The Stepfather and the Gov

On Thursday's Nightly News story about Jaycee Dugard, her stepfather Carl Probyn was described in an on-screen graphic as "Stepfather of Jaycee Dugard". On the following night's broadcast, he was described as "Jaycee's Step-Father". Why did the Nightly News producers suddenly change their description of Probyn? Is Friday's description measurably better than Thursday's? Pick one description and go with it. And is he Jaycee's Stepfather or Step-Father? I guess it depends what day of the week it is. Maybe next week he'll be her Step Father. Do the Nightly News producers actually pay any attention to what they put up on the screen?

Also on Thursday's broadcast we saw a 10-second clip of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick stating that he should have the authority to pick Ted Kennedy's successor. But Gov. Patrick was never identified, either by Kelly O'Donnell or by an on-screen graphic. Do the producers just assume that every viewer can recognize Gov. Patrick? Do they assume we can recognize the governor of every state? So the stepfather gets two different descriptions and the governor gets none? I'd like to hear the logic behind that decision.

Greens Equals Green For NBC

Yet again, NBC has determined that golf is more important than news. Last Sunday, east coast viewers did not see Nightly News because golf was on. But here's the catch: the golf tournament actually ended before 6:00 PM. At that time, NBC decided to air an extra half-hour of gratuitous golf interviews and highlights. At 6:30, New York's local NBC affiliate naturally opted to air their local news (because they keep most of the ad revenue from that broadcast), so Nightly News got squeezed out. The reason for NBC's decision is obvious: The golf audience is larger and younger than the news audience, so for NBC this was a no-brainer. They earn more ad revenue from a half-hour of golf than they do from a half-hour of Nightly News. I'm sure the NBC execs had already decided beforehand that even if the tournament ended on time, they would add on 30 extra minutes of gratuitous golf programming. Although local news was scheduled to air at 6:00 and Nightly News was scheduled to air at 6:30, NBC had no intention of sticking to their schedule. For NBC, it's all about the greens. And the green.

I wonder why NBC even bothers to air a weekend newscast, anyway. Their weekend broadcasts are comprised largely of re-run stories and additional footage taken from interviews that already aired the previous week. Look--there's Diane Swonk again. And Dana Telsey. And they're always wearing the same clothes as they were on Thursday or Friday. Maybe these women need to do laundry more often, but it's more likely that Nightly News is recycling their interviews. (I guess recycling interviews is part of NBC's mandate to go green.) This past Saturday, Nightly News recycled almost all of Anne Thompson's Friday story about the upcoming Presidential vacation on Martha's Vineyard. On Friday, Thompson said, "Even the Island's famous black dog knows there's a new dog in town." (Cut to a picture of Bo.) On Saturday, she said, "Though the black dog rules this island, even Bo has his own t-shirt." (Cut to a Bo t-shirt.) Interviews with Sam Bungey of the Vineyard Gazette and Phil McAndrews of the Offshore Ale Company were used on both days. But amid all the repetition, Thompson nevertheless managed to fulfill one of NBC's primary mandates--major name dropping. "And the streets are rife with rumors about celebrities who may join the first family. Will Oprah show up? How about Tiger?" On both nights, we saw plenty of videos and photos of Oprah, Tiger, James Taylor, Spike Lee, Bill & Hillary, Carly Simon, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. (Too bad the producers couldn't figure out a way to start a rumor that Sarah Palin was going to visit the Obamas--she's a hot property right now.) This was a story that didn't deserve to air once, but Nightly News stretched it to five minutes over two nights. And I'll bet that if Nightly News had actually aired on Sunday, we would have seen a third night of "Anne Thompson's Martha's Vineyard's Name Dropping Celebrity Obamathon" (also known as "The Vineyard's Got Talent"). Well done, NBC. They just keep making Nightly News more and more indistinguishable from Extra and Access Hollywood, the shows that follow Nightly News in New York. Maybe those three shows should just combine for one big 90-minute celebrity lovefest. I only hope that Miley and Britney and Lindsay bring a change of clothes to their Nightly News interviews so that they don't appear to be wearing the same outfit on two consecutive nights.

(Not) Making The Grade

On Monday, Nightly News began a "special series of reports on education" called "Making The Grade". Apparently, the purpose of these reports is to evaluate the state of education in the U.S. Meanwhile, ten minutes earlier, during Andrea Mitchell's story about CIA torture techniques, the phrase "sexual humilation" (sic) was put up on the screen. (The correct spelling is "humiliation".) Does anyone else see the irony in misspelling a word on the same broadcast as a report on education? Clearly, the Nightly news editors and producers are not making the grade.

