Tag: CNN

Katrina Comes Ashore

I spent the night at Mohegan Sun, preparing to emcee and event for a few thousand teachers. It wasn’t a good night. My body doesn’t know whether it’s “Tuesday or Chestnut Street.”

I caught a few hours, but was up at four… drifting in and out of a light sleep until my wakeup call at 6:30.

This isn’t the hotel’s fault. This is a top notch hotel (more on that later). It was my body saying “Don’t treat me this way.”

Message received.

Up early, I started spinning the dial, looking for Hurricane Katrina coverage. It wasn’t tough to find. Seemingly everyone had a ‘cowboy’ out in the elements, flirting with disaster.

I saw Anderson Cooper, in the pouring rain, gesturing to a crane he said might topple.

Hey, Andy – get away from the crane. This is only television.

All in all I liked the local coverage I saw last night on WWL much better than what the national news showed. Obviously, their was a different purpose to each particular broadcast. I found WWL’s comforting.

Is that OK to say? Comforting was what was needed.

I moved downstairs to prepare for the event. In the featured speaker’s dressing room, a TV was showing CNN. My last contact with the storm this morning was the report that the roof of the Louisiana Superdome had been breeched.

I think the original story was worse than what actually happened. I would think it wasn’t hype but genuine concern from the anchors and reporters. I certainly was concerned.

Yesterday, I had written about what the forecasters might have been thinking. Today, one of those scenarios came true as the storm weakened prior to landfall and then jogged right, giving a more direct hit to Alabama and Mississippi than Louisiana.

New Orleans wasn’t totally laid to waste. There has been plenty of damage, and once we get out of the ‘fog of war’ we’ll find plenty more. The coasts of Alabama and Mississippi really took the brunt of Hurricane Katrina. That was more than expected.

After the fact, I still agree with the decision to empty out New Orleans. Yes, some people will crawl out of the woodwork to say they rode it out and it wasn’t that bad. That’s not the point.

Tonight I’ll drive home wearing my seatbelt, even though I don’t expect to get into an accident.

Blogger’s note: One of my fellow MSU students just started a new job, forecasting in New

Orleans! He sent a mass mailing to the class which I’ll attach after the jump.

Continue reading “Katrina Comes Ashore”

Roger Ailes And Fox

Roger Ailes, the Svengali of Fox News Channel, is taking on additional roles.

New York Times:

Roger E. Ailes, the media adviser to three Republican presidents who has been chairman of Fox News Channel since its inception nine years ago, was given an additional title yesterday: chairman of Fox Television Stations.

The appointment, which was announced by Fox’s parent, the News Corporation, gives Mr. Ailes oversight of Fox’s 35 broadcast television stations and a production studio, Twentieth Television.

Though Fox News has refers to itself as “Fair and Balanced,” common wisdom says it represents ‘right of center’ politics. And so, you may think Ailes will steer the Fox Network in that direction.

I don’t think so.

Seeing Fox News solely as an ideological brand is missing the point. Fox News has turned attitude and personality into high television art forms. There is nothing on the channel restrained or subdued. There are more well known people on Fox than CNN and MSNBC combined!

My guess (and it’s only a guess) that’s the biggest change Ailes will bring the the Fox stations.

Look for promotions to become bigger and bolder and more over-the-top than they are now. Look for more people driven, rather than concept driven programming.

It probably doesn’t make sense to politicize the Fox local stations, and I don’t expect to see that. I think Ailes job is to advance revenue, not advocate partisan politics.

Wait a year. We’ll see how insightful I am… or am not.

Deep Throat Revealed

I woke up this morning , flipped on the TV and saw a ‘breaking news’ banner at the bottom of the screen on CNN. Breaking news doesn’t proffer quite the same importance it once did, but it still got my attention.

Deep throat revealed – that was the gist of the story.

This just might have been the best kept secret in Washington, the identity of Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate source. Only four people knew for sure: Woodward, Bernstein, Ben Bradlee and Deep Throat himself… a claim now raised by W. Mark Felt.

