Mixed message on urban violence

Call it the advantage of multiple news organizations reporting happenings – we get a more-thorough picture of reality.

Or perhaps it is the concept of dueling news organizations – with the various sides unable to agree on what they want the message to be. Which still results in a greater picture of what is occurring within our society.

THOUGHTS THAT RUN through my mind as I peruse reports by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBBM-TV – both of which purport to be about the levels of violent crime and murder that are occurring in Chicago.

With some individuals of a certain ideological leaning eager to want to believe that the city of Chicago is amongst the grubbiest, grossest, most violent places that exist within the United States – if not anywhere on Planet Earth.

Which is a gross exaggeration, although there are certain neighborhoods where the levels of violence seem so intense that we have to wonder how we as a people could ever have let conditions get so out of hand in those places. Although many of us choose to cope with such conditions by ignoring such places altogether.

The Sun-Times took the angle in a story published Monday that this very weekend that marks the half-way point through 2019 is yet another of a bloody morass that is modern-day Chicago.

THE HEADLINE ALONE says it all – 56 shot – 4 fatally – in Chicago over weekend.

With a subhead pointing out one incident alone on Saturday where five people were shot on the Near West Side, although in that incident, it should be noted that all five individuals were able to get themselves to area hospitals where they were ‘treated and released’ for their wounds.

Bloodshed galore. It’s a wonder we don’t have Donald Trump engaging in yet another Twitter-motivated rant about how gory Chicago has become.

But then, there was the CBS-operated station in Chicago, which came out with a story the same morning indicating the number of shootings in Chicago are down for 2019 – compared to the past.

ALTHOUGH WBBM-TV INDICATED that this was a particularly harsh weekend of violence in Chicago, overall, it seems there are signs of improvement.

Some 1,229 shootings in Chicago through Sunday – about 100 less than the first half of 2018 and lower than any year since 2015.

Also, we have 236 murders in Chicago thus far this year – which the TV reports indicate is 21 less than the fist half of last year.

And certainly might put Chicago at about 260 or so slayings for this year – if things continue at this rate. Far less than the recent years when the homicide totals reached 700 or more (or the late 1980s when Chicago would easily come close to 1,000 murders annually.

SO WAS THIS Chicago Police Department spin control in trying to give us a bigger picture about the amount of violence and crime occurring in Chicago? Or is it ideological prattle to come up with tales of how bloody and out-of-control the city was on this past weekend?

Or is it really evidence that “facts” can be found to justify any point of view one wants to take on just about any issue.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that some people use the story of urban violence in such ways as to confirm whatever ideological hang-ups they have about life and our society – wanting to further lambast whomever or whatever they have contempt for.

Then again, to those four people who were killed this weekend prior to Independence Day in Chicago this year, it WAS a most-tragic period of time – a moment that their families will forevermore mourn for its great loss!

  -30-

No news ‘anchor’ won’t bother me

On the one hand, I once remember hearing about someone in management at a news organization complain that the company would be so profitable on its current revenues, “if only we didn’t have to pay for reporters.”

On the other, I got a kick out of reading Variety, where television executive Lee Abrams saying, “we’re trying to get away from Barbie and Ken sitting behind a desk chit-chatting with each other with their nice teeth.”

ABRAMS IS THE senior vice president and chief innovations officer for Chicago-based Tribune Co., who is developing the idea known as “NewsFix” – which I would guess is meant to be the 21st Century take on a newcast format.

It is being mocked because Abrams’ format calls for no news anchor. There won’t be some perky blond paired up with a man (either an older white man to give a sense of experience, or a minority to provide a sense of ethnic balance) sitting behind a desk while giving us introductions to stories that were written by someone else.

We have had jokes that it will be an empty set. No people. Maybe even no reporters. The perfect cost-efficient newsroom run by nobody.

Actually, what it seems like is that the “anchor” will be reduced to just a voice, who will read transitions from story to story, which will largely consist of video clips. It seems like the idea of actual people putting together the news is what he wants to eliminate.

