RE: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
Directv currently has WJLA up on one of its channels with non stop coverage. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
I got my wires crossed there. Right city, wrong company. Atypical of me to blame the victim. On Aug 27, 2011, at 7:50 PM, Scott Fouru pedeg...@gmail.com wrote: As usual, Melissa knows a lot. The May Company was a St Louis institution, until they were purchased by Federated Department Stores [FDS], of Cincinnati. After their assimilation of all the upper-mid- market department store retailing in the US was complete, they changed their corporate name to reflect the best known name of all their divisions and became simply Macy's Inc [NYSE: M]. Before that change, they renamed all the acquired stores which were not closed due to market overlap or antitrust concerns to Macy's and now only operate two store brands: Macy's and Bloomingdale's. Further irrelevant sidebar: Macy's is, AFAIK, only one of two major US retailers which still owns its own credit card portfolio. __ On Aug 27, 5:17 pm, Melissa P takingupspace...@gmail.com wrote: St. Louis, I thought. And, I thought Macy's bought May. But what do I know. -Original Message- From: tvornottv@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvornottv@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bill Partsch Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 6:00 PM To: tvornottv@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] NO TV: Hurricane Info Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the May Co., owner of Macy's and eraser of Marshall Field, Famous Barr, Stern's and a host of other local retail stalwarts, headquartered in Cincinnati? -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
[TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
Did the NYC govt ever issue further evac orders beyond Zone A? We lost power at dad's house ~11.15 east, but it was only out till ~2.45, apparently. Dad was unusually up at that hour, desperately trying to win a penny auction, but his bids were still only in the sub- dollar range when the cutoff occurred... ended up the item went for ~ $2.50. Not much outage in town, except probably downtown by the still-rising river. We're well above flooding areas. -- BOB -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Bob in Jersey bob.in.jer...@juno.com wrote: Did the NYC govt ever issue further evac orders beyond Zone A? We lost power at dad's house ~11.15 east, but it was only out till ~2.45, apparently. Dad was unusually up at that hour, desperately trying to win a penny auction, but his bids were still only in the sub- dollar range when the cutoff occurred... ended up the item went for ~ $2.50. Not much outage in town, except probably downtown by the still-rising river. We're well above flooding areas. No, they mandated evacuation of Zone A on Friday, and never did Zone B or C. Turns out all of the calm and rational advice I received here and online was correct; If you lived in Manhattan in Zone A you really were better off getting out of there (some buildings were full of water by this morning); otherwise, just make sure you have enough supplies and stay inside for the 24 hours, and you will be fine. One of the many flaws in CNN's coverage was significant misinformation among its reporters. For example, Soledad O'brien, who was reporting from the Meat Packing district near the Hudson River, kept saying that Zone A (where she was reporting from) was a mandatory evac area, while Zone B was a strongly recommended but voluntary evac area. I am quite sure this is mistaken - I called a number of places on Friday and asked this question specifically - Zones B and C were not recommended to evacuate at any time - in fact, to the extent that there was any official recommendation for people in these Zones, it was to shelter in place unless and until ordered to evacuate. Another mistake repeatedly made by Soledad and several other CNN reporters was saying, very authoritatively, that while the rain and wind had not hit Manhattan very hard up to that point, we KNOW it is going to get really bad soon. Not only did that never happen (the last time she said that she was in fact experiencing the rain as bad as it would get - I guess the wind might have gotten worse on the back side of the storm, I'm not sure, but by then and real threat to Manhattan was past) but the weather expert on CNN had already said several times on her air that it was not going to get much worse. CNN's coverage got better when Candy Crowly (sp?) came on and did a real job anchoring the coverage, providing some cohesion and perspective, which Cooper was unable to do for whatever reason from his location (she seemed to be outside too, but also seemed to have access to a monitor and maybe a computer hooked to the internet, since she knew more stuff than the viewer, while Cooper most of the time seemed to know less stuff than the viewer). -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
