Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: broadcasting

Edith Wharton and the Newsroom.

I was back in the newsroom the other night, grabbing the folds of wire-service paper from the spot where the overnight DJ had tossed them aside in his search for the printed weather forecast. I looked up at the glass dividing the newsroom from the control room and couldn’t help but notice that a black sheet of plastic had been taped over the window, completely blocking my view.

The printout of the state news roundup is always buried in the stream of paper coughed up by the news printer. Even as I swam through the river of feature stories, sports scores, and stock reports, I realized at some level this work was only the recurring nightmare, recurring once again.

You media-types no doubt recognized right away the fantasy that would still have news stories printed out on uncut wire-service paper. In my dream though, it never changes.

As a nightmare, presumably this one is better than being chased by vampires or falling off a cliff onto jagged rocks. Still – it never fails to unnerve me. I used to work with a fellow named Forrest Lowry who professed to frequently suffer the same sad dream plot. I recall our conversation at that time, sensing that he was more distressed about it than I was. I probably hadn’t had the dream so often at that point. The strange part after so many years is the undercurrent of knowing (at least I think I do) at some level that the whole thing is just a dream – even as I’m dreaming it – but being unable to stop it.

After ripping down the plastic I still couldn’t see into the control room. The DJ had taped up a sheet on his side of the window. I rapped on the glass and the barrier came down. The DJ was frowning. He was standing there in formal evening wear.

That was Edith Wharton, sneaking in.

I’ve been reading The Age of Innocence, her 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the elite society in New York City during the late 1800s. Operas and afternoon teas. Formal calling on acquaintances. Servants and coach drivers. Tuxedos and gowns.

It didn’t make preparing the morning newscast any easier, looking at the DJ in a tux.

As usual, the minutes are winding down to the moment I must flip the switch on the microphone and begin reading the news, which I’ve yet to get in order. Where is my copy of the weather forecast? Today, for some reason, I have an assistant: likely provided by the fiction of Edith Wharton, all butlers and such. I ask the young man to retrieve the current temperature reading, the detail that will wrap up the weather forecast and the news segment.

This is a nightmare variation.

Normally, I am forced to make up a number: Currently, sunshine and eighty-six degrees in Tulsa. (Completely made up. In the nightmare, I have no idea of the correct number. It’s my best educated guess based on the highs and lows I have just read in the forecast.)

There’s probably some deep psycho-rationale behind the frequent visiting of this unsettling dream. (It may not sound like much of a nightmare to non-broadcasters, but back in the dinosaur days, the sound of silence – dead air, we called it – was to be avoided at all costs. Lacking any news stories to read, the nightmare requires that I adlib events or simply stall while shuffling through paperwork looking for something appropriate to read. Hellish.)

The psych-reason isn’t even important anymore. My life and lifestyle are so dramatically altered from the days when the nightmares began, that I believe they only carry on merely as tradition.

At least I have a little Pulitzer Prize winning influence in this latest edition.

Weather it is Important or not…

Everyone who has come in the shop today has commented on tomorrow’s weather. We called that “Top of Mind” back when I was in radio, a phrase to indicate the populist thinking of the moment, that thing that should be the primary focus of our programming.

The Tulsa World buried the weather story in this morning’s edition. Page 10. Even there, the headline doesn’t read “Winter Storm Due,” or “Snowy Weather Ahead.” They pin it directly on the originators of the forecast: “Forecasters Warn of Snow.” You see, the SNOW isn’t the news in the opinion of the World, only that some have issued a warning.

It is another example of the disrespect the local newspaper has for the electronic media in general. The sports page is the most obvious daily reminder of the bias. The local sportswriters seem to search for opportunities to take stabs at announcers and their employers, although the most vicious of the attacks are done anonymously (The Picker).

Not every newspaper takes such a position. Some have regular media columns that treat the broadcast medium as entertainment, (rightly or not) to be reviewed – thumbs up or thumbs down – like a movie. Others offer schedules of events to be broadcast, of a local nature. If the Tulsa World touches on such coverage, it is so infrequent as to be invisible.

The argument that they are reporting only the news, and not prognostications, will not hold water. In the arenas of politics and the economy, stories are published all too often that report trends, surveys, and other gossip – as a prediction of an outcome. It’s simply political weather forecasting, and pans out just as often as not.

What is it that is crippling the newspapers of the United States? Why are they increasingly cutting staff, reducing local content, and – in the most dramatic cases – going out of business completely?

My own guess (they never call and ask my opinion…) is that the old school journalistic paradigm of telling people “what they need to know,” is no longer valid. It is a business model synonymous with classroom teaching. In an age of diverse educational and entertainment opportunities, some prefer a delicatessen approach to information. We can select the items most palatable to our tastes and pass on the rest.

In the Tulsa World deli, cheeseburgers and fries are at the back of the store, hidden behind the brussels sprouts and broccoli. Even though the burgers and fries outsell the vegetables, we’re expected to first chew through what is good for us to get at the stuff on everyone’s mind.