Mark Felt was a high ranking FBI official. AP says he was number two at the bureau, putting him just below J. Edgar Hoover at the time.

His name has been linked to Deep Throat in the past, but he is not a high profile person. A quick Google search of “W. Mark Felt”&#185 shows only 292 hits. Even I’m better represented than that!

Woodward and Bernstein continued to protect their source until a few minutes ago when the Washington Post issued a confirmation. Over the years, as names were tossed out, they neither confirmed or denied what Felt today claimed. Before the confirmation, I was guessing, since this is in Vanity Fair which (in spite of its wimpy name) is very well respected for top notch writing and reportage, it’s true. I would expect this story has been well vetted.

Deep Throat’s tips were what broke open Watergate and finally brought down President Nixon. It is an excellent example of an unnamed source leading to credible journalism. Lately, unnamed sources have been under fire.

It’s funny that even today the White House offers up unnamed sources in a very structured way.

MR. McCORMACK: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the briefing you’ve all been waiting for — all day long. (Laughter and applause.) We have a senior administration official here who is going to be — has a few words to say about the President’s meetings with Prime Minister Singh of India and Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan. And then he’ll take a few questions from you.

With that, I’ll turn it over to our briefer.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hi. I’m the senior administration official. The President met with Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh this morning at 8:05 a.m. And he met with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at 3:00 p.m. And let me tell you a little bit about those two, and then I’ll take some questions.

That’s from an actual White House briefing as documented on the White House website.

The White House uses unnamed sources for the same reason they’re used elsewhere. Sometimes, people who know news that must get out just don’t have the ability to speak freely. I’d rather they weren’t used without additional attribution, but I believe inside sources… protected unnamed sources… are an important part of journalism.

Now, how the heck did they keep this a secret for so long?

&#185 – By putting my search in quotes, Google limits its results to only those pages with the exact text I’ve entered. Searching for W. Mark Felt without quotation marks yield millions of entries, but most of them aren’t on topic.

End of An Era

Lots of “had to’s” today. I had to drop Steffie’s car at the dealer. I had to pick up a disk from my friend Kevin. I had to go to work – not my usual Sunday plan.

That’s why I was in the car as we approached the top of the hour. This has always been my time to hit the network news. OK – I’m a living anachronism, but I still listen to network radio news on the hour anytime I’m in the car.

WCBS had the Yankees game, so I went to WQUN. They had a ballgame too. WAVZ, now mostly Air America talk shows and CNN Radio Network news was also in the middle of a baseball game. As I tuned and tuned, I could find no network news!

I can’t remember this ever happening before. I’ve always been able to find a NOTH and nearly always it was CBS.

It has been getting harder to find over time. I remember driving up I-95 in Ft. Lauderdale this past winter and being pleased to hear Bob Hardt’s network cast from ABC. I was pleased because of how sparse these newscasts have become.

There was a time when radio stations had to commit to presenting news in order to keep their license. As strange as it seems now, top-40 stations would pause every hour for a newscast. With all the outlets available today it probably isn’t as necessary.

Write it down – May 1, 2005. The first day I could no longer depend on network radio news. It’s a shame.

A Note To A Friend

Unfortunately, while in Atlanta, I missed seeing my friend Jodi who was out of town. She had been a producer here in Connecticut and is now high up the food chain at CNN.

Here’s what I wrote.

Dear Jodi,

I hope you had a great Passover. I’m sorry I couldn’t see you while I was at CNN. However, I knew you’d want me to make myself at home. It’s cool that your phone direct dials Burundi.

All my best to you and your family.

Geoff


Why Is This Man Smiling?

That’s Jeff Mielcarz on the left. He is the reason I’m in Atlanta this weekend. Tonight at 6:00 PM he’ll be marrying Lauren.

I had told him I wanted to visit The Weather Channel, where he works. He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Jeff, you’re getting married in a few hours. Wouldn’t you rather have someone else take me? Maybe there’s something you need to do?”

He was having none of that.

