Wednesday, August 3, 2005

The KPTV 10 o'clock "news" show has a new format: All Brooke, All The Time. In honor of this, I have come up with a slogan for them: "You give us 11 minutes, we'll fill it with Brooke Wilberger." Yes, the first 11 minutes of the show tonight, which normally contains something like 14 or 15 stories, had just one. The missing young, blonde, white woman from a wealthy family was all the top of the show talked about. It's SUCH a big story for KPTV that we got a rare four-person "whip around" to cover every aspect of it. All right, let's take a look at this thing, shall we?

Top Story: Well, I've already let the cat out of the bag on this one, haven't I? We started off with Jamie Wilson in Corvallis, holding a copy of the indictment against the alleged killer. We saw videotape of Brooke's mother at Wednesday's press conference about the indictment. Oh, remember that green van from weeks back which, it was alleged, was somehow possibly involved in Brooke's disappearance. The cops are now saying it definitely was, although they haven't said exactly how yet.

Next, David Frietas/Freitas used his Frequent Flier miles to go to Albuquerque where the Courtneys (family of the alleged killer) are "in hiding." What that apparently means is that they don't particularly want to talk to any press people, not hard to understand under the circumstances. We got the first "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" type comment from out of state that I can remember, courtesy of an Albuquerqueian [?]. Joel Courtney is in jail in New Mexico and is fighting extradiction to Oregon.

Debra Gil was in Hillsboro to tell us about Courtney's rape charge from 1985, when he was 17. He cut himself a plea bargain and admitted guilt to sex abuse, which got him five years in jail.

Up next was "KPTV's Sandy Riesgraf" in Salt Lake City, where Brooke was a student at BYU. Brooke's friends are shocked, they never thought something like this would happen to someone they knew, etc. etc.

The grand jury indictment lists 19 counts of murder against Courtney, even though there is only one presumed victim. I didn't exactly understand the legality of this, but they explained that this is because the D.A. wants to be able to present several possible theories of how Brooke was murdered to the jury.

OK, let's talk for a moment here, shall we? Yeah, I know I'm going to get email telling me how insensitive I am about the (assumed) death of a young woman and all that. Sorry but no, I am not insensitive to how much this must hurt her family and friends at all. I think the real question here is why does the disappearance of young white women from well-to-do families get such attention on the national level when people like the pregnant black girl from Philadelphia get a single short story (if they get covered at all, that is) and are then forgotten?

Yes, you may be able to argue that Brooke Wilberger's disappearance is a local story and that's why KPTV covers it so much (and yes, I know that the other TV news shows cover it a lot also) but that doesn't explain the obsession with Natalee Holloway, does it? She is not from Oregon nor did she disappear in Oregon.

Those of you who work at KPTV (and some others, I'm sure) won't like what I'm about to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. I think there's an unconscious racism (and sexism too) at work here. I do not believe for a moment that anyone in TV news explicitly instructs their staff to cover the disapperance of wealthy, attractive white women and to ignore cases involving non-Caucasians but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that people of other races don't ever go missing in America. Don't those people have families and friends who miss them? Is a disappearance only a "tragedy" if the person who vanishes is melanin-impaired? The subtle subtext (as they say at artsy-fartsy acting schools) here is that white women are at the top of the Societal Pecking Order. Everyone else is lower down the ladder. Much lower. The only exception to this order is the occasional mentally challenged or otherwise handicapped person who disappears; for them we crank up our Obligatory Compassion (no, I am not saying that they aren't worthy of compassion).

Oh, I mentioned sexism, didn't I? Well, I'll bet you didn't know that, statistically, more men go missing every year in America than women. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-06-15-missing-minorities_x.htm)

Yes, you get the occasional story about a hunter who doesn't come out of the woods because he became Yogi's lunch, but when's the last time you saw a story about a man who was abducted? My advice to non-female and/or non-white people: if you're planning on taking a trip, bring along a blonde wig and short skirt you can put on quickly if someone attempts to kidnap you. TV "news" people might confuse you for a white woman and treat your abduction as if it mattered to someone. Remember, if it isn't on TV, it didn't happen.

Break.