VARIETY (THE LONG-time newspaper of the entertainment industry) says Abrams in part is trying to create a newscast that replicates the experience one has when they log onto a computer and use the Internet to try to find out information about events taking place in the world today.

They skip about and go from story to story, often from site to site – incorporating various news organizations. The “anchor” that puts these stories into a coherent picture is the person’s own mind because they have a certain logic as to why they look for one story, then try to find something else they think is relevant, then perhaps stumble onto something unexpected while looking for yet a third news item.

It sounds like chaos, but I’m sure officials are figuring it will appeal to those people who want to think they’re not relying on anyone else’s news judgment but instead employing their own to make sense of the society around them.

If anything, it will take more news judgment on the part of television stations that use this new format to make the randomness of an Internet news search appear to be organized, rather than truly confusing to people.

IT JUST WON’T give people who work in television news broadcasting as much face time.

I’m sure that will be a blow to some professional broadcasters who went into television because their ego is assauged by the thought that everybody can see their face and that they have the potential to become mini-celebrities.

Yet I have to admit I don’t care.

The emphasis on the visual, no matter how trite, is why I never got into the idea of working in television news. There are times when I find the Barbie-like look of the female anchor that has become a part of every news equation these days to be a distraction from the content of the news copy she is reading.

WE DO RUN the risk of turning news shops into places where deep, booming baritone voices prevail, and those who can’t sound like the “voice of God” while reading the news will get weeded out of the news business – no matter how much they comprehend the copy that is before them.

There is one thing to keep in mind. Tribune Co. broadcasting may be Chicago-based, but we’re not going to see this on WGN-TV any time soon. Variety reported that the new format will be tried on the company’s station in Houston, and may be considered most likely for stations that are lingering at the bottom of the local ratings.

WGN has too much going for it these days to be tinkered with, whereas a “going nowhere” television station has nothing to lose if the reality of NewsFix turns out to be much more bizarre than the rhetoric we have heard.

If anything, it might be something that Tribune Co. would try in Chicago if they owned WBBM-TV, the station that last week told us their latest change is to bring back “Bill and Walter” as the anchors of one of their evening newscasts – hoping the masses will think it is once again the 1970s when Channel 2 News was the undisputed leader in local news broadcasting.

THAT COMPARISON DOES strike me as having one similarity – Channel 2 is going back, in part, to “the voice” of Bill Kurtis (whose voice is so prototypical anchorman-ish that he narrated the 2004 film “Anchorman” starring Will Ferrell) to help give their news credibility. Just envision if WBBM were to try a NewsFix using Kurtis as the voice of their narration?

A half hour of Kurtis giving us the news, minus one minute for a Perspective read by Walter Jacobson – giving us his latest take on how big a goofball Rod Blagojevich has become.

Sound ridiculous?

It certainly couldn’t be any worse than what the people of Houston will soon be subjected to when they tune in to KIAH-TV.

-30-

You can’t live in the past

I remember being a kid back in the 1970s with a mother who made a point of regularly watching the television news. And her newscast of choice was WBBM-TV.

As in the station of Bill and Walter. She was devoted to their take on the news, along with their colleagues such as Harry Porterfield, Brent Musberger, and the guy I most recall from that era, Bob Wallace – who used to do all kinds of feature-y pieces for the newscasts.

MY GUESS IS that the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Chicago has management who think the key to success in producing a ratings-successful local newscast is to bring back Bill and Walter, and count on old farts like myself (and my mother, who shifted over to WLS-TV news after WFLD-TV let Jacobson go a few years ago) to tune in for nostalgia’s sake.

That attitude worked last year, when Kurtis and Jacobson were used to anchor a single 10 p.m. newscast, with the idea being that they were fill-ins for regular news anchor Rob Johnson. It was a one-time stunt, it was cute, and it gave the station some attention.