I met him at The Weather Channel at 1:00 PM. The Weather Channel is located in a nondescript modern office building in the Atlanta suburbs. There is a small sign at the entrance to the parking lot, but no signage on the building itself that I could see.

I snapped a few pictures of their satellite dishes before a guard came out to ask me to stop. He was pleasant, and I understood. I stopped.

Inside, the building is modern and nicely appointed. I’ve always felt you can judge a company solely by its lobby – and their lobby is nice with photos and awards, plus a split screen of some of their programming.

The studio itself is in a working newsroom, very much as it looks on the air. I was a little surprised by how connected it is to the working guts of the newsroom, where people were walking around and staying busy. The forecast area, in the back, is behind glass.

I saw a few people I recognized from TV, including Bob Stokes, Mark Mancuso and Stephanie Abrams. I think Mancuso was there when they went on the air! I also ran into Dr. Greg Forbes, their severe weather specialist.

The facility is very nice, don’t get me wrong. And, Jeff showed me where they’re geting ready to build a bigger studio. But, last night I was at CNN and this just doesn’t compare.

The Trip Continues

Getting to Philadelphia was no problem. It was leaving that seemed to be the sticking point.

I had a long layover in Philadelphia – over an hour and a half. The Embraer Regional Jet to Atlanta was in on time. We boarded on time. And then the announcement.

The pilot came on from the cockpit to tell us thunderstorms around Atlanta were going hold us up. It would be an hour until he found out when we’d be!” And, since the gate was needed for another plane, he’d drive to a quiet spot for us to wait.

I’d like to tell you the passengers protested, or the wait was interminable or some other tragic story of passenger pain, but it wasn’t that bad. We left Philadelphia about an hour and a half late.

I actually found the plane, an ERJ170, reasonably comfortable. Just like the Dash-8 I took from New Haven to Philadelphia, this plane had plenty of legroom in narrow seats. The interior was spartan and somehow European. The interior actually reminded me of a Fokker-100.&#185

Is it just me or is it weird to be on an airplane designed and built in Brazil?

The trip to Atlanta was bumpy, but uneventful. Getting off in Atlanta was another story. The terminal looked like a mall on the weekend before Christmas. It was jammed – as busy as any airline terminal I had ever visited.

Helaine had found a great deal for a medium size car from Avis. That ended up being a Chevy Malibu. It is possible there is a car that has less style, but I doubt it. It looks like it was designed and built with absolutely no anticipation anyone would actually want to own one. They were right.

My hotel is the Hilton Garden Inn – Perimeter in one of the many exurbs that ring Atlanta. This is actually a fairly nice hotel and a good value. And, along with everything else, there’s free high speed Internet service (though not enough signal at the desk in this room to use it from there).

This evening (a late evening) I joined Mark and Annie, both of whom I worked with at Channel 8, for dinner. I left it up to them and we went to Ted’s… owned by Ted Turner and featuring Bison meat!

We all had Bison burgers, which were very good. I also had New England clam chowder (could have been warmer and larger, but it was very tasty). This being Atlanta, Coca Cola’s world headquarters, I broke down and had a Coke, which was served from the glass bottle.

Next stop was CNN, where Mark and Annie now work. This is interesting because there are familiar views in the CNN Center that I’ve seen for years.

Visiting CNN at night, there were no on-air types to be seen. Most of their nighttime programming is from New York or Los Angeles (Larry King).

Actually, that gave me more of an opportunity to look around. Their newsroom, directly behind the news set, may be the most photogenic TV space I’ve ever been in.

Busy day. I’m going to bed.

&#185 – The Fokker 100 is a small, though older, regional jet. USAir used to fly them to Buffalo. They were quite comfortable, except for the low ceilings. They were low enough that I once asked a flight attendant if her assignment in this particular model was penance for something she had done?

Heading South

Today, I started getting ready for a quick trip to Atlanta. My friend Jeff, who used to work here but is now at The Weather Channel, is marrying Lauren. I’m looking forward to this because I like them both.

