KRON goes overboard in Mehserle sentencing story; KTVU too; the Sunday dish

Just when you think KRON can't perform any more visual embarrassments, they come back strong and hit you right in your eyes and still prove once again why they remain the biggest joke in Bay Area broadcasting, both industry-wide and to the casual viewer.

Friday marked the day of the Johannes Mehserle sentencing. The usual large contingent of TV trucks began lining up along Downtown Oakland streets early on, with a smidgen of radio cars too. Shopkeepers along Broadway and the Uptown perimeter began the unsavory and tedious job of boarding up windows.

Morning and noon newscasts opened their shows with repeated Mehserle "up-to-the-minute" coverage even before the LA judge were to formally sentence the ex-BART cop of involuntary manslaughter in the killing of Oscar Grant.

Once the judge's ruling was announced in the early afternoon, KTVU broke into regular programming and went straight to LA and began coverage in earnest, with two reporters down south covering news conferences of both the central attorneys in the case, John Burris and Michael Rains.

Joing anchors Frank Somerville and Gasia Mikaelian in studio, was legal analyst, Michael Cardoza. KTVU stayed with the Mehserle story pretty much wall-to-wall before going back to rsp and returning at 4PM to 6.

KTVU's Mike Mibach was on the scene in Oakland providing an almost play-by-play account of what was to take place further. More on that later.

All outlets, KGO-TV, NBC Bay Area, KPIX and radio newsies, KGO and KCBS had reporters in Oakland. Mehserle sentencing was topic A.

A small crowd of people began to meet at City Hall. The usual drum-up of "so far, the 'protesters are peaceful" was evident, but everyone and their uncle was wondering what would take place as darkness neared.

KRON coverage early out spelled trouble. The station had five-to-six reporters on the scene and anchors Pam Moore and Catherine Heenan (Reporters included Kate Thompson, Christine Connolly, Jeff Bush, Gabriel Slate, Stanley Roberts, Rob Fradeboe and the stunningly bizarre Da Lin and Jonathan Bloom--did we get 'em all?)

Just by the virtue of seeing so many KRONers, the immediate thought came to mind that even if little or no problems were to occur, KRON was hellbent on taking advantage of a story even if no such story were to take place.

Connolly staked out the early protest and was stationed near City Hall while Thompson held court a few blocks down at 11th/12th and Broadway. The early reports were precursors of what agenda KRON and its news misfits had in mind.

"It's fairly peaceful here", offered Connolly. "Looks as if its' pretty quiet here, "stated Thompson. "The cops are everywhere and the protesters seem to have gotten the message." Uh, OK.

As darkness settled in, KRON began its aerial and ground-force circus, with KTVU, to a much lesser extent, joining in the process.

Soon, the non-troublemakers made their way to BART and began leaving.

A few hundred anarchists hit the streets and began marching toward the opposite end of town. Cue the local TV news directors, reporters and anchors--its showtime. Welcome to an off-Broadway production of "we're going to shove this shit down your throat even if there's nothing there."

Heenan and Moore, who clearly should know better, literally were searching for any hint of trouble as TV choppers, (and a few police too) circled the scene. The group marched to the outer banks of Lake Merritt when finally, some lone lowlife jumped on a car and kicked it in.

"Oh, we just saw some trouble there," bellowed Heenan. "Very unsettling indeed", added Moore.

The party was just starting. It was well past 7PM and time to get play-by-play accounts. Thankfully, KPIX, NBC Bay Area, and KGO-TV took a glance and seeing the obvious: that a mere 100-200 marchers, some of whom wouldn't know Oscar Grant from Oscar Meyer, might clash with the cops but it simply wasn't big enough or violent enough to warrant staying with the story. They moved on to their regularly-scheduled programming.

For KRON, with its comical presence, they weren't going anywhere no matter what, damn the concept of legitimate news.

Before I forget: Mike Mibach of KTVU provided the performance of the night. Mibach gave a breathless, detailed, running, (literally) account of the affair. Every so often, you began to think this was a Saturday Night live skit because nothing was happening other than a full volume of expletives shouted in the background and a visual of Lake Merritt at night with an assist from the KTVU chopper.

Was there any mass rioting? No. Did the cops take out their billy clubs and engage with the assorted hooligans? Nope. (We were told later that a police officer's gun and holster were ripped off by a couple of asses and they were taken into custody; a cop had been hit by someone in his squad car, but it was an accident and not related to the protesters)

Finally, KTVU had the good sense to break away from the fracas and go back to rsp...KRON, surprise!, stayed on--after all, the patio-furniture/infomercial wonders weren't going to go back to a shamwow show and ignore this---'you want coverage, we're gonna give it to you because we're the "Bay Area's "news" station." My ass.

This is how bad it got--in short order: A. a certain KRON reporter, describing the final scene of where police had cornered the remaining 100 or so protesters/anarchists, (of which 56 were not from Oakland) was "sort of like that movie, 'The Blues Brothers", where the cops outnumber the bad guys." (Uncontrolled laughter) 2. Giddy and gushing, Kate Thompson remarked a few blocks away that the "scene reminded her of 'Afghanistan--there's a lot of empty streets and ambulances and helicopters here." We'll, fucking duh! Yeah, looks as if nothing is happening, (must have said that at least 20x with co-hort Connolly)

Not to be outdone, some dude named Da Lin repeatedly stated "things could get ugly here real fast." We'll, Da, not exactly, the cops began arresting people en mass, (due to unlawful assembly stemming from the gun incident)

To borrow a phrase, there really was no there there!

And, outside of KGO and KPIX and NBC, news laziness and opportunity trumped news judgement and restraint.

With KRON, one expects to see stupid on the air. With KTVU, we don't expect to see manufactured news accompanied by a running play-by-play narration from a normally solid guy like Mike Mibach. We'll give a mulligan to Mibach and KTVU, in spite of Channel 2's infatuation with an anti-Oakland fetish.

KRON is another story. They now not only suck but it could be argued that both aided and abetted a group of anarchists who tried mightily to wreak havoc with the city even though 99% of the city conducted business as usual.

You'd think the KRONvicts would learn from their universally-detested coverage of the Mehserle conviction last July, but common sense is a foreign language at "Henry's Garden" and where to be a weather guesser, you need not apply unless you're blond, stupid, work cheap, and be willing to toe the company line, (in addition to writing threatening e-mails to a certain media blogger.)