Quick! Tune your tv! It's the evening news for dummies
Last night we were getting ready for bed and turned on the 10 O'Clock News. Here in PDX that's KPTV which used to be our local independent station....now it's just astonishing. I know that somewhere in the past I've made disparaging comments about the tendency of television news stations to include glowing reports on their own network programs. Updates on the doings of American Idol stars particularly come to mind.
News for dummies is a mild description of what I saw last night. KPTV bills itself as "First, Live, Local". I would have said "First, Live, Ludicrous" was more accurate. In sequence, the news anchors gave an earnest report on an employee at a local Fred Meyer who was perhaps being disciplined for knocking down a bird's nest in the store and smashing baby birds. Admittedly a repugnant story but hardly worthy of getting on television. This was followed by a story on "The Invasion of the Voles". As best I could grasp through my laughter, voles are making their way north en masse. The next story was about Portland police working on the serious problem of whether the new slogan should be in a line on the car doors or in a circle around the Rose City emblem! Thank goodness that's being handled by competent law enforcement people. At the breaks for commercials, television news now runs 'teasers' on upcoming stories. I think if the time spent on the teasers was added up, there'd be time for twice as many car chases in the car chase segment. Last night the teaser story was about "dream weddings for doggies". The picture of two poodles dressed for a ceremony was shown at least three times. No mention was made of whether same sex marriages were allowed. The station was so enamored of this story that you can log onto KPTV.com to get more information! The news team next turned to national and international stories. They allotted somewhere around twenty seconds to tell us that there had been a major earthquake in northern Japan. The lead on the story was that tsunami warnings had been issued. The close on the story was that a four inch tsunami had hit Japan. In the allotted twenty seconds, this did not make any sense. But there was little time to dwell on things happening far away. The news team moved on. The car chase segment was particularly great. And there was the story about 'toddler terrorists', children whose names were on the 'no fly' list who were being turned away at airports across the country. To be fair, I can't blame the lunacy of that story on the news team.
All of this information is delivered with the cheery and earnest demeanor that suggests it has great import to you and your life. I'm feeling particularly glad I watched. I'm thinking if we could just get a four inch tsunami to roll over the southern part of the state it would solve the vole invasion and I wouldn't have to interrupt the police in their slogan design process.
I'd even have some time to arrange for my doggies to get married. If I had doggies.
Seriously.
News for dummies is a mild description of what I saw last night. KPTV bills itself as "First, Live, Local". I would have said "First, Live, Ludicrous" was more accurate. In sequence, the news anchors gave an earnest report on an employee at a local Fred Meyer who was perhaps being disciplined for knocking down a bird's nest in the store and smashing baby birds. Admittedly a repugnant story but hardly worthy of getting on television. This was followed by a story on "The Invasion of the Voles". As best I could grasp through my laughter, voles are making their way north en masse. The next story was about Portland police working on the serious problem of whether the new slogan should be in a line on the car doors or in a circle around the Rose City emblem! Thank goodness that's being handled by competent law enforcement people. At the breaks for commercials, television news now runs 'teasers' on upcoming stories. I think if the time spent on the teasers was added up, there'd be time for twice as many car chases in the car chase segment. Last night the teaser story was about "dream weddings for doggies". The picture of two poodles dressed for a ceremony was shown at least three times. No mention was made of whether same sex marriages were allowed. The station was so enamored of this story that you can log onto KPTV.com to get more information! The news team next turned to national and international stories. They allotted somewhere around twenty seconds to tell us that there had been a major earthquake in northern Japan. The lead on the story was that tsunami warnings had been issued. The close on the story was that a four inch tsunami had hit Japan. In the allotted twenty seconds, this did not make any sense. But there was little time to dwell on things happening far away. The news team moved on. The car chase segment was particularly great. And there was the story about 'toddler terrorists', children whose names were on the 'no fly' list who were being turned away at airports across the country. To be fair, I can't blame the lunacy of that story on the news team.
All of this information is delivered with the cheery and earnest demeanor that suggests it has great import to you and your life. I'm feeling particularly glad I watched. I'm thinking if we could just get a four inch tsunami to roll over the southern part of the state it would solve the vole invasion and I wouldn't have to interrupt the police in their slogan design process.
I'd even have some time to arrange for my doggies to get married. If I had doggies.
Seriously.
Comments
I've heard about the KPTV being really bad for the past few years, but I didn't know it was THAT bad!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA
P.S. I'm referring to an article in, I believe, the Willamette Week about 2 months ago... anyone else remember it?