Today's Cool News

Watch Out for that Sled

Some stand ups are more down than up:

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On the Other Side of the Media Spectrum

I'll confess I'm a fan of Anderson Cooper... ever since he anchored the best television news show in the history of American broadcasting... ABC's World News Now.

Now I have a new reason to admire Anderson.  He won't spout off his opinions in public because that's just not his job.

From the Northwest Arkansas News Service:

Broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper has witnessed humanity at its best and worst while covering news in 50 countries during his career.

But it’s not his place to let his personal outrage turn him into an advocate, he said.

Speaking before an audience of about 3, 000 Friday night at the University of Arkansas, the selfdeprecating reporter deflected questions aimed at eliciting his opinion about current events.

“I believe in facts and information and not in opinion,” said Cooper, anchor of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

“I do not care about what an overpaid and over-blowdried anchor — and I include myself in that category — thinks about the issues, and I don’t think others should either.” Cooper, 40, spoke in Barnhill Arena as part of the Fayetteville campus’s student-financed Distinguished Lecture Series.

Now if only we could get him to have a little heart-to-heart with Lou Dobbs.

I Need Lessons on How to be a Reporter

When I was in Houston, I worked with an anchor team who despised each other.  They would snip at each other on the air... and if you knew what was going on, you could tell on television.

Still, I have never seen a live shot quite like this one.  Stick around, the good stuff starts about a minute into the clip.

glumbert - Anchor vs Reporter

BTW, if you subscribe to the Today's Cool News e-mail, it appears it doesn't put embedded video in there... so here is the direct link to the clip:  http://www.glumbert.com/media/anchorreporter

The Price of Stock Footage

Ever wonder how political campaigns turn around commercials in a matter of days if not hours?  After all, doesn't it take time to script and shoot a piece featuring a family home in bed while a phone rings in the White House?

Of course not.  You just dial up Getty Images and get some stock footage on the spot.  A little editing, a little VO, and you've got a spot.

Unfortunately, in a political campaign, the actors in the stock footage can be all grown up... and supporting the other guy.

From KING-5 Seattle:

Thursday night, the Knowles family of Bonney Lake, Wash., watched the John Stewart Show and saw the ad for the first time.

"I looked and saw a girl that looked like my sister and we rewound it and sure enough it was my sister," said Brady Knowles.

The first girl in the ad is young Casey Knowles. It's stock footage from 8 years ago when she worked as a TV extra - footage owned now by Getty Images and used by the Clinton campaign.

But they couldn't have picked a more unwilling star.

(snip)

"I've been campaigning for Barack Obama for a few months now," she said. "I was actually a precinct captain at the caucuses a few months ago. I attended his rally a few months ago and I'm a very, very avid supporter."

The Knowles family admit they have no control over how the footage is used. And while they see the humor of it all, they are mildly annoyed.

"I think it would be really wonderful if me and Barack Obama could get together and make a nice counter ad," she laughed.

Interesting the whole family first saw the ad on John Stewart...

McCain and the Bored Agains

Now that John McCain officially has the time to try to put together a strategy for November, the left is all of a sudden noticing the views of mainstream fundies.  I guess Huckabee had too much "aww shucks" about him to make people take a close look at the doctrinal issues.

So Right Wing Watch puts out a piece today that includes a video about McCain declaring Rod Parsley his "Spiritual Advisor" and highlighting some of the "shocking views" of this rather run of the mill televangelist.

The thing is I don't find any of this all that shocking or surprising. Other than the God wants you to have an airplane thing, the political views he expresses seem to me pretty boilerplate stuff from a right wing televangelist. I suppose the key question is whether anyone believes McCain actually believes this stuff. I suspect not but I adopt cynical poses at times. In case you hadn't noticed.

Oh Yes Tracy, This is VERY Cool

Disclaimer:  I know Tracy.  In fact I worked for her in Sacramento.  She and I never got along very well... so perhaps I'm enjoying this wayyyyy too much!

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One of the cool things about working in a Top 10 market these days is that we have people meters... meaning we don't have to pay attention to the inanity of sweeps... you know those three plus months a year when local TV news operations roll out their canned investigative pieces stolen from each other and from consultants (I call them insultants) and other sources.

Well it seems this February in Kansas City, several stations ended up running the exact same investigations for the book.  In one, Tracy Brogden Miller's station KCTV-5 appeared to copy a report from a competitor about local school teachers posting naughty pictures on MySpace.

Enter "The Pitch", Kansas City's "Alternative" rag.  They want to know how this happens... but Tracy won't comment on the story.  So what does the paper do?  It stages a "hidden camera ambush"... and yes Tracy, this is So Cool!

Why Doesn't Anyone Seem to Remember Richard Jewell?

It seems like everyday we're hearing stories that make poor Richard Nixon look like a small-timer when it comes to Presidential wrongdoing.  And yet, there's no national outcry about destroying videotapes of torture, lying to federal courts, destroying evidence, obstruction of justice, violation of international treaties and conventions, the political firings of federal prosecutors, etc etc etc.  Why don't the American people seem to notice?