Jeff is the first of my friends to have met his wife-to-be online. If Lauren represents potential spouses on the Internet, a lot of people are going to be running to find their mate on the net. She’s a knockout.

I haven’t been to Atlanta in about a zillion years. The first time I was there was in the early 70s. I was flying to Charlotte, NC from West Palm Beach, FL. Charlotte got snowed in! Eastern Airlines paid to put me up in a motel. I met a girl from my flight and spent most of the evening with her… though less of the evening than I anticipated.

There won’t be much time to poke around, but a friend at CNN will give me the 50&#162 tour and the groom-to-be is taking me to The Weather Channel (though I still can’t figure out where he’ll find the time).

Part of the fun of this trip is the fact that I can leave and return through New Haven’s little airport. Though Atlanta’s dominant carrier, Delta, now flies to HVN, I’m going on USAir via Philadelphia. My first leg is on an 18 seat prop plane – something I don’t mind… though I know many do.

The advantage of Tweed-New Haven Airport is its tiny size. No crowds… or few crowds and easy access. The disadvantage is the number of flights and choice of non-stop destinations – two, Philadelphia and Cincinnati.

Global Warming

I watched Miles O’Brien’s CNN documentary on global warming this past weekend. Miles and I met at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena a few years ago. I’ve always enjoyed his space oriented science reporting. I was more than a little disappointed in this particular documentary&#185.

I knew where it was going as soon as I heard:

But now the scientific debate is largely over. There is overwhelming consensus that the threat is real, that humans are at least part of the cause, and that something must be done.

Maybe I missed the memo. I don’t think the debate is over, and I know I’m not alone in thinking that.

This all goes back to my view that the concept of global warming is being treated as both a scientific and political concept. I don’t mind hearing about the science, but most of the time it is a partisan political story, but portrayed as a scientific one.

Ask yourself, have you ever heard anything positive about global warming? In a true scientific discussion all the effects would be presented, not just the bad ones.

In any weather change scenario there will be winners and losers – but we only hear about the losers. You never hear about how much you’ll save in heating bills or how farmers in the Northern Plains and Siberia will get a longer growing season.

Is that a big deal? I’m not sure. But I’m sure growing season changes, or less need for heating oil in the industrialized world has to have more impact than what happens on Tuvalu – an island of a bit more than 10,000 people, that Miles spent lots of time on.

Among the operational, or forecasting, meteorologists I know, or whose opinions I read in online chat rooms, most are skeptical about the whole concept. Meteorologists involved in research or theoretical meteorology are more likely to be enamored with the concept.

Recently, one of the skeptics wrote on medialine.com:

Here are just a few things I deal with or have dealt with in forecasting: We still cannot find and correct the cool bias in summer and warm bias in winter of the Great Lakes within forecast models. I have computer models showing me highs today and this weekend in the mid to upper 40’s with a wind off 33 degree lake water. We know the lake temp. It is factored into the models, even our local meso models, and still it cannot forecast an accurate temp. The Great Lakes, I believe, have been here as long as modern Meteorology.

He’s right. Temperatures are very tough to forecast, even when we have a total understanding of the initializing conditions. We’re not aways right, even when we don’t need to make assumptions, as we do for most global warming scenarios.

The whole concept of global warming throws many variables into the mix. It’s not just the greenhouse gases, but also the offshoots of any warming, like cloudiness or increased water vapor in the atmosphere. Many of the individual variables are working against each other. Many are not properly or totally accounted for.

I’ve told this story here before. While sitting on an airplane, waiting to take off from the Tampa Airport, I looked at the sky. It was overcast.

When I looked closer, I realized the clouds were airplane contrails that had become diffuse with the weak upper air winds over Florida. These ‘clouds’ were unpredicted. They certainly changed the heat budget below them.

How did the computer models we use for forecasting handle them? I asked a friend, someone familiar with numeric weather prediction. His simple answer was, they’re not taken into account at all.

I am not doubting that greenhouse gases can make a difference, or that the greenhouse concept is, by itself wrong. Get into a parked car on a warm sunny day. That’s greenhouse warming at its finest!

