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Darts & Laurels
* DART to WPTA-TV, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for forgetting that public interest and self-interest aren't quite the same thing. Apparently not convinced that all those commercials put out by the National Association of Broadcasters would sufficiently alert viewers to the deadly consequences that would befall their favorite programs if Uncle Sam did not hand over freely to the stations the highly lucrative waves of the high-definition spectrum, WPTA saw no conflict in being true to its very own self. In its Sunday morning "public affairs program" Impact following the David Brinkley show, the ABC affiliate featured a panel discussion, hosted by anchor Victor Locke and featuring officials from three local stations, on "how the transition to HDTV could end up taking away what we know as free TV." Jammed with clips of NAB commercials, financial forecasts, predictions of TV stations "going black," and quotes from politicians who are "in our camp," the "community affairs presentation" concluded by urging viewers to contact their representatives in Washington.
* LAUREL to the Baltimore Sun and reporters Gilbert A. Lewthwaite and Gregory Kane, for rising to the occasion. With the government of Sudan continuing to deny U.N. reports of slavery, servitude, forced labor, and slave trade in that Islamic fundamentalist-run country; and with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, after a much-criticized visit to Sudan and other pariah nations, supporting those denials and taunting the U.S. press to find proof, Lewthwaite and Kane decided to do just that. Their three-part series, "Witness to Slavery" (June l6-l8), took readers (and, one may hope, Mr. Farrakhan) on a harrowing, horrifying secret journey in which Kane, a forty-four-year-old African-American columnist, and Lewthwaite, a sixty-year-old white foreign correspondent, found themselves striking a bargain -- in a market where other people were buying and selling salt and dried fish -- to pay ten cows, or $1,000, for two young boys abducted in a slave raid six years before. Taking encouragement from the tradition begun by abolitionist-era newspers, and having redeemed two children from bondage and returned them to their father, the journalists nonetheless have no illusions about the result of their exposŽ. "The children have done their best to tell us the story of their blighted young lives, and we have done our best to understand. We can do no more for them, nor they for us. They turn their backs on us and walk with their father into the endless bush. They leave the undeniable proof that slavery exists, and a silent rebuke to an uncaring world that has done so little about it." (Farrakhan, by the way, has refused to accept the findings of the "Witness to Slavery" series; the Nation of Islam newspaper, TheFinal Call, has dismissed the Sun itself as a "Zionist Jewish daily." Meanwhile, in a speech he gave last August to the National Association of Black Journalists, Farrakhan scolded its members for being "slaves" to a white-owned press.)
* DART to New Times, an alternative weekly in Phoenix, Arizona, for failing to see the big picture. When presenting Timothy Archibald's photos accompanying a report on the dangers of storm-watching in its August 31 issue, the paper neglected to mention that two particularly dramatic images involving awesome bolts of lightning had been enhanced with the help of multiple-exposure techniques. (Nor was that not-insignificant fact mentioned several months later when the photos were presented to the Arizona Press Club as a candidate for an award. Indeed, in the flap that ensued when he won first prize, Archibald explained that the work had been submitted to the Arizona Press Club because, unlike such other competitions as the Pulitzers, which specifically exclude altered photography, the APC's rules said nothing about it at all. The APC has since announced that, for the next awards, they will.)
* DART to Marla Weech, news anchor at WFTV, in Orlando, Florida, for an unhappy alternative to happy talk. At the end of reporter Jane Watrel's June 27 "whistleblower" segment investigating allegations that a reserve deputy of the sheriff's office had hassled demonstrators who were peacefully gathered on public property in protest against televangelist Benny Hinn's "marketing the Holy Spirit" for profit, anchor Weech stunned the news team and viewers alike by challenging the report. Observing that the demonstrators "had been seen at church after church after church of all denominations," she went on to ask, "Who can blame pastors for calling the cops?" "That's not the issue here, Marla," Watrel patiently explained. "The issue is whether these folks abused the badge." "Noted," persisted Weech. "But I would say that many pastors throughout Central Florida would say that it is [the demonstrator's leader] who is disrupting services and abusing." "Then he should be arrested," replied Watrel, holding firm, "but he don't have a badge, and he isn't a sworn deputy." The sheriff evidently agreed. As reported by media critic Hal Boedeker, who covered the incident in several of his Orlando Sentinel columns, Watrel's "striking journalism" resulted in an internal investigation of the sheriff's office as well as the suspension of the zealous deputy -- who, as Watrel had revealed, was the televangelist's brother. (The demonstrators, incidentally, according to the alternative Orlando Weekly, had targeted only one other church in the Orange County area -- the Calvary Assembly, where Weech, a pastor's daughter, is a long-time member.)