Maybe it's because the big story on all the network newscasts is about this cop whose wife is missing and whose exes seem to die mysteriously.  A missing woman is a legitimate story but this insane morality play in which "everyone knows" the cop Peterson is guilty even though no charges have been filed seems disgusting to me. 

What I want to know is don't any of these producers or the lawyers remember Richard Jewell, the hero of the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing who "everyone knew" was the real bomber?  Poor Richard huddled in his house with his elderly Mom while the entire news media corps hounded him. 

Now, in a world where we expect this kind of excess from the people in my business, Sgt. Peterson is just having fun with the whole thing.  I hope that's because he really didn't kill anyone.  I hope he ends up financing his retirement on the same settlement checks that Richard Jewell cashed in.

In the meantime, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain jacking with your Constitution.

What's With Those Fox News Chyrons?

The other day Keith Olberman showed a Fox News chyron suggesting Barry Bonds pleaded "Guilty".  He didn't.

Now with Chris Wallace complaining that Democratic Presidential candidates are snubbing his Fox News Sunday pundit show, one wonders if some folks aren't just scared of what will show up on the chyron or lower third below them on the screen.  Here are a couple of recent examples:

From TV Newser:

From Jackson Williams:

 

And here's what Wallace told Politico:

“I think the Democrats are damn fools [for] not coming on Fox News,” Wallace said. “And my guess is that once you get a nominee, they probably will come on, because they know that we get a lot of voters they are going to need if they are going to win the election.”

So far, Wallace has interviewed Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; both Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. Edwards have declined.

The Edwards campaign confirmed that the candidate declined but did not elaborate further. The Obama campaign did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Aside from his hourlong Sunday show, the Democratic candidates will not participate in any Fox News-sponsored debates, leaving Wallace to moderate three Republican contests over the course of 2007.

“Just imagine if the Republicans, under pressure from right-to-life groups, refused to appear on CNN or MSNBC,” Wallace said.

Baby In, Clintonites Out on WGA Strike Lines

As things continue to look bleak for the Writers Guild strikers, supporters are rallying around a new Union leader:

From Defamer:

A tipster spotted the WGA's brightest beacon of hope, one that can't be dimmed even by Friday evening's discouraging turn of events, spreading her latest pro-Guild messages at the Sony lot earlier today.

One of the big sticking points is that the producers want the writers to promise to cross picket lines if the directors or actors or electricians or anyone else goes on strike.  That insistence appears to be ruining the business of a former Clinton administration spokesmodel.

From Firedoglake:

SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles -- education workers who include teacher's aids, cafeteria workers and crossing guards -- have fired former Clinton spokesman Chris Lehane from a consulting contract in support of the WGA .

"By the end of the week, I believe Chris Lehane will have no union clients because of his work for the AMPTP," says SEIU President Andy Stern, who confirms that all Change to Win Unions are severing ties with Lehane. "His days are numbered in the labor movement."

The decision came after Lehane began consulting for the AMPTP, who walked away from the negotiating table with the WGA on Friday insisting that they agree to cross the picket lines of other unions before they would return to the talks. It was an overt union-busting move meant to drive a wedge between the WGA and SAG, who have been supportive of the writers and whose contract with the AMPTP is up for renewal in June.

Reality Television Run Amok: Paintballing with Terrorists

Okay, this has to be a put-on, right?  To sum up this story, the BBC has a show called "Don't Panic, I'm Islamic" so they paid some accused terrorist trainers to go paintballing.  Except the BBC thinks the guy wasn't a terrorist but rather a "Cockney Comic."  Perhaps the two aren't mutually exclusive?

I know you wouldn't believe it if I didn't link to...

From the Times (of London) Online:

The BBC funded a paintballing trip for men later accused of Islamic terrorism and failed to pass on information about the 21/7 bombers to police, a court was told yesterday.

Mohammed Hamid, who is charged with overseeing a two-year radicalisation programme to prepare London-based Muslim youths for jihad, was described as a “cockney comic” by a BBC producer.

The BBC paid for Mr Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari and Mousa Brown to go on a paintballing trip at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2005. The men, accused of terrorism training, were filmed for a BBC programme called Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic, screened in June 2005.

(snip)

Ms Suleaman told the court that Mr Hamid was keen to appear in the programme. She said: “He was so up for it. We took the decision that paintballing would be a fun way of introducing him.

“There are many, many British Muslims that I know who for the past 15 or 20 years have been going paintballing. It’s a harmless enough activity. I don’t think there is any suggestion, or ever has been, that it’s a terrorist training activity.”

(snip)

Phil Rees, who produced the show, told the court that he was impressed by Mr Hamid’s sense of humour while looking for someone to appear in the documentary. He said: “I think he had a comic touch and he represented a strand within British Muslims. I took it as more like a rather Steptoe and Son figure rather than seriously persuasive. I saw him as a kind of Cockney comic.” Mr Rees, who now works for the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera, gave Mr Hamid a signed copy of his book Dining With Terrorists.

That's right, I left the best for last, his book, "Dining with Terrorists."