By now it’s abundantly clear that we live in a region dominated by intellectually diminished local TV newscasts, news carefully steered toward the slowest common speedometer.
Of course, that makes double-little sense, given that six commercial news divisions — channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 11 — battle for the same audience: Those least likely to watch the news, as opposed to alternative programming such as “Excess Hollywood,” “Judge Joe Blow” and “America’s Funniest Kitchen Fires.”
But that hasn’t encouraged the stations’ shot-callers toward any better ideas.
Ch. 7’s “Eyewitness News,” for example, still pitches cold weather in winter as both extreme and alarming. It continues to serve as an ABC primetime shopping guide, and its anchors continue to interpret the news following others’ reports— a fatal bus crash is sad news, a mine-rescue is good news, puppies and kittens are, aw, so cute.
If there was one story that needed no embellishments, interpretations for the simple-minded or suggestions as to how we should feel about it, it was the Newtown, Conn. massacre of 20 children and six adults.
Yet, there seemed to be an undeclared competition among the locals for which could anguish and mourn hardest.
There are horrifying news stories that, by themselves, stand so apparent to all that any attempts at decoration and/or added appreciation become silly, even insulting, and easy to interpret — or misinterpret — as morose, maudlin grandstanding.
To that end, Ch. 4 News, at the end of its reports about and from Newtown, fed in music, sad music, as if it was taken from the “Tragedy Embellishment Music” slot in the audio storeroom, down the hall. For those who could not yet decipher what kind of story was being reported from Newtown, Ch. 4 added sorrowful music.
To be more candid than fair, I mostly watched Ch. 4 throughout the first two days following the shooting murders because the TV had been left on Ch. 4 when I turned them to “on.”
But everywhere I turned, almost all the studio anchors and reporters were stretching — painfully — to apply dramatic words to the plain ones, those that spoke for themselves. An “unspeakable tragedy” was endlessly spoken, as if it were a poignancy pageant.
At one point, on the afternoon after the murders, a Ch. 4 studio man, apparently reading copy designed to fill space and time, reported that the dead suspect “targeted students and teachers.”
For crying out loud, he’d busted into an elementary school; who made more plentiful targets?
Lead Ch. 4 anchor Chuck Scarborough’s night-of report from Newtown wasn’t a report at all, but an essay telling us — reminding us — how horribly sad this all is.
What was nearly as apparent was that Scarborough had nothing new to report, that his on-camera, outdoors appearance was designed only to show us that he was there.
But, given local TV news’s most coveted audiences, that might’ve passed for extra special news coverage.
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Some of the funniest stuff on TV can be found — sans laugh-track — on our financial networks, Bloomberg, CNBC and Fox Business Network.
On Dec. 12, all three reported that the British-based bank HSBC has agreed to pay a record $1.921 billion to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle an international money-laundering suit.
The Justice Dept. had accused HSBC of funding terrorist nations (Iran, for one) and Mexican drug cartels with money funneled through U.S. banks.
But here’s the kicker: In agreeing to pay $1.921 billion to make the prosecution go away, “HSBC admitted to no wrong-doing.”
That’s hysterical. Yep, it didn’t do it and it’ll never do it again!
So HSBC decided to pay nearly $2 billion in fines to correct what an HSBC executive characterized as “mistakes.”
“Really? Nearly two billion bucks worth of mistakes! What’d you guys do?”
“Oh, nuthin.”