All I’m saying is, there are lots of people speaking with total clarity about a subject on which, in my opinion, the jury is still out. And, they’re doing it using forecasting techniques that only see part of the picture.

&#185 – CNN provides online transcripts for many of their shows, including this documentary.

Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather – I Understand

There has been a lot of talk about Walter Cronkite’s CNN interview and his answer to questions about Dan Rather.

“Although Dan did a fine job, I would have liked to have seen (Schieffer) there a long time ago,” Cronkite said during an interview on CNN. “He would have given the others a real run for their money.”

“It surprised quite a few people at CBS and elsewhere that, without being able to pull up the ratings beyond third in a three-man field, that they tolerated his being there for so long,” he told CNN.

You might expect Cronkite, still a member of the CBS board, to be a little more charitable… be more of a team player. I didn’t. In fact, I am surprised this kind of talk didn’t happen earlier.

Thinking back, my recollection is Dan Rather putting on the pressure and forcing CBS to move Cronkite out. Roger Mudd, who was passed over in this bloodless coup, bolted and went to NBC.

From Mike Straka on foxnews.com

According to the late ABC News and Sports president Roone Arledge’s autobiography “Roone: A Memoir,” Rather used ABC as a negotiating chip to force CBS’s hand to install him as the anchor of CBS Evening News six months earlier than Cronkite had planned to retire. This was at a time when Cronkite was considered the most trusted man in America.

What’s the old line? Be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They’re the same people you’ll meet on the way down.

Michael Jackson – What You Missed

I assume most people were away from television sets as the court in Santa Maria waited for Michael Jackson. Here’s one little thing you missed. CNN put a countdown clock on the screen!

It was as if Michael Jackson’s appearance was a sporting event. Would Michael get that three point shot off before the buzzer?

In a trial centered around a very unusual person, this was a very unusual effect.

The Oscars

All week long I watched as Matt Drudge tried his best to stir up controversy with this year’s Oscar host, Chris Rock. Even after Rock opened the show, getting a standing ovation (sort of shooting Drudge’s concerns in the foot) and then asking the audience to put their asses in their seats, Drudge felt compelled to rail again. The show was still in progress and he was going off on Rock!

The must be some sort of Drudge grudge at work here.

I’m a big Chris Rock fan and I thought his opening monologue was great. OK, maybe he hit Jude Law a little hard, but the rest was really funny and I laughed aloud though I was watching in a room by myself. Of course the very stuff I liked was creamed in USA Today and lambasted last night by one of my co-workers, who was not favorably impressed.

The rest of the show was watched by me in ‘collapsed’ form off the DVR.

It was a fairly lackluster telecast. I was disappointed there wasn’t more of Rock in his other appearances during the evening. He needed to do more than hit and run. There needed to be one or two more extended pieces with him. That being said, I hear the ratings were very, very good. So, obviously, I’m not as good a judge as I’d like to be.

I was touched by the acceptance speeches of Morgan Freeman, Hillary Swank (“I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream”) and Jamie Foxx. Then, this morning on CNN Headline News, I heard someone say Foxx had given the virtually same acceptance speech at two other awards shows. That’s not right.

Winner of the “David Niven Funniest Ad Lib Award” went to Jeremy Irons. Chris Rock introduced him, as “comedy superstar,” to which Irons replied, “It’s so good to be recognized at last.”

Then, as he was delivering his nominations, a sound… something like a gunshot, rang out. Without missing a beat, Irons said, “I hope they missed.” His timing was perfect.

Last night’s taped pieces, including the Johnny Carson tribute and annual “death medley,’ weren’t as good as I wanted, or had come to expect from the Oscars. Whoopie Goldberg was used in the Carson package, but why not Billy Crystal and Steve Martin, two recent hosts who had a lot of contact with Johnny.

I was also stunned that “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” won an Oscar. As I had written last April, it was one of the worst movies I had ever seen. What were they thinking when they made it and voted on it?

