Grumpy Editor

STORM REPORTING NOT EXACTLY LIKE 'SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN'

 

Grumpy Editor notes TV hurricane reporters, on camera fighting strong wind and rain, constantly remind viewers in the storm’s path that: “You shouldn’t be out here, but I am.”

It’s a bit different than the happy script and long-popular title song in the 1952 film, “Singin' in the Rain," starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds.

Instead of braving the risky elements in storms, often standing in knee-high water and dodging downed power lines, reporting on latest weather conditions and events could just as well be done --- perhaps even better ---  in the confines of a dry, safe and windless TV studio.

But standing out in the elements with microphone in hand is the way severe weather reporting has been conducted for years.  News editors figure that’s the way to go.

“Reporters out there make me sick!,” tweets an ABC viewer who was watching the network’s wet and wind-blown storm reporter in Naples, Florida describe the “suction” force of the gale. “Go home, be safe and stop grand standing,” adds the viewer.

Another mentions, "God Bless our intrepid reporters, but have you never heard the expression hadn't got enough sense to come in out of the rain?”

 

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE...

 

WEATHER COOLING IN CALIFORNIA?  California’s Sierra Nevada mountains experiences snowfall a month earlier than usual last week.  Snow plows had to be called.  But global warming (er, climate change) folks are silent on this meteorological development in the Sunshine State.

HOLLYWOOD AWARDS SHOWS GET POLITICAL.  TV viewers tune into awards shows to check out winners and be entertained, not to hear chatter reserved for political programs — which is a sure way to see audiences dwindle.

TOUGH TALK SHAKES UP SOME MEDIA.  President Donald Trump, in his United Nations speech, disturbs some in media after vowing to destroy North Korea should the communist country attack the U.S.  Trump referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” and said he was  on a "suicide mission" in advancing the country's nuclear weapons development. Trump mentions the U.S.,“if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” An example of media reaction: an Associated Press reporter says, “Rocket Man" may get headlines, but the president of the United States just threatened to eradicate a nation of 25 million people."

ARMY BRASS PUT IN SPOTLIGHT.  The U.S. Army plans a series of mental health, counseling and career management programs which it hopes will shape stronger, more ethical leaders, focusing more on building character than on berating bad conduct. The move comes as an effort to help deal with an embarrassing number of misconduct and behavior problems among senior officers. 

PC TO STRANGLE COMEDY?  Society's "stupidly politically correct" sensibilities will lead to the "death of comedy," veteran comedian Mel Brooks, tells BBC.  He adds that political correctness is becoming a stranglehold on comedians.  “It's not good for comedy. Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks.”

BUDGET HITS ANOTHER COLLEGE NEWSPAPER.  University of Louisville campus newspaper, the Cardinal, will stop getting funds from the university by the end of next year’s spring semester.  The university blames the end of funding on the school's $48 million budget shortfall.

WORLD WAR I SUB LOCATED.  An intact German World War I submarine containing the bodies of 23 sailors is found in the North Sea off the coast of Belgium.  The UB II-type dive boat is described as 88 feet long, 20 feet wide and about 90 feet below the surface.

STUDY:  MAJOR TV NETWORKS GO DEEPLY NEGATIVE ON TRUMP COVERAGE

 

Nightly TV news broadcasts from June 1 to Aug. 31 were 91 percent negative in covering President Donald Trump and his administration, tallies the Media Research Center, notes Grumpy Editor.

MRC adds ABC's World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News presented just nine percent positive coverage of Trump and his administration.

This compares with 89 percent negative coverage by the three major networks in the first three months of the Trump presidency.

During the summer, MRC calculates 415 minutes of broadcast time was spent covering the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, with 94 percent of that negative.

Repealing and replacing Obamacare and Trump's response to the Charlottesville riots last month each brought 97 percent negative coverage, adds MRC.

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

 

BIG WIND ON OTHER SIDE OF U.S.  With broadcast and print media focusing on hurricane activity from Texas to the East Coast, overlooked is an unusual 100 m.p.h. wind and flooding from a thunderstorm that tore the roof off a historic building and damaged a half dozen other structures in Death Valley National Park. It also blew out windows of several park employees' vehicles.

POVERTY HITS CALIFORNIANS.  The U.S. Census Bureau says one in five Californians lives in poverty, highest rate in the country. It estimates 20.4 percent of Golden State residents lived below the poverty line in a three-year average, 2014 to 2016.

MILITARY PROVIDES HURRICANE AID.  The Pentagon reports it mobilized nearly 30,000 military personnel for recovery operations along Hurricane Irma’s path from the U.S. Virgin islands to north of Atlanta.

OPRAH JOINS 60 MINUTES.  Oprah Winfrey, one of TV’s best-known celebrity interviewers, next Sunday debuts on CBS’ 60 Minutes.  With the TV newsmagazine entering its 50th anniversary year, she will be reporting on America’s political divisions.

POLICE SEARCH FOR STOLEN PET PIG.  Cleveland police are looking for Spam, a 15-pound mini-pet pig that was taken during a home break-in. “It’s just sad somebody would do this,” says its owner who acquired the one-year-old mini pig when he was a piglet.  “He’s part of our family. Keep the electronics, but don’t take somebody’s pet.”

ADULTS GO TO BED WITH STUFFED ANIMALS.  Build-A-Bear Workshop, in a survey of 2,000 Americans, finds 40 percent of adults — many from childhood — take stuffed animals to bed with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PENTAGON STILL DEPENDS ON VINTAGE RUSSIAN-MADE ROCKET ENGINES

With all the negative talk focusing on Russia and the White House in recent months, most media are unaware that the U. S. Defense Department has to rely on Russian-made rocket engines for another seven or even up to 11 years, notes Grumpy Editor.

