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Commentary, Featured

Remembering Newton Minow

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“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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Commentary

COMMENTARY: On Tucker Carlson

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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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Commentary

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

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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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Commentary

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

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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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Commentary

Should the New York Local Market be pissed off for Neglecting George Santos? HELL YEAH!

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Congress seat holder, George Santos, from New York, recently elected, but I cannot use the phrase “disgraced” because he is still in office despite, lies, upon lies, deception upon deception and phony stories upon phony stories that makes the Brian Williams scandal at NBC News seem like child’s play. I use BriWi because it’s the closet thing I could recall of a major figure in an institutionalized world that did a lot of over embellishing.

The day or two after New Years, Maggie Haberman from The New York Times said some strong words about the local New York market loosing its credibility to CNN. Not too long after, Charlie Sykes from The Bulwark Podcast characterized the failure in “the New York media ecosystem” a phrase that’s kinda like a cliche to Sykes vocab, not to offend him or anything.

Continue reading Should the New York Local Market be pissed off for Neglecting George Santos? HELL YEAH! →

Commentary

Comparing 2 Stations with 1 Story…which station was more vindictive?

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Let’s compare 2 copies from the two TV stations after the situation with Alexandra Eckersley

from Amy Coveno from WMUR-TV,  on Tuesday…more than a day after the incident

A judge set bail Tuesday for a homeless woman accused of giving birth in the woods and abandoning her newborn on Christmas night.

Alexandra Eckersley, 26, appeared in court by phone from a hospital and pleaded not guilty to charges including second-degree assault, endangering the welfare of a child, falsifying physical evidence and reckless conduct.

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Commentary

I swear to gawd Mama I didn’t “go there”! Amy Coveno Blocks @MinifigNewsguy on Twitter

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Edited 12-28-2022 at 10:36 ET for clarity 

I can say raunchy things. I could be a creep at times. I could invade personal lives of journalists. I could say “you’re a fake news artist” if I wanted to. But I don’t because I respect the work and the job. I bet it’s not easy.  It’s not to say that I disrespect the ones who disrespect themselves. Today that’s Amy Coveno from WMUR-TV in Manchester

Coveno who has a history of favoring “heroes” such as first responders has not been a punishable offense. In 2016 she was caught in a public email defending the Manchester police department after a mass department situation.

Coveno, who is involved with CASA the local child’s rights organization per to her bio on the station’s website was assigned to the story of a 26 year old woman giving birth pre maturely outside of a Manchester neighborhood-   homeless living in a tent and dialed 9-1-1. The premature child was found elsewhere and the woman is charge for felony for abandoning the newborn. The Boston stations added (via confirmation) that the woman,  Alexandra Eckersly is the daughter to the recently retired NESN color announcer for the Red Sox

WMUR-TV decided to just skate past it.  Now with that aside Coveno 5,600th tweet was this cringe (via a reply that another reporter that tagged her before the identity was released.

“First responder are in my heart tonight” tagging the Manchester, NH police department, the Manchester (UK) fire department (most likely inadvertent) and the AMR Manchester Twitter (the private sector EMS company for the city) Then yours truly felt he had to call her out

then she went classy…

of course I couldn’t let up for a few hours until the Merrimack outlets gas leak from falling ledge became the area story. In fact copters were flying by the base operations of @MinifigNewsguy but with my new iPad 10 arriving my priorities were different.

But there are so many ethical violations Coveno did. First why is she still assigned to stories involving law enforcement and second why is she allowed to do work that should be the responsibly of the stations Community Connection program? Third – the CASA conflict?

Also why is News 9 Investigates being used? This reminds me of the Hingham Apple Store event the local stations use their enterprise journalism branding  as entertainment value. It’s like “New Development” a catchphrase to tag a different part of the same story on the same wheel of the same newscast.

I don’t worry anymore as 2022 closes if I’m a credible newsie. People IRL are completely unethical and are lacking a filter and I’ve always held to a higher standard that local media in the Top Ten market that have stopped to a low level of ethical trash. It makes me sick.

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#TunedOut: Masculinity In Crisis?

COMMENTARY: The Back story to The Crisis on Masculinity

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Very rarely can you spook me. That’s the subtitle. I am not one that shrieks on a crazy Tweet or some wacky post from a Meta page on my personal Facebook. Like in news, there’s thresholds of what’s a news story and what’s even breaking. Masculinity is such a triggered subject, I have spooked one of the well known Boston area newsies, not once, but even twice in less than a year to the point the individual even offered to exchange telephone #s… that’s whole other story.

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COMMENTARY: On Brian Stelter’s CNN Departure and the state of Millennials Ruining Journalism

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I remember in 2013 when Brian Stelter had taken over CNN’s Reliable Sources, a media affairs program that had been on CNN’s air for two decades. When Howie Kurtz left to go to FNC earlier in 2013; the network had tried different people to fill in, one was a long CNN guy (Frank Sesno IIRC), another dude and Brian Stelter, a man who is only less than two years older than I am. In the early teens to see a Millennial replace a Boomer, was interesting to see in retrospect, but what I fear is that many Millennials have grown up in toxic times, but sadly these people did not consume the media in the same way your’s truly did.

“Generalists make good journalists” ~ @MinifigNewsguy

With Stelter taking over the reigns of Reliable, it became over time trashing Fox News Channel on a weekly basis, often the lead, sometimes it was legit, sometimes it was childish. Not to mention CNN’s internal drama was never covered, but at the same time media criticism took a back road, and while Media Buzz was the better program, the ghost of Fox News Channel’s past would haunt, and the wild fox would disease not only Media Buzz, but Kurtz became a rabid attack dog on the competition and promises to critique FNC was just a false promise.

Continue reading COMMENTARY: On Brian Stelter’s CNN Departure and the state of Millennials Ruining Journalism →