20 years ago, one of Chicago's most-respected news anchors and hard-political junkies, Carol Marin, resigned her job at Chicago's most-watched nightly news program because the station hired Jerry Springer to fizz up their ratings. From the Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1997:
Chicago News Anchor Quits After Station Hires Jerry Springer20 years later, and what was once the only even-remotely "Liberal" national teevee news outlet in American now looks more and more like the bottom of Sean Hannity's birdcage:
The decision by a Chicago television station to hire Jerry Springer, the host of a syndicated talk show, to provide commentaries on its nightly newscasts has led to the resignation of one of that city's most popular and respected television news anchors.
A second anchor is almost certain to follow her this summer, staff members at the station, WMAQ-TV, said on Friday. If so, the hiring of Mr. Springer, whose talk show usually deals with vulgar subject matter and who occasionally engages in the ''ambush'' interviews that have prompted widespread criticism of the talk genre, could shake up news-viewing habits in Chicago.
On Thursday, Carol Marin, one of the two anchors of the 10 P.M. news on WMAQ, the NBC-owned station in Chicago, announced her decision to quit after a protracted dispute with the management over the direction of its newscasts. Ms. Marin, who had been the anchor for 12 years, has won numerous awards for reporting, including 15 Emmy Awards and 1 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award for broadcast journalism.
The other anchor, Ron Magers, had previously said he might also quit. On Friday, he issued a statement saying that he disagreed with the hiring of Mr. Springer but that he would fulfill his contract.
Staff members close to Mr. Magers said he had tried to renegotiate his contract to allow him to leave in the summer and was likely to do so. His contract would have continued for three more years.
The departures of two leading anchors would be highly unusual for any television station, but especially so in the case of WMAQ because it leads the Chicago market among the viewers most sought by advertisers.
Ms. Marin said in a telephone interview that she ''could not understand at all'' why the management had chosen to ''take the news in a whole new direction.''
That direction, she and other staff members suggested, is toward a more tabloid-style newscast. The management of WMAQ did not respond to calls on Friday. But the president of NBC's stations division, John Rohrbeck, said WMAQ would not adopt a tabloid style.
He suggested that Ms. Marin's departure was a result of longstanding unhappiness with the management.
The decision to hire Mr. Springer was ''a symptom of where news is heading,'' Ms. Marin said. She did not dispute the station's right to choose its staff. ''But for me, it crossed a line I would not cross.''
...
20 years ago, Jerry Springer was ''a symptom of where news is heading,''.
20 years later, and "news" -- which barely exists any more at all -- has sunk so far past that point that it is no longer detectable by the most powerful ground-penetrating radar.
8 comments:
And that's why THIS is making me laugh so, so, so hard this morning:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/coulter-goes-to-war-with-trump-and-it-is-glorious
Remember kids: you don't kick a man when he's down. You kick him when he's starting to get back up.
But this pack of loathsome hyenas are not all the way down yet.... so let's keep kicking.
Now I must have been good this year.
Santa got all my good merits and decided to gift me early.
This Coultergeist moment is so completely gooey.
No, Tweety, just no.
-Doug in Oakland
News media with stage four cancer of the everything, as diagnosed from clip two.
It's political TV that is the absolute worst. Local network stations can sometimes do good sports and some local investigative stories but even there the print media is usually much better.
Can't Ichabod Crane just run off with the headless horseman and bump ugly?
Good point about the Jerry Springerization of our nooz. That combined with 24/7/365 cable tv needing to fill time combined with Murdoch's Fox, et voila: nowadays we get craptasticness delux.
My guess is that anyone with any values or anything approaching integrity, journalistic or otherwise, vamoosed from the tv nooz scene a long long time ago.
I agree with Jimbo. Local tv can be "ok" and is useful for local events, disasters (not joking) and such. Otherwise, fahgeddaboudit.
I chucked out my tv ages ago and have never missed it. I studiously avoid watching what's on the tvs at the gym except for the Olympics.
Jerry Springer was an anchor in Cincinnati prior to his syndicated show and his commentaries were insightful and hard hitting. He's probably the only local or national white anchor who called the media out for ignoring how powerful and influential African American churches and communities are in the political process, citing specifically successful passage of a Cincinnati Public School levy which conventional wisdom and committed to doom because reasons, all while the African American community got the vote out. I never forgot that commentary.
Post a Comment