Brian's Lie

On the Jan. 5 Nightly News, Brian Williams showed a clip of John Chancellor from 1976 pledging not to air stories about Amy Carter unless there is a compelling reason to do so. Brian then said that's "pretty much the way we all feel about the Obama daughters." Well, that didn't last long. Monday's Nightly News story titled "Excellent Adventure" (as in "Bill & Ted's" or "Sasha & Malia's") was all about--the Obama daughters. This is from Ann Curry's introduction: "The Obamas haven't exactly been loading up the station wagon, but for Sasha and Malia, it's been an opportunity to see the beauty of this country nevertheless." Then we see a clip of Sasha and Malia in an ice cream store. There they are whitewater rafting. And at Yellowstone watching Old Faithful erupt. And at the Grand Canyon. Now they're disembarking from Marine 1. And entering Air Force 1. We see still photos of the girls in Paris, Moscow, London and Ghana. We're told that their next stop is Martha's Vineyard. So what exactly is the "compelling reason" for NBC to show the Obama girls on their summer vacation? Obviously, there isn't one. It was just a gratuitous story about the presidential daughters--the same presidential daughters that Brian pledged not to cover without good reason. The "good reason" was that Brian and the Nightly News producers know that Sasha and Malia equal good ratings. I guess Brian figured that seven months later, no one would remember his pledge. Well, obviously pledges go out the window when good ratings are at stake. Anyway, what's a little lie between friends, right Brian?

U2, Fletch?

Martin Fletcher could use a lesson or two in the Ethics of Journalism. Journalists are supposed to report the news, not influence it or become part of it. On April 8, Fletcher was the reporter (and the star) of a story about his efforts to help a California family track down their relatives in L'Aquila, Italy after the earthquake. On April 10, Fletcher searched for a different family's home in L'Aquila to see if it was intact. It is not a journalist's job to involve himself in news stories. Unless it is a matter of life and death, a reporter is supposed to be an impartial observer, not a participant. Now Fletcher is at it again. On Monday, he arranged for a Sarajevan woman to reunite in Zagreb with the members of U2, whom she had first met when they played in her home town over a decade ago. At one point, Fletcher asks her, "Will you meet them again tonight?" She says, "Hopefully." It's obvious that Fletcher asked the question knowing that NBC was in the process of arranging (or had already arranged) the reunion. Fletcher ends the story by saying, "But it wasn't the birthday boy who got the best present--it was Alma--with a little pull from NBC." Indeed. Fletcher and the producers clearly manipulated the story to build suspense, even though they already knew what the outcome would be. Shame on Fletcher and NBC News. This was more like an MTV reality show than a news story. It's really sad what's happened to Fletcher. He used to be a top-notch reporter when he was stationed in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Now he's reduced to doing "fan-meets-idols" type stories. Even worse, he's manipulating the story, rather than merely reporting it. And that is grossly unethical.

Of course, it's no surprise that Nightly News did yet another story featuring U2. Bono and the band have been FOB's (Friends of Brian) for many years. They are featured in Nightly News stories several times a year for no reason other than to provide high-recognition entertainment value. After all, Brian and the producers know that stories about celebrities--even stories devoid of news value--are very popular with viewers. And attracting viewers means high ratings and high ad rates. Well done, NBC.