Fox 12's Most Wanted

*Masico Walker might be a rapist. We don't know. If you see him, call the cops.

*Two Hispanic men whose names were far too long for me to write down quickly, are wanted for their supposed involvement in a deadly stabbing. They were the alleged stabbers, not the stabbees.

Ooh, baby! Big drug bust in Portland. People were allegedly trading food stamps for prescription drugs. The Powers That Be were monitoring this for months before swooping down and making the arrests.

There were 2 break-ins on cars at Park & Rides in Beaverton.

We now have a suspect in that hit and run that involved a cyclist. George Huff is our boy.

Tony Hill was out looking for his dog with a friend. Tony had apparently ingested some intoxicants as he took the unwise action of falling asleep in the middle of the road. His friend, who was driving the car, promptly drove over Mr. Hill. Mr. Hill now has first-hand knowledge of the existance of the Afterlife (assuming there is one, that is).

A 3-alarm fire in Gresham has cost 12 families their homes.

There was a house fire about 7 AM in Beaverton.

A motel fire in North Portland caused an estimated $160,000 in damages. Who comes up with these figures, I wonder.

Keri Tomlinson, KPTV's designated Identity Theft reporter, was in News Control for this story. The Greenwood Inn closed some time back. Unfortunately, the people who owned it didn't bother to remove the many boxes of personal information that was inside it, like credit card slips, etc. Nature abhors a vacuum, so members of what used to be called the "criminal element" promptly took the information and used it to buy stuff. 2 men have been arrested in connection with this crime. They had loads of credit card slips in their pockets, according to the police.

Break.

An old lady got her purse snatched in Salem. The criminal promptly ran directly into a couple of cops. Hilarity--and an arrest--ensued. The judge didn't take very long to sentence him to 2 years.

Adibok? Reedas? German shoe company Adidas is buying American shoe company Reebok for $3.8 billion. This is supposed to help them better fight Nike in the marketplace. As a believer in the Law of Supply and Demand, I have a little slogan: "Every merger is my enemy." The Adidas people gave the expected lip service to saying that Reebok will continue to make shoes under its name and that there will be "no significant" layoffs. Tell that to the people I predict they lay off eventually.

Break.

Eating and Pregnancy. My understanding is that you can't air so-called "video news releases" without identifying them on-screen anymore. Since this wasn't labelled, I'm going to assume it wasn't a VNR, but it sure had that look. I suspect it was a "news" piece produced somewhere other than at KPTV and Kimberly Maus slapped a voice-over on it. It was about some stupid "nutrition bars" and shakes for preggos.

Honda is recalling some Odysseys. Faulty sensors on the front air bags can make it look as if the air bags aren't working when in fact they are.

Bad weather is thought to be the cause of the Air France crash in Toronto earlier this week.

The Flying Edsel known as the Space Shuttle has new problems. The astronaut/drywall guy fixed the "gap filler" problem but there's a torn protective "blanket" below the windshield. Jesus, if this thing was a used car and a dealer tried to sell it, Keri Tomlinson would be there with a hidden camera to do a sting on him.

The Coast Guard plucked 12 people out of the drink at Clatsop Spit near Astoria, Oregon.

A 2-alarm fire in Oswego destroyed a currently not-rented home.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut/News Across America

*There was a police chase in Phoenix. The numbnuts in the car called 911 while fleeing from the cops. Drugs may have been involved. Gee, you think?

*A pilot was charged with raping a girl inside a stairwell at Heartsfield Airport in Atlanta.

*Cops in Kansas are seeking a "lingerie flasher." A male lingerie flasher. A woman he flashed said he had "man breasts."

*A strip club sponsored an "event" at a golf course in Illinois. A local woman videotaped the "dancers" running around the course in thongs and giving lap dances in a golf cart. You know, I could never understand the appeal of golf before. Brings new meaning to "hole in one," huh? Hey, could we get midget strippers to work miniature golf courses? That's me, always thinking.

*Some kids working a lemonade stand in Salem, Massachusetts were cited for not having a permit. A grown man who runs a nearby sausage stand dropped the dime on them. Audit that man's taxes. That'll fix his sorry ass.