Since then, WBBM has tried to feed off the nostalgia factor by having Jacobson do “Perspective” pieces on a regular basis – although nowhere near as detailed or lengthy as the Walter Jacobson Perspective of old where Walter would get all worked up after his camera crews caught some Streets and Sanitation workers asleep on the job.

Now, he does straight opinion pieces. There’s nothing wrong with that (since it pretty much is the same thing one gets if they regularly read this weblog). But in some ways, it is a shallow shadow of what we once got from Jacobson.

WHICH IS HOW I expect the new pairing of Kurtis/Jacobson as the anchors of the 6 p.m. newscast to play itself out. Those people who remember how comprehensive the Channel 2 News was back in the old days will be disappointed.

Those people who are too young to remember those old days will probably watch once, then wonder to themselves what the big deal was about the sight of a couple old white guys – one of whom looks as though he needs a booster chair in order to do his job. All the grey you'll see watching the Channel 2 News at 6 p.m. won't be due to black-and-white photography.

I’m not knocking the contributions of Kurtis and Jacobson to those old broadcasts I used to watch. They did set a tone of a serious newscast.

But when I think of those old newscasts, I find I remember the other players just as much. Porterfield’s “Someone you should know” segments, or the fact that Musberger literally was once the backup local sports guy (before he became a nationally-known CBS Sports anchor).

JOHN DRUMMOND’S MOB and crime reports before the “Bulldog” became a parody of himself. And yes, I literally remember those old stories done by Wallace, who always seemed to be at a food festival eating something for Channel 2 News.

Without substance to a newscast like that, it really doesn’t matter what Kurtis or Jacobson say or do. Not that I’m bashing the current news crew at WBBM. I’m sure they’re trying their best to do a not-completely-trivial newscast within the constraints of the economics of broadcasting today.

But the anchors can only do so much, if the boat itself doesn’t amount to much.

If anything, I think the most significant change in Channel 2 newscasts in recent months is not the addition of Kurtis or Jacobson. It was letting long-time political reporter Mike Flannery leave to take a job with Chicago’s Fox affiliate.

NOT THAT I think Flannery himself is significant enough to raise that station out of its doldrums. But it shows that Channel 2 might want to give the image of going back to the old days. But they were not willing to do what was needed to keep that one old asset that was still producing quality work for them.

There’s also the fact that many of the younger crowd (the ones that want to rant that television news is “dead” because you can watch the snippets on the Internet at your convenience) aren’t going to want to be reminded of the past.

If anything, they probably view the significant part of Thursday’s announcement as the bit that Kate Sullivan is leaving her job with WCBS-TV in New York to anchor the 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts in Chicago.

She talks about “returning” to the Midwest U.S. (she once worked for WSBT in South Bend, Ind.), yet I don’t sense any special knowledge about Chicago that will come from her.

NOT THAT IT will matter much. She has a certain “look” about her, which will be the illusion of authority to some (and an ability to make Internet-based pervs drool and post anonymous comments about her looks).

Which is an image that seems more important to broadcast news these days than any other factor – even a nostalgic trip back to the days when one of my all-time favorite television programs (Redd Foxx in “Sanford and Son”) was a big hit that I would watch right after the news.

-30-

Where’s Bob Wallace?

I’ll admit it. I watched WBBM-TV, Channel 2’s 10 p.m. newscast last week Friday just to see how the return (for a single night) of Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson would come off.

The reminiscing was intriguing, although I’m wondering how many 20-year-olds were turned off by being reminded of the significance of an era occurring before they even existed. Then again, who am I kidding?

TWENTY-YEAR-OLDS don’t watch television news, they just watch the clips of a story or two off the station website, before going to YouTube to find a “cool” video of somebody doing something stupid.

Clumsy cheerleaders, anyone?

I am old enough to remember the days when WBBM was a significant player in the Chicago news scene (and when the idea that “happy talk” WLS-TV, Channel 7 would ever top them would have been considered absurd).

When my mother and I watched the newscasts on television in my household during my youth, it was always Channel 2.

