Urgent observations and personal opinions across thetelevision-radio desk: WCIU-Channel 26 is making much of the fact that its "Stock MarketObserver" is celebrating its 26th year on the air - give or take afew months.
While veteran hosts Jack Taylor and Linda Marshall do anexcellent job presiding over the live, seven-hour business newsbroadcast each weekday, viewers probably watch as much for thecontinuous stock tickers running at the bottom of the screen as theydo for the news and interviews.
Congratulations to Channel 26 are diminished, however, bycontempt for some of its sleazy, oversexed prime-time programming viathe Univision Spanish-language network. While channel surfing theother night, I was stunned to see a magazine show airing the longest,most explicit scenes of bondage that any broadcast channel could everget away with.
Even someone who didn't understand a word of Spanish had notrouble reading the body English. WFLD-Channel 32 aired a remarkable special on Sunday afternoonfeaturing local African-American men discussing the problems of theircommunity.
"Another View," taped last week at a North Side barber shop, wasremarkable in that its participants were neither celebrities norcriminals. Just everyday people whose voices are seldom heard in themedia.
Executive producer Joan Cuyjet Tilmon, who owns Chicago-basedCarpe Diem Productions, hopes the special will become a series. It'sa great idea. Another treat last weekend was seeing Jonathon Brandmeier fill in asa talk show host on CNBC.
Brandmeier did a particularly fine job interviewing "Hard Copy"host and former Chicago news anchor Terry Murphy. Listeners to hisWLUP-FM (97.9) afternoon show observed a far more likable and matureJohnny B. than his radio persona suggests.
Considering his past problems with television, it's nice to notethat Brandmeier still may have a future on the tube after all. How would you like to be the person who has to follow Chicagotelevision's most beloved clown?
That's the dubious honor being given to Dave Eckert, who hasjust been hired to anchor WGN-Channel 9's weekday morning newscast,bumping "The Bozo Show" to Sundays this fall.
Eckert, 35, most recently has been a news anchor and reporter atKMBC-TV in Kansas City, Mo., following anchor stints at WTAE-TV inPittsburgh, KTVB-TV in Boise, Idaho, and KPLR-TV in St. Louis. He isa Chicago area native and Southern Illinois University graduate.
When Eckert joins Channel 9 in June, he will start by anchoringthe noon newscast. That job has been officially vacant since SteveSanders was promoted to anchor the 9 p.m. newscast. There's no question that Charles Osgood was the ideal choice toreplace Charles Kuralt on "Sunday Morning." But it's outrageous thatCBS News is allowing Osgood to continue shilling products forsponsors of his radio segments - a la Paul Harvey.
Euphemistically calling it a "special case," CBS decided to lookthe other way and let Osgood become the network's first news anchorto do commercials. Fundamental journalism ethics - to say nothing ofCBS company policy - strictly prohibit such activity.
Recent uproars over ads by Linda Ellerbee and Mary AliceWilliams led one reader to suggest that a double standard exists formale and female news readers who sell their credibility incommercials. But that ignores the case of the late Chet Huntley, whotook heat for appearing as an American Airlines spokesman long afterhe had retired from NBC News.
The bottom line in Osgood's case is expediency, hypocrisy and -as always - the bottom line.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий