Word: newscaster
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...operations salivate over. A 14-year-old boy had shot himself to death in a parked car beside a freeway moments after killing his mother in their suburban Minneapolis home. Like every other station in the Twin Cities, WCCO-TV gave the story prominent play on its early-evening newscast. But, astonishingly, the station showed none of the gruesome footage that was available -- a shot of the boy slumped in his car, another of his mother's covered body being carried from their home. Instead the story was told by old-fashioned talking heads: reporters describing the events; child therapists...
...what's really happening in society," says Joseph Angotti, a former senior vice president of NBC News and now a professor of communications at the University of Miami. According to a survey conducted by Angotti's students, one Miami station -- Fox affiliate WSVN -- devoted fully 49% of its newscast time to crime during a typical week last November. So notorious has WSVN's crime fixation become that nine South Florida hotels have decided to black out some or all of the station's programming in their 2,640 guest rooms...
...family-sensitive alternative in Miami is being offered by WCIX-TV, a CBS affiliate currently No. 4 in the ratings. A recent early-evening newscast, for instance, featured a story about the tearful homecoming of 43 local students who were on an Amtrak train that derailed in North Carolina. Yet there were no shots of the deadly accident. Says Allen Shaklan, the station's general manager: "Rubbernecking coverage -- the stuff that causes people to stop and turn in disgust -- we won't do when youngsters may be watching...
...family-sensitive approach is typically confined to early-evening newscasts, with stronger material reserved for late-night programs. At WCNC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina, however, the time lapse is only an hour: after a G-rated 5 p.m. show, the crime wave hits at 6 o'clock. The top story on a % recent 5 p.m. newscast concerned a local political candidate accused of doctoring his resume. Unmentioned was the discovery of a woman's dismembered body in a burning trash can; that was the lead story (sans graphic footage...
...announcement, and the affiliation shake-up could have more depressing ramifications. Ratings for the CBS Evening News, for example, already in the doldrums, could be further hurt if the network is forced to align itself with former Fox stations that, typically, do not have an early-evening newscast as a lead-in. In any case, the inevitable scramble for affiliates promises to be a no-win game for all three networks. "There's going to be a lot of churn at the networks," says Stringer. "Loyalty just went out the window. That isn't really good for broadcasting...