SO IT WAS nice to see the chatter between Kurtis and Jacobson and Harry Porterfield (before showing us that freaky magician doing that levitation trick with cigarettes). It was even amusing to hear the youthful sports anchor say he only got to be on the air that night because Johnny Morris was busy (although us real old-timers remember the days when Brent Musburger was the local sports guy who would have been covering Morris the football player for the Bears).

I chuckled when I learned that Jacobson’s “perspective” commentary about life these days at City Hall so got under Richard M. Daley’s skin that Hizzoner Jr. felt compelled to bash back. Like father, like son.

But I hope that WBBM officials have enough sense (they probably don’t, most television executives don’t) to realize the fact that they got a ratings boost that night (WBBM was Number Two in that timeslot with a 7.3 share, not that far behind WLS's 8.3 share) was exactly because the Kurtis/Jacobson pairing was a one-time event.

For better or worse, times have moved on. Trying to pretend we’re back in 1973 with Bill and Walter giving us the news from the ‘BBM newsroom (with Jacobson using a specially-crafted chair to cover up the fact that he is a height-challenged man) would fail.

THE GAG WOULD get old too quick.

Besides, in my mind, two factors were missing from Friday night. One would have been Mike Royko to write a newspaper column the next day finding some reason to puncture Jacobson’s pomposity.

The other was the absence of the one-time feature reporter, Bob Wallace, whose cutesy reports from assorted festivals and events across the Chicago area still linger in my mind some three decades later.

A part of me believes semi-seriously that WBBM hasn’t been the same since the day Wallace stopped covering food festivals for Channel 2 news.

-30-

We won’t see “Exposing Daley” soon

WBBM-TV seems to have found a new franchise – “Exposing Xxxx Xxxxxxxx.”

It was a few months ago (Nov. 29, 2007, to be exact) that the CBS-owned television station in Chicago aired “Exposing Rod Blagojevich,” a nearly 8-minute report (or about one-third of the total newscast) that detailed just how unpopular Gov. Rod Blagojevich has become.

MONDAY NIGHT, WE viewers of WBBM got to see political reporter Mike Flannery (with help from producer Ed Marshall – a long-time Chicago broadcaster who did a brief stint as former Illinois Comptroller Loleta Didrickson’s press secretary) do another similar report. This time, it was “Exposing Todd Stroger” – a 6-minute report that told us just how unpopular Cook County President Todd Stroger has become.

There wasn’t anything terribly new – or at least nothing that those of us who pay attention to the Chicago Sun-Times didn’t already know. Todd has several relatives and friends in mid- to high-ranking positions on the Cook County government payroll, all of who receive salaries of at least $100,000.

About the most interesting tidbit I got out of the WBBM report was that Stroger works out of a fancy office with an incredible view of Lake Michigan – just like a lot of other people who work in downtown Chicago.

THE LOGICAL NEXT step would be “Exposing Daley.” If one is going to go after the governor and the county board president, then “getting” the mayor of Chicago would be the natural completion to the trio of political powerhouses.

Somehow, I doubt there will be any such report.

Getting people to take pot shots at Blagojevich and Stroger is ridiculously easy. In fact, the trick for a reporter-type is to figure out which critics actually know what they’re talking about – and which are just sore losers.

TAKING SHOTS AT Daley is a different matter – Hizzoner Jr. has the ability to crush anybody who tries to speak out against him, which will inhibit the number of people willing to go on camera and talk political trash. WBBM would literally have to resort to putting Daley critics in the shadows and distorting their voices to even consider getting them to talk.

In short, it isn’t going to happen.

We have a better chance of seeing “Exposing Madigan” (take your pick, Mike or Lisa) or “Exposing Obama” before we see anyone go after the Man on Five.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: For those who missed it, “Exposing Stroger” will live on forever (http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/exposing.todd.stroger.2.722376.html) on the Internet.

“Exposing Blagojevich” was entertaining by television news standards, but it hardly broke much (http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/exposing.rod.blagojevich.2.598424.html) in the way of new ground.