What strikes me as most interesting as bout the show was the rise in the ratings this year even on a night where few movies produced any kind of passionate following.

I wonder if Billy Crystal will be back next year?

Sunday With The Supremes

I still have to write yesterday’s entry about Florida and my trip back. I was just just mentally exhausted yesterday and couldn’t.

This early afternoon, as I was laying in bed, I popped the TV on and began to channel surf. I stopped at C-Span.

I make no claims as an intellectual and C-Span is something I seldom watch longer than 20 seconds. Mostly C-Span is deadly – boring beyond words. It is the worst of TV talking heads.

The guests or people giving talks and speeches are ten miles deep and two inches wide. In other words, they know a whole lot about a very narrow subject. Normally it is a subject that has no draw for me.

Today it was the opposite and it was one of the most revealing, uplifting discussions I have ever seen. I watched a moderated conversation between Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Steven Breyer.

If you’re not a Supreme Court watcher, these two are polar opposites. Scalia sits on the far right and Breyer is equidistant to the left. On top of that, Supreme Court justics are seldom seen ‘in the wild,’ and never seen debating.

It is obvious these men are brilliant scholars who understand the weight of their charge. They are fond of each other – respectful of each other’s different opinion.

To hear them speak and weigh their points is to understand the power and beauty of our Supreme Court. Though it would be impossible to agree with both of them, it is important we have both of them. The Supreme Court needs a diversity of opinion, though its collective leaning will shift with shifting political tides.

Not to cheapen the Supreme Court, but isn’t this kind of discussion that Crossfire &#185 should have been? The more people who hear this kind of repartee, the stronger a country we’ll be. Of course you’ve got to get them to stop at C-Span for a few minutes.

&#185 – Crossfire, a CNN mainstay for decades, has recently been canceled.

Fewer Killings… Not So Fast

I wanted to do this earlier when I saw Jean Meserve interview New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly on CNN. I forgot. Then a moment ago, I was reminded when I went to the Washington Post website and saw a headline that said, “Killings in D.C. Fewest Since ’86.”

That very well may be true. It’s certainly what Kelly said about New York. It just doesn’t begin to tell the whole story.

A major reason murders are down is because hospitals are able to save more people. I’m not saying it’s the only reason or the biggest reason – because I don’t know. But if statistics came out to say it was the biggest contributing factor, I wouldn’t be surprised.

That Kelly didn’t acknowledge this, nor is it mentioned in the Post story is not surprising. I would have never thought of it myself had I not been tipped off by a doctor friend who works in the E.R.

Today, there is more critical care that can be delivered faster and more precisely than ever before. Hospitals are better equipped. Ambulances are better staffed and equipped. Communications are better than ever.

I really think the more telling statistic is “how many people were shot compared to prior years?” I wonder if that’s even kept?

Chicago Fire Gets Little National Coverage

A fire broke out this evening in an older high rise office building in Chicago. At work we watched live feeds of the action. It was very compelling video with flames coming out the windows and people scurrying around not far from the danger (and as it turned out there were many injuries, including some injured firemen).

ABC and the other ‘legacy’ networks were in entertainment programming. This is not the type of story that would have ever caused them to break in. The same is not true for the cable news networks, so I flipped my tuner to Channel 31 and started at MSNBC.

They were in talk programming. I think it was Deborah Norville&#185. On Channel 32, Fox had Hannity and Colmes yapping away. Brooke Shields was with Larry King on CNN, Channel 33.

If any of them covered the fire, it was during headline breaks. I came looking because I wanted to see continuous coverage. I found no coverage.

I know these shows are repeated later in the evening and I assume breaking news makes it much more difficult to run them intact during West Coast prime time. Still, this was the bread and butter of cable news a few years ago.

I’ll bet if any one of them would have broken in, they all would have.

&#185 – I loved Deborah Norville when she was on the radio. She was really charming and quite witty. I’m not sure I’ve ever watched more than 10 consecutive seconds of any of her TV shows. Isn’t it strange how that works?