Television Coverage of News Events

Recently on a Sunday morning a friend of a friend woke up, turned on the TV intending to get his daily fix of the “Kavanaugh saga”. But this friend was particular. He wanted to watch it through the lens of those who produce “Meet the Press” on NBC. Sadly he discovered that the morning's NBC shows had all been preempted by the Ryder Cup Finals. So he lamented to my friend or on social media his distress over being denied this week's “Meet the Depressed”.

I know how he felt. Three days earlier I had been denied my regular dose of “Price is Right” because CBS decided to preempt their entire day's programming with the Senate Judiciary Hearing concerning Justice Kavanaugh's suitability for confirmation. I had already decided to wait on the news bunnies' recap of the riviting testimony. So I tried to substitute “Price is Right” with a local news segment on ABC or FOX or even something on public television. No such luck. Every local channel, plus public TV, plus all the cable news channels, including BBC and C-Span had all decided that only they separately and individually could produce the true, “fair and unbalanced” peek into the Senate chambers I needed. So the same hearings were broadcast simultaneously on at least 5 local and 7 national cable channels.

Was this collusion to ensure that if I watched TV Thursday daytime that I would for sure watch Senators Grassley, et al at their “finest”? Did CBS not trust its “Price is Right” viewers to record the Senate proceedings on another channel and dutifully watch it after “Price” ended? I obviously don't understand the thought processes at work here. I understood all three channels covering the Kennedy funeral in 1963. I understood however many (7 or 8?) channels covering the events of 9/11/2001. But from my humble point of view things have gotten out of hand. We shouldn't have to settle for Home Shopping Network in order to find a TV show we want to watch that differs from the topic du jour.

But I triumphed. I clicked around until I landed on the Golf Channel's presentation of the opening round of the Ryder Cup competition.

It did make me chuckle on Sunday, however, to ponder how all the news junkies would have felt if the Ryder Cup Finals had been broadcast on ten or twelve channels simultaneously and deprived them of reactions from the White House.

Living Biblically?

Maybe I'm misjudging the teaser trailers I've seen for the new "comedy" series coming later this month on that ole stalwart standard broadcast TV network, CBS.  Maybe they don't intend to ridicule and rip on the slim majority of Americans who claim Christianity as their religion. Maybe they won't be going to the lunatic fringes of various Christian denominations for their stereotypical cliches to seek a laugh.  Maybe.

But I, for one, have no intention of seeing for myself this latest effort by an anachronistic media form to grab the elusive brass ring and stop their decades long ratings slide.  If they are still around Season Two I'll tune in and see what clever, original humor they have to offer.

Oklahoma high school football

I jotted down these notes three years ago and may have put them on a Facebook status. Can't remember for sure. Nevertheless, I know I never transferred it to my Blog. The Metro band director mentioned, Joe, is now a bigshot in Fine Arts for Tulsa Public Schools. Otherwise, the memories are fairly accurate. Amazing that three years ago was a simpler, peaceful time.

For a change of pace, I took in a high school football game last night here in Tulsa. With no “dog in the fight” anywhere locally, I went to the home game for the school right across our back fence, Metro Christian Academy.  This was Metro's first home game of the season since last week had been cancelled due to lightning and thunderstorms.  They were playing Stillwell HS, a little town east of Tulsa almost on the Arkansas border.

Metro (MCA for short) has its own stadium and the game was played there. MCA had a decent crowd of parents, students and supporters.  It looked like several dozen Stillwellians? had   come over along with their marching band.

MCA was never seriously challenged during the game. They scored the first 17 pts, and led by that at halftime after a couple of nice long passes from the senior quarterback, Abe Anderson to senior wide receiver, Jake Koenig.  Each time the MCA band lustily played their fight song, courtesy of U. of Notre Dame. (The band director, Joe Metzer, plays in Tulsa First Baptist orchestra with me).

