Category Archives: Commentary

Special Look On Bob Wright, the back story

I made a special mini series in the theme of the Bill O’Reilly Inside Edition era trash and flash, even ripping Inside’s ol computer terminal cursor in the “edition” part of the logo.

The intention was to do a 3 parter series for the month of April, to coincide  with Autism Awareness Month.  The copy that was used for the Sound on Tape or SOT, the narration track was from another blog I publish that had about 4,000 words, I then was reading it and fumbling so the editing the sound cuts was really difficult.  Part two was published in May and it focused on a really complex story line between the infamous KRON sale in 2001  and the war NBC picked with affiliates.

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Remembering Newton Minow

“I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air. And stay there for a day. Without a book; without a magazine; without a newspaper; without a profit or loss sheet; or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you’ll observe is a vast wasteland.” – Newton Minow at the NAB in 1961.

It was supposed to be a challenge to the industry as a way to use the most powerful medium of the time. Newton Minow passed away from a heart attack on May 6th at 97 years old. Despite being known for stating TV being a “vast wasteland”; he was in fact a TV junkie. Minow was a pioneer in television standards and was the head of the F.C.C. where he was known for “public interest”.  He was also behind developing the idea behind modern day broadcast debates of the Presidential candidates. He helped pave the way to the modern day public broadcasting.

He spoke to WGN-TV in 2017 suggesting local journalists being skeptical, hold the government accountable without being cynical.

He was alive to see this all disappear on all mediums, not just broadcast TV, but cable and never mind social media and an FCC that is selectively regulating the signals, and is not holding the license holders or the broadcasters in the same way as Mr. Minow did back in the day.

WGN-TV did this well done report, given Mr. Minow’s connections to Chicagoland, and it’s also their 75th anniversary on the air.

May he rest in peace and aspiring broadcasters to take a page of the past to implement in the future to hopefully make mass media have some credibility again.

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Cutting Corners, The Media Industry’s Obsession to Automation

Economic downturns often forced profit-centered media properties to find ways to cut down costs. Not even 3 years after NBC’s parent company, RCA was sold to General Electric, they were finding every efficiency possible to make NBC be very profitable and ensure that they’d get it “for free” when GE sold mostly all the former RCA assets.

“Corporate media” that is often used to degrade the media in 2023 to me is a slur, but it was in 1985, when most of the our present media companies became more profit centered, than being a utility to inform and entertain. (the other three was Bill Paley’s sale of CBS to Larry Tisch, The Capital Cities acquisition of ABC and News Corporations acquisition of the Fox Movie studios and Metromedia chain of indie stations.)

For NBC, they did a lot of cost cutting, for instance NBC wasn’t entirely based at 30 Rock before latter part of the 80s, they were based off various offices on the Manhattan island. By the end of the 80s, virtually all the NBC operations were in 30 Rock soley.

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#NewsMusicMonday – Revisiting News Smile – Just a week later!

As you folks know that I am not just a news junkie but a nerd to the surface of news production too, and that #NewsMusicMonday isn’t just a random feature. However, just because jam to the tunes on the news, doesn’t mean that was my intent with my work with BCOP TV and radio. The reason why my music was blasted so loud over the years, was the lack of understanding basic audio engineering. (which I’ll cover for another day)

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COMMENTARY: On Tucker Carlson

So I finally posted some content on my SnapChat last week in regards to Tucker Carlson’s departure at the News Channel with Searchlights. It’s unclear what the hell is really going on, but that’s not my point today…

It’s all about superficiality and parasocial relationships the Boomers and the remaining Silents (folks born before the mid 1940s.) While a number of them remain off the Internet grid, their social media is old fashioned cable, and the talent on camera.

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Where Have I Been…part three

I have not been doing much newsgathering of late. I’ve attempted to take a break on social media… since it seems like there really isn’t a reason to be on there if I’m only being seen and not heard. Still am a bit jaded year into wanting to get be a freelancer IRL but I’ve given up those chances. It’s not that easy to get the foot into the door. Because the doors of late are wide shut.

No-competes, is this the reason why people are disappearing from local media?

The New York Times had a story a week ago today, detailing the sins of local media. Ironically I found this story a week ago today as well via a Google search of “do meteorologists get laid off like journalists do?” Sadly our meteorologists in the Boston market are in awe of mini-me climate of Charleston, N.C. in the Northeast. Shut the fuck up please!

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Honoring Lisa Colagrossi’s Passing – 8 Years Ago Today

“Oh my god… something is wrong!”

The last words uttered by a decorated local broadcast journalist en route to the Manhattan  base after a live shot on March 19th, 2015  for WABC-TV’s Eyewitness News This Morning. Her truck driver/photog got out in the middle of traffic, stopped an oncoming FDNY ambulance in moving traffic, banging the door,  forcing them to take her over with another patient saying she would die. Well honestly she was basically brain dead regardless, the family pulled the life support plug on the 20th and passed away officially 8 years ago today.

According to New York Post’s  Page Six her living mother told the management who attended her funeral in her then residence of Stamford, Conn. that “you made my daughter work herself to death”. Following the Page Six expose, both parties of the family and WABC-TV denied the exchange, and each party covered up one another, but let’s be honest, the management was shady and we who know the industry could trust this Page Six story.

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30th Anniversary of the World Trade Center Bombing in New York

On a very cold Friday lunch hour in Lower Manhattan, a large boom was heard amongst 50,000 locals at the World Trade Center Complex in New York City.  Reports say it occurred around 12:15 local time. An explosion occurred at the garage level of the complex, with extremists intents. The goal was for the terrorist to knock off one of the pillars and if you took one down the rest could topple down.

The initial reports was a transformer explosion. Consolidated Edison, or ConEd the city’s electric company reported they didn’t have an outage, nor did they cut off power. Transformers step down voltages of power, many customers do not need high voltage energy. Transformers explode in neighborhoods, and are often one for every few customers. Any explosion wouldn’t carry up 110 stories… this initial report was debunked later in the day, but it was probed by the Channel 2 anchors.

6 people died, 5 initially reported, the 6th soul was found a few weeks later into mid March. Channel 2 reported just before the 5:00 news that they got confirmation a 9-1-1 call was placed just minutes before the bombing with a “foreign accent” said then correspondent Chris Jogensen.

Days later, more information came out, the Feds were on top of the case, and found the Ryder rent a truck’s Vehicle Identifier Number or VIN from a damaged effect of the said truck. Fun fact, VIN numbers are replicated throughout various parts of a vehicle, so it’s not just a sticker on the side door. They tracked down the VIN, finding it to belong to a local Ryder site in New Jersey, one of the co-conspirators came back to the place with the Feds hiding and caught the man.

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