In sixth grade the most obnoxious kids would holler, “Made ya look! Made ya look!”
Today, all day, every day, one can turn to the local TV news to hear and see that game being played by adults, by professional, credentialed newsmen and newswomen.
At noon on Feb. 8, WCBS-Ch. 2 News led with what the anchor identified as “breaking news.” And, because old, trustful news-watching habits die hard, he had my full attention.
He next sent it to reporter Lou Young, who was in Middletown, NY, where a gunman had been shot and killed in a courthouse.
But, gee, it didn’t appear to be breaking news. There was tape shown of eyewitness accounts, and yellow crime-scene ribbon already surrounded the motorcycle on which the suspect had apparently arrived.
And then, at the close of his report, Young looked down at his wristwatch, then spilled the beans: This breaking news had occurred, he said, “three hours ago.”
Oh, so the breaking news had already broken — three hours earlier. It was long over. But lots of news, these days, is dishonestly pitched as “breaking.”
On Saturday morning, Feb. 11, WABC-Ch. 7’s Eyewitness News led with its “Storm Watch” package, including two live remote reports, both pointing with great anticipation to the coming snowstorm.
Snowstorm? What snowstorm? A couple of inches, at most, were expected, followed by temperatures warm enough to quickly wash it away.
That night, on its 6 p.m. newscast, Ch. 7 again led with its “Storm Watch.” After Ch. 7 reported there wasn’t much to report, co-anchor Sandra Bookman smiled at the camera and said, “OK, let’s be honest. The snow was a bust.”
Let’s be honest? Too late!
First, there wasn’t supposed to be a snow storm, just a little snow, at worst. Things like that happen in February, ya know? Secondly, if the snow was a bust, why was it the lead story? On a New York City newscast there was nothing else worth emphasizing?
But turn on any of our local newscasts, at any time. They’re all loaded with “Made ya look!” The condition of televised news in the media capital of the world has become so corrupted and cheapened that the best training a newsroom shot-caller can procure is an apprenticeship in a three-card monte operation.
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So all it took to conduct a relatively civil Grammy Awards show (with the exception of Nicki Minaj’s outfit)— no crotch-grabbing, no scene-stealing, no stage-hogging — was the death, the day before, of Whitney Houston.
That’s all it took.
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What should be the most suspenseful moments in NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” — the weigh-in of the final contestant on each team — have, by design, become the least suspenseful. Viewers know by now that commercials are coming.
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Why is it that those who turn on murderous mobsters — former henchmen who help send mob bosses to prison — are treated worse by the news media than the organized crime kings they help put away?
Understood, those who cut a deal to cooperate with the prosecution likely weren’t good people to begin with.
But to characterize them as lower than their former bosses — to call them “stool pigeons,” “canaries” and “rats” — can only be comforting to their former bosses.
Why not take the next logical step and say, “OK, he didn’t order all those murders like his boss did, but at least his boss isn’t a snitch”? And isn’t a snitch related, on some lower level, to a “whistle-blower”?
The guess here is that those in the media who reference informants as rats and stool pigeons prefer to sound cool instead of smart, that they watched too many movies as kids.