*What KPTV "news" show would be complete without a monkey-related story? The police in Miami raided a house and found a stash of drugs and four squirrel monkeys. Yeah, I'll bet they were squirrelly!

*People who recently bought a house in Mississippi found a 4-foot python in the kitchen. What, that wasn't in the Realtor's description? "Wooded lot, 2 BR, 1/2 bath, AC throughout, python in kitchen."

Northwest Tonight

*The police now think that the suspect in the recent Idaho kidnapping/murder case (the one where KPTV stopped naming the little girl after they had already named her several times already) is responsible for other murders.

*Once again, the problem of having to take notes quickly to keep up with KPTV's ADD-paced show trips me up. My notes say "Warm Springs acc. of murder." Anyone want to remind me what this story was about?

*A worker at Sea-Tac has been charged with child pornography-related crimes. The police say they have found evidence on his computer that he produced the stuff. That reminds me of being in an Arby's on East 14th St. in Manhattan (no longer there) several years ago with a friend, a born-again Christian (didn't think I had friends like that, did you?) Two guys were standing on line ahead of us, one of whom had a shoulder bag out of which was sticking a copy of the NAMBLA newsletter. I poked my friend and pointed to the masthead of the newspaper. He didn't have a clue what it was and I told him I would explain when we sat down and were out of earshot of the other guys. Needless to say, when I explained what NAMBLA was, my friend didn't think that was What Jesus Would Do. No, I'm not going to make a "suffer the little children to come to me" joke. That would be just plain wrong. Funny, but wrong.

*Keri Tomlinson was still in News Control (they won't let her out) for a story about a couple of stupid kids who made a prank call to 911 from the Burgerville, USA restaurant in Battleground. We heard the call, which sounded exactly like you'd expect a call made by a pre-pubescent boy to sound like. The cops, responding to the call, found the little scamps nearby the restaurant. Since the kids had spray paint on them, they are also suspected of being guilty of the recent graffiti in the area.

*Pete Ferryman gave us a story about refresher courses in auto safety for adults. I couldn't tell if the school offering the classes was local or if this was another of those deals where the story is produced somewhere else and the local reporter slaps a voice-over on it.

*Scientists have determinded that "moderate" drinkers do better on some tests. Since "moderate" in this instance meant 2-3 drinks a day, I wonder if this study was produced by some industry-funded lab. You know, like those deals where "scientists" at the Gatorade Sports Medicine Institute, or whatever that thing is called, determine that you'll live forever if your blood is replaced with Gatorade. Which I have had done, by the way. Yes, it is in me!

Hollywood Buzz

*Sony has been ordered to pay $1.5 million to people who saw "A Knight's Tale," "The Animal," "Vertical Limit," "Hollow Man" or "The Patriot." They invented a fake movie critic, "David Manning," who raved about the movies. Some people who discovered the fraud filed a class action suit. Anyone who saw any of the movies is eligible to get a $5. rebate. How Sony is going to pay the rebates out has not been determined. File your claim now, beat the rush.

*Ben Stiller and his wife had a baby. Using my previously-undisclosed psychic abilities, I predict that the boy will grow up to make a few critically-acclaimed movies, followed by a string of disappointingly unfunny comedies, thus taking over the family business.

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

*So, uh, no "War On Terror" or "Fight For Iraq" tonight? Wasn't the fact that 14 troops were killed on Wednesday in the single deadliest roadside bombing in Iraq newsworthy? How about the fact that they came from the same Ohio batallion that lost six men two days ago? No news there either? What was I saying about everyone being lower on the pecking order than attractive blonde white women?

*A dog has been cloned for the first time in history. I guess science is only newsworthy if it has to do with "crime prevention" or facial alteration.

*At the risk of repeating myself, 14 American soldiers were killed in Iraq. Why do you hate America, KPTV?

*According to Bloomberg News, "The California Supreme Court said businesses must treat gay couples registered under the state's eighth-month-old domestic partner law the same as opposite-sex married couples."

CORRECTION: The other day this blog made a reference to the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast in connection with a story about a waitress and co-worker at an Idaho Denny's restaurant receiving a reward for their help in the return of a missing girl. The Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast is served at the International House of Pancakes, not Denny's. We regret the error.