* DART to The Sunday Oklahoman, for off-key journalism. In a full-page, four-color, six-photo piece in its August l8 edition the Oklahoman sang the praises of Nashville as a "visitor's delight," with its Opryland USA theme park, its Opryland Hotel, its Grand Ole Opry auditorium, its expanded Opryland conference center, its Opryland riverboat dinner cruises, and its Wildhorse Saloon (as "shown on TNN, The Nashville Network"). Despite the richness and range of the upbeat composition, however (which included, among other things, the depth of the river and the weight of a skylight roof, not to mention dates and times of upcoming performances), it never managed to hit one essential note: the Opryland complex, as well as The Nashville Network, is owned by Edward Gaylord, the Oklahoman's publisher.
* DART to the Fairfield, New Jersey, Chronicle; the Ladies Home Journal; Family Circle; the San Antonio Express-News; and Black Enterprise magazine, for traveling without reservations. Last fall, when the Washington, D.C., Convention and Visitors' Association decided to boost the city's tarnished image by inviting journalists to an all-expense-paid whirlwind weekend, twenty-eight of them -- including the managing editor, assistant editor, editorial assistant, travel editor, and features editor, respectively, of the above-named publications -- checked in. By this fall, with alluring stories on the capital's attractions appearing, or scheduled to appear, in these and other newspapers, magazines, and newsletters all around the country, the tourist industry's plan to lobby the press was clearly checking out.
* LAUREL to ABC's World News Tonight and investigative reporter Brian Ross, for convention coverage that was far from conventional. While most of the news media were attending to the well-staged circuses in San Diego and Chicago, Ross turned his spotlight on an underreported sideshow -- the comings and goings of corporation lobbyists in search of influence and access. Noting that many of the customary rules that govern campaign contributions had been suspended by Congress for the run of the convention season, Ross's "Money Watch" feature followed the big-money boys of the tobacco, gambling, pharmaceutical, railroad, and energy industries--industries whose taxes and profits depend on the kindness of legislators -- as they moved ever-so-smoothly from yacht party to convention floor. Conspicuously not left out were lobbyists for the giant media companies, namely, CNN, Time Warner, CBS, and, most particularly, ABC itself, whose hospitality suite--set right underneath the ABC News anchor booth and visited by, among others, the chairman of the House comttee that deals with telecommunications--was, as Ross observed, "a lobbyist's dream."
* DART to WLS-TV, Chicago; WFSB-TV, Hartford; KRON-TV, San Francisco; and ABC-TV, New York, for assisting in an operation to implant the news. Using identical video footage and reading -- at prescripted pauses -- from identical scripts, reporters at each of the stations recently told viewers about a blood test now "finally" available -- though only through a private company for some $200 -- to detect dangerous leakage from silicone breast implants. The reporters did not, however, tell viewers that the frightening visuals on the television screen, as well as their own encouraging words, had all been provided by a "news video" production company in Florida. Nor, for that matter, did they tell them that the value of the test has yet to be established by the FDA.
* DART to KGW-TV, Portland, Oregon, and sportscaster Steve Bartelstein, for just doing it. Unblocked by management, Bartelstein has been dribbling away the station's credibility by sporting Nike logo-laden apparel -- much of it given to him gratis by the manufacturer -- while delivering his nightly reports. Not until Jeff Manning, a business reporter for the daily Oregonian, began pressing the station for comment did KGW reverse its position on the apparent conflict of interest. According to Manning's August 23 report, Bartelstein just won't do it any more.