United Launch Alliance, the Pentagon’s primary rocket supplier, “likely will continue flying some 1990s-vintage Atlas V boosters with Russian-built engines through 2024 or 2025,” reveals Andy Pasztor, writer for The Wall Street Journal.

“The Russian engines blast most Air Force communications and navigation satellites into orbit,” points out Pasztor.

True, the U.S. is racing to develop its own less-costly rocket engines.

One company doing that is Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX. Just last Thursday SpaceX launched the Air Force’s space shuttle, using an unmanned Falcon rocket and landing its booster back at Cape Canaveral for reuse.

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

TELETHON AIDS HURRICANE VICTIMS. A one-hour telethon tomorrow night is aimed at benefiting Hurricane Harvey victims. Among those featured on the program are Barbra Streisand, Beyonce, Blake Shelton and Oprah Winfrey. It will be carried on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CMT. Will Hurricane Irma be the next benefit?

L.A. TIMES AGAIN REMINDS READERS OF COMING MEGA-QUAKE. Inspired by Mexico’s Thursday earthquake, the Los Angeles Times over the weekend is back with another periodic reminder to shake up its readers that they are in earthquake territory with: “Scientists say it’s possible for Southern California to be hit by a magnitude 8.2 earthquake. Such a quake would be far more destructive to the Los Angeles area because the San Andreas fault runs very close to and underneath densely populated areas.” The writer mentions “Southern California’s most recent mega-quake was in 1857.”

EQUIFAX NOW FACES LAWSUIT. The massive cyberattack on Equifax, the credit-report company, already has triggered a class-action lawsuit and calls for congressional investigation. Hackers earlier stole personal information on 143 million Americans.

NORDSTROM STORE SKIPS CLOTHING. Nordstrom Inc. on Oct. 3 opens a non-traditional 3,000-square-foot store in West Hollywood, Calif. called Nordstrom Local that will focus on services such as manicures and tailoring rather than clothing.

NORTH KOREA MENTIONS U.S. ELECTRICITY GRID TARGET. Among new threats being made against the U.S. by North Korea: An electromagnetic pulse triggered by a nuclear weapon aimed to shut down the U.S. electricity grid --- with power outages that could last months.

TOP JOB WITHOUT FOUR-YEAR DEGREE. Among top 10 best jobs for those without a four-year college degree is broadcast technician with an average salary of $42,550, according to CareerCast, Carlsbad, Calif.

L.A. CITY COUNCIL REPLACES COLUMBUS DAY WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY

The Los Angeles City Council voted to banish Columbus Day and change the second Monday in October to Indigenous Peoples Day, notes Grumpy Editor.

Indigenous Peoples Day will be an official city holiday in the City of Angels starting in 2019.

It should be pointed out that Columbus Day, since the early 20th century, is a national holiday in many countries in the Americas, along with Spain, Italy and “Little Italy’s” around the world.

The proposal to replace Columbus’ holiday in Los Angeles was introduced in November 2015 by Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, a member of the Wyandotte Nation tribe, because of what he called "Columbus' legacy of extreme violence, enslavement and brutality'' and “the suffering, destruction of cultures, and subjugation of Los Angeles' original indigenous people, who were here thousands of years before anyone else.”

A Wall Street Journal editorial on Friday cites, “L.A.’s move isn’t about celebrating. It’s about indicting anything that represents Western civilization, as Christopher Columbus most certainly does. So how ironic that in deposing the Italian explorer, Los Angeles City Council members find themselves taking the side of the Ku Klux Klan of the early 20th century --- whose nativism led it to oppose statues, memorials and days devoted to Columbus because
he was Catholic, Southern European and called to mind the new waves of non-English immigrants at the time.”

By the way, the new Indigenous Peoples Day will be a paid holiday for Los Angeles city workers.

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

UNUSUAL LIVE --- AND PRINT --- COVERAGE WHEN HURRICANE HARVEY HITS HOUSTON. In covering Houston’s flooded area, Casey Stegall did an outstanding reporting job describing happenings in a live segment for Fox News on Wednesday. Starting on-camera while seated in a moving vehicle, he described the scene along a battered road, then, as the cameraman followed, he left the vehicle and described a pile of trashed furnishings and household items stacked at the curb, awaiting disposal at a landfill, then went into the house to describe the scene and mop-up operations.
On the print side, Clifford Krauss, reporting for New York Times News Service from his two-story home in Bellaire, Texas, wrote an extensive piece on the flood as “the home I saved my entire career to buy is flooding fast…” He described how he and his family had to move to the second floor and “it’s only a matter of time before our piano is ruined.” While writing his story he mentioned, “We just lost our electricity” and the “hardline telephone was out.” He described houses on his street “look like sinking ships” and “it’s going to be a long week.”

MORE FAKE BANK ACCOUNTS. Wells Fargo says it possibly opened an additional 1.4 million sham customer accounts, upping the revised total to 3.5 million.

CBS TO BOOST FAR PACIFIC COVERAGE. CBS plans to acquire Australian broadcaster Ten Network Holdings, boosting its coverage from that area.“

OBESITY CURBS MILITARY SERVICE. A new report notes "70 percent of today's youth are not fit to serve in the military due to obesity or being overweight, criminal records, drug misuse or educational deficits."

NEW CLOTH WARMS TROOPS IN COLD AREAS. For U.S. military deployed in cold regions, a revolutionary new cloth uses nanotechnology to generate heat, thus reducing weight and number of layers soldiers need to protect themselves from winter conditions.

BRIEF ADS TO DEBUT ON FOX SPORTS. Fox Sports is planning to run six-second TV commercials in strategic places during NFL games and other sports events starting next Sunday.

VILLAGE VOICE TRIMS STAFF. The Village Voice, New York, is laying off 13 of 17 union employees.