Halftime provided the opportunity for the parents and fans to meet and see the elementary age cheer and yell squads and the 2^nd grade football team - “the future of MCA football”.

Also at halftime the Stillwell uniformed marching band performed. This was noteworthy in that they had the smallest marching band I have ever seen perform, and I've seen many. They fielded eleven band members, including one sousaphone and two drummers. They offered a rousing rendition of the theme song from Mission Impossible.  I found this hopeful, though not predictive, as the team went on to allow another 20 points in the second half without scoring themselves.

But, alas, the weather was perfect, if not still a touch warm for the end of September. The crowds were polite and appreciative. And all in all, I had a terrific time.  May go back in a few weeks and catch a game on a cooler Fall evening.

ut

As a mental break from househunting in Tulsa, I think I’ll blog about a recent TV trend. It involves action/detective-type shows, including the family of CSI shows and the Law and Order spinoffs. One of the staple features of these shows nowadays is the rapid-fire dialogue where various detectives or coworkers are reeling off plot details to each other as if they were engaged in “normal” conversation. Often the premise is that the various team members have been sent to do specific research into what happened at the crime scene or by the perpetrator. They get back together to brief the entire group and fire off detail after detail so that everyone is up to speed. The result (in the mind of the writers)is that the audience also has sufficient information to follow the progress of who gets chased or arrested, etc. In my recollection, this feature of these series may have begun with The West Wing, when the president’s staff members spent much of the time walking the halls of the White House bringing each other up to date on plot details. My reason for mentioning all this is that I believe most of the shows and most writers do a poor job at making their dialogue sound real, normal, natural. It sounds like what it is, that they are simply using this method of conveying information to the consuming audience. For example, in NCIS they use Abby to lay out forensic details, McGee to explain the role of computer research, and the agency director to lay out the political intrigue involved. It’s probably one reason why I like the current TV series, Burn Notice. Here the hero does a narrative as the hero/announcer. No pretense about working the transfer of info. Into the dialogue.

Les Miserables - Part Deux

I drafted this earlier but it apparently disappeared before I actually posted it. So, here goes again: I really enjoyed the movie! It surpassed even my expectations from the preview trailers I'd seen in the movie house and far surpassed the brief clips on TV. I had been anxious due to a couple of lukewarm reviews I'd read. My conclusion is that the reviewers were all wet. They must be "purists" as to how musicals are to be done for the "big screen". Their faults with the movie lay in the way the director had done the singing. Instead of laying down a soundtrack in the studio and having the actors lip sync for the movie, the singing was done live on screen. It was more like a video recording of a live stage play. But that which the critics panned, I preferred. I thought the singing was most appropriate. I never expected Russell Crowe to produce operatic quality singing. He was believable, however, and appropriate. The "big chorus" numbers were not overdone. Some critics also objected to the "nosehair" closeups of some of the singers. But they were not belabored or overdone, either. I would suggest to those unfamiliar with the story line that it would be beneficial either to read the book (or "Cliff's Notes") or see a stage production in order to follow what happens better. All in all, though, I'm very glad I got to see this with my two daughters, who cried some, as they always do @ Les Miz.

Les Miserables

I admit, this screed is born of a desire to focus momentarily on something other than the 20 precious children and 6 adults murdered at Sandy Hook last week. But I’m sure my mind will return to it in due course. Today I question the editing/selection skills of the advertising people who are promoting “Les Miserables”. The full trailer as seen in the movie house as a preview is quite powerful and makes one eager to see the film. The TV commercials, on the other hand, are insipid and fail to command attention or elicit interest. Yet the TV commercials use the same cuts as was used in the full preview. They simply move way too quickly from one snippet to the next scene. And the voice over does nothing to encourage the public to want to watch this movie. Don’t be mistaken, I will be seeing this film probably the first week it is out. (Noon-time “senior” matinees are usually not too crowded.) But were I financially invested in the success of “Les Miz” I would be thinking about changing publicists/editors.