I Hate Time Warner Cable

I am absolutely furious at Time Warner Cable. Last Thursday, I received an "upgrade" from the passport system to the mystro/navigator system. I did not ask for this upgrade--I woke up and found that it had been implemented. First of all, this changeover damaged my cable box and it isn't working properly. For one thing, every time I change my main channel, my secondary channel (picture in picture) also changes. And sometimes, a channel won't rewind all the way to the beginning of a show even when I tuned into that channel before the program began. If I swap out my cable box for a new one, then I will lose the 50-60 hours of saved DVR movies and shows that I have been accumulating for the past few years. And I'm not going to do that. It's obvious that TWC doesn't care about their customers. If they did, they would provide a way for us to transfer our DVR shows from one box to another. This isn't rocket science. Some systems have a removable card in the back of the box that can transfer information from one box to another. Many cable providers already offer this service. But I guess those are the providers that actually care about their customers. TWC is not in that category. Aside from the fact that my cable box has not worked properly since the changeover, I cannot express how angry I am with the new "upgraded" service. In truth, this isn't an upgrade--it's a downgrade. The old system was far superior to the new one. Here are just a few examples of why the new system is not nearly as good:
*My picture-in-picture has only one size. Under the old system, it had two sizes.
*The fast-forward and rewind speeds for DVR viewing are noticeably slower than before. Obviously TWC did this intentionally as a concession to the TV networks and the advertising industry because advertisers don't like people scanning through commercials at high speed.
*The program guide is much less user-friendly now. With the old system, it was easy for me to find out if a particular program was playing again that week. All I had to do was locate that program on the guide and press the red "C" button to find all future showings of that program. But the "C" button has been eliminated from the new system. Now, all shows have to be searched for manually by typing them in on the search keyboard. This is much more time consuming. TWC has eliminated a very important feature from the search mechanism. Why?
*With the old system, I could search for an actor, a country or any word (like "Woodstock" or "basketball") and get a list of all the week's shows containing that word. Now, there is no more word search capability. Shows can only be searched for by title. That is absolutely horrible. What if I want to find all the movies with Cary Grant or Barbara Stanwyck? I can't search for them by name. How could TWC have possibly thought it was a good idea to eliminate this feature?
*The guide itself gives much less information than before. The old guide would list 3, 4 or 5 actors in each film, along with the director, the country of origin (if other than the U.S.) and a decent description of the show. The new guide lists only 1 or 2 actors (often none), no director and no country of origin. The film description is poor and doesn't provide me with enough information to decide if I want to watch the film. Also, under the old guide, we were given the actual lengths of movies. Now, the guide only indicates how much time is allotted for the film. For example, if a 1:48 movie is allotted 2 hours by HBO, the guide lists the time as 2 hours. That is not acceptable. And the new guide doesn't even tell us if a movie is a comedy, drama, romance, etc. We used to be given this information with the old guide.
*Other listings are incomplete. For example, live Yankee games (and other live sporting events) are listed as "new", not "live". The rebroadcasts are also listed as "new". Considering that the YES network often shows repeats of Yankee games, how are we supposed to know which games are live and which are rebroadcasts? It's clear that TWC came up with the "live" designation as a favor to their friends at the networks. By not listing a show as "live", they don't have to later list it as a repeat. The networks hate seeing their shows listed as "repeat" or "rebroadcast", so TWC is once again helping their buddies at the networks, while screwing over their customers.
*The digital clock on the guide shows only hours and minutes. Under the old guide, it displayed hours/minutes/seconds. Displaying seconds is very valuable in many cases, but obviously TWC doesn't care what the customers want.
*On Demand programs no longer tell us until what date they will be playing. HBO and other pay-cable networks only place shows on demand for a limited time (usually about a month, but times vary). If I want to watch 10 episodes of "The Sopranos" on HBO On Demand, it's important for me to know how many weeks I have to watch them. If I watch 7 episodes and then HBO changes their OD lineup, I'm screwed. Obviously, TWC isn't concerned with this.
*The status bar that pops up when I press "info" has much less information than before. Previously, when I was watching a live show on a DVR delay, the status bar would tell me where the show was relative to live time. For example, if it was 7:00 PM and I was watching on a 30-minute delay, the indicator arrow would read "6:30" so I knew I was on a half-hour delay. Now there is no indication of where I am in relation to live time. Doesn't TWC understand how valuable that information was? If I don't know how much of a delay I'm on, how can I plan my activities? If I'm on a 30-minute delay, I have time to pause the show and go out to Starbucks. If I'm only on a 15-minute delay, I don't have enough time for Starbucks (surprising, since they're on every corner). How can I know how much delay time I have if there is no indicator on the status bar? What were they thinking when they eliminated that feature?

This is only a partial listing of why the new system is MUCH, MUCH WORSE than the old system. Since I've only had mystro for a few days, I'm sure I haven't discovered all the reasons the passport system was better. So in reality, this "upgrade" is a "downgrade". I'm paying almost $100 a month for my cable, and they have the nerve to do this to me? I can't wait to find an alternative to Time Warner.

UPDATE (3/16/10)--In January, Time Warner raised their rates by 7%! So in the space of six months, they downgraded service AND raised their rates.

Too Much AC

Why do the Nightly News producers continue to use Ann Curry as a fill-in for Brian Williams? She's not a reporter or an anchor--she's a "television personality" like Rachael Ray or Kelly Ripa. She talks so fast that she constantly slurs and mispronounces her words. She also combines words to create new ones (such as "Obaministration"). Her gush of "thank you"s after each report are uncomfortably out of place on an evening newscast. And it doesn't appear that she's even paying attention to what she's doing. On Thursday, Curry referred to correspondent Ron Allen as "Ron Paul". Come on--this isn't rocket science. News reader. Read the news. The words appear on the teleprompter and the reader reads them. Simple enough. NBC has plenty of competent people to fill in for Brian (Carl Quintanilla and Amy Robach come to mind). Why use someone who can't manage to fulfill the job requirements? Here's an idea: Why not use Jay Leno as fill-in anchor? It would be great promotion for his upcoming show. And let's face it--promoting other NBC properties is one of the main goals of Nightly News.