courtesy of the cops. No arrests have been made in the theft, though.

Break.

"Eco-terrorist" Tre Arrow (not his real name, go figure!) has been found in British Columbia and ordered to return to Oregon for charges. His lawyers are fighting the extradition, as they are supposed to do. Tre Arrow we can find, binLaden not so much.

OK, I'm a little confused here. I went to kptv.com to fact check the spelling of "Tre" and found this story: http://kptv.com/Global/story.asp?s=3531707 . As you'll see, it's from June 28th and appears to be the same as the story they did on the air tonight. Was tonight's story really this old or did I miss an additional detail?


Northwest Tonight

*The little girl from Idaho who was abducted, She Who Must Not Be Named (although her still-missing brother can have his picture and full name splashed on the screen) is out of the hospital. She has told police that she saw her accused captor tie up her relatives. The cops figure, rationally enough, that he is probably the one who killed the grown-ups before taking the kids away.

*The fire earlier this week at the plywood mill in Sutherland has put a lot of people out of work. Bad timing (not that there's ever "good" timing to lose a job, I suppose).

This is a weird one. A Florida man has been charged with unauthorized use of a computer network for sitting in his car and tapping into an nearby unprotected Wi-Fi account.

Related to that, a local Wi-Fi company has its users sign an agreement that they won't use their connections for evil purposes, like kiddie porn and the like.

A new service allows people to recycle their used, working cell phones for points which can be redeemed for stuff.

Speaking of cell phones, another new service allows compulsive gamblers to now lose their money on the run, via their phones. The question is, is this legal? More on Friday's KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show.

It's Thursday so we get Dirty Dining. Keri Tomlinson told us about Boston Pizza in Fairview. They've been cited more than once recently for not having dates on perishable foods in their fridge and for storing raw burgers directly above salad material and the like, a no-no. Ken Yee, of the Multnomah County Health Department, explained that when a restaurant doesn't correct problems after an initial inspection, the points assessed are doubled.

As you might expect, the manager of the pizza joint isn't happy about this. He apparently refused to go on camera, but we were told that he said his place shared a dumpster with another store (how that affected the health inspection I don't understand). He also said that he can't find good help (that's going to raise morale, huh?) and besides, he doesn't like Dirty Dining. Everybody's a critic! I'll bet Ward Weaver isn't that crazy about Fox 12's Most Wanted.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut/America Tonight (different in some intangible way from News Across America)

*The body of a missing girl was found in Floyd, Iowa. It's now official: this is the Summer Of The Missing Girls.

*A liquor store worker was shot in the course of a robbery in Michigan. We got to hear part of his pain-filled 911 call. No arrests yet.

*Hurricane Dennis is heading for Florida proper, traveling across Cuba and the Keys.

*A small plane went down in Normal, Oklahoma. It's now official: this is also the Summer Of Small Plane Crashes.

*A memorial to the victims of the Valujet crash from several years ago was vandalized in Florida.

*A house exploded in Los Gatos, California. "Los Gatos" means "the cats" in Spanish. You know know about one-fifth as much Spanish as I do.

*The roof of a nursing home collapsed in Michigan.

*3 million bees spilled on the road in Fort Worth when the truck carrying them had an accident. OK, it's stupid but I was actually interested in the fact that they usually transport bees at night because they're less active then.

*A big ol' sink hole opened up in the street outside a restaurant in North Carolina.

*A recently deceased man was such a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers that his wife had his corpse put into a recliner in front of a TV showing Steelers highlights in the funeral home. Am I the only one seeing a huge neon sign flashing "Creepy!" in his head right now?

Meth Watch Redux

*David Freitas was outside at the KPTV "news" van to tell us about the DVD the Salem cops have put together to show people how to fight meth in their neighborhoods. There's a version of it online at kptv.com. Again, the sharp-eyed viewer could spot another station on the monitor in the van behind David. The two times I've spotted this, the other station was in commercials so I couldn't tell which one it was. Would it be possible for the van to get NWCN?

Hollywood Buzz

*Angelina Jolie has adopted an AIDS orphan from Africa. It's a regular Christian Children's Fund at her place, isn't it?

*Daryl Hall has Lyme disease. He and Oates will be in the studio soon to record Your Tick Is On My Lips. OK, I made that up.

*Good Day, Oregon will have a segment on outdoor eating, or some damn kind of eating, on Friday morning. Thanks for that invaluable update, KPTV.

*This just in: green tea doesn't prevent cancer. The government says so.

*This just in: Vitamin E doesn't prevent heart disease in women. The government says so.

*Distracted Drivers: Drivers who are doing other things while driving are involved in accidents more often than those who aren't. Go figure. How much did that study cost? I would have knocked that baby out for them for a Benjamin. Drivers between the ages of 16 and 25 are the worst offenders. I don't even want to know which "other things" they are doing.

Clock? No clock? I was writing so fast to keep up with the snowstorm of stories that I didn't notice. Sorry, Countdown Clock fans. I've failed you.

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

*Natalee Holloway? Aruba? Bueller? Bueller?

*The United Kingdom announced, before the bombings in London, that it will be pulling most of its soldiers out of Iraq and moving them to Afghanistan.

*Homeland Security released gas in Grand Central Terminal last month in a secret study of how dangerous chemicals might flow through the landmark in a terrorist attack. Nontoxic ‘tracer gases’ were released into the terminal between June 26-30, as scientists from four national laboratories observed. Feel safer yet?

*Al Qaeda claims to have murdered an Egyptian diplomat.