LA Local TV News helicopters have a notorious fetish for covering car chases. 400 miles to the north, SF Bay Area viewers got a dose of "copter-itus" over something allegedly deemed "news", but with a quick look of the naked eye, not very much was visible other than a horde of police officers.
A handful, maybe 50-75 "protesters", marching outside an Oakland courthouse and near downtown protesting the apparent bail granted to a Bart-transit cop accused of shooting to death Oscar Grant on Jan. 1. Indeed, that development IS news, but the subsequent events outside was NOT.
Every major SF-Oakland-San Jose local- TV station had "on-the-scene" helicopter coverage looking down on city streets; a reporter on FOX-2 was almost gushing about the "event" and "mass arrests". One person was arrested. There were no visible shots of anything out of the ordinary and, in fact, it seemed quite apparent that the situation was clearly contained and that the TV stations were inflaming what amounted to a non-story.
Not to be outdone, the local CBS station, KPIX and independent station KRON also had "cheerful" and "gee-whiz" reporters on-scene for what appeared to be nothing more than several dozens of angry, loud, but fairly peaceful protesters. No more than 75-100, at best.
The Bart cop story is a big news story. The rioting that took place earlier in the month on a night which saw vandals and protesters breaking windows and setting fires was fairly legitimate news and thus, warranted the headline, "copter coverage".
This evening's coverage was, given the circumstances, frankly ridiculous, and bordered on an extreme lack of serious news judgement by this observer.
One question: what would local TV news do without helicopters?
Rich Lieberman
1-30-09
6: 20 PM PST
A handful, maybe 50-75 "protesters", marching outside an Oakland courthouse and near downtown protesting the apparent bail granted to a Bart-transit cop accused of shooting to death Oscar Grant on Jan. 1. Indeed, that development IS news, but the subsequent events outside was NOT.
Every major SF-Oakland-San Jose local- TV station had "on-the-scene" helicopter coverage looking down on city streets; a reporter on FOX-2 was almost gushing about the "event" and "mass arrests". One person was arrested. There were no visible shots of anything out of the ordinary and, in fact, it seemed quite apparent that the situation was clearly contained and that the TV stations were inflaming what amounted to a non-story.
Not to be outdone, the local CBS station, KPIX and independent station KRON also had "cheerful" and "gee-whiz" reporters on-scene for what appeared to be nothing more than several dozens of angry, loud, but fairly peaceful protesters. No more than 75-100, at best.
The Bart cop story is a big news story. The rioting that took place earlier in the month on a night which saw vandals and protesters breaking windows and setting fires was fairly legitimate news and thus, warranted the headline, "copter coverage".
This evening's coverage was, given the circumstances, frankly ridiculous, and bordered on an extreme lack of serious news judgement by this observer.
One question: what would local TV news do without helicopters?
Rich Lieberman
1-30-09
6: 20 PM PST
No comments:
Post a Comment