Howie Kurtz, who I guess did not have a show this morning, dumps on the
media hype of Irene
{
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/28/hurricane-irene-hype-how-the-media-went-overboard.html
}
Excerpts:
But the apocalypse that cable television had been trumpeting had failed to
materialize. And at 9 a.m., you could almost hear the air come out of the
media’s hot-air balloon of constant coverage when Hurricane Irene was
downgraded to a tropical storm. Not everyone was willing to accept this turn
of events. When the Weather Channel’s Brian Norcross told MSNBC that
forecasters had been expecting the first hurricane to make landfall in New
York City since 1893—“and it didn’t happen”—anchor Alex Witt was openly
skeptical.Really, Brian?” she asked. Hadn’t Irene technically still been a
hurricane when it came ashore in New York an hour earlier? “Can’t we still
go with that?” No, Norcross said. (SNIP)
I take nothing away from the journalists who worked around the clock, many
braving the elements, to cover a hurricane that was sweeping its way from
North Carolina to New England. But the tsunami of hype on this story was
relentless, a Category 5 performance that was driven in large measure by
ratings. Every producer knew that to abandon the coverage even briefly—say,
to cover the continued fighting in Libya—was to risk driving viewers
elsewhere. (SNP)
***
I was actually watching MSNBC during the exchange Howie comments on above -
to be fair, Witt's tone was rather ironic and self-aware, so it was not as
bad as he is making it out to be, but there is a lot of truth in what he
says. The cablesters had clearly smoked their own shit, and were bummed they
were not going to have an Anderson Cooper, Katrina-like moment.
I don't mind them making viewers aware of the worse case scenarios, and
encouraging viewers in the region to be prepared for them - that is only
prudent. I have minded, a great deal, their tendency to confuse the worse
case scenario with the most likely or modal scenario, and skewing all of
their coverage in that direction. They also did a lot of cherry-picking of
extreme images - something we know TV news does almost as a function of what
it is. During the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 (which I always recall
vividly in part because the same 22 year old daughter I have been worrying
about this weekend in Manhattan was a three month old infant in my arms when
it struck while I was watching the Giants and As play what for us was a huge
World Series) the national news played on seeming endless loop shots of the
Bay Bridge collapsing and the Marina on fire and a few other money shots,
giving many in the country the impression that San Francisco was on the
brink of falling apart (we had many relatives calling in a panic). The fact
was that, while there were a few isolated areas in extremis, the vast
majority of San Francisco was either just fine or only moderately impaired.
In the same way, once the media realized that there would not be a lot of
images of hipsters and investment bankers floating down the main streets of
Manhattan on make-shift rafts, they spent almost all of their time showing
images of a relatively few areas of relatively moderate river spillage
(hyping it to the max, a la Joe, is the river overflowing the banks? Joe:
Yes, I can report that the waters of the Hudson river are at this moment
rushing into the streets of Manhattan). I saw almost no video of the 98% of
river frontage and Manhattan streets that were not overflowing or flooded.
They also showed a lot of admittedly dramatic footage from Long Beach, with
sea water flooding under the boardwalk into the streets (but no context as
to how deeply into the city the streets were flooded) - which, as Howie
writes, but was never once reported during the many continuous hours I
watched the live coverage of these images through the early morning hours:
Long Beach, it should be noted, is a narrow barrier island three feet above
sea level and prone to flooding.
I am not pretending Casablanca like surprise that cable news outlets hype
their stories to get ratings at the expense of reporting important
information, but I guess I am surprised at how relentlessly they did this in
what could have been serious and life-threatening situations, and I guess I
am pissed since, selfishly, in this case I had skin in the game and so felt
obliged to expose myself to their shameful tactics (and was emotionally
vulnerable to them, however cynical I tried to make myself).
--
TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People!
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Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 1:46 PM, donz5 do...@aol.com wrote: (SNIP) Channel surfing throughout the night and morning, I found that: (1) CNN simply sucks, for all the reasons previously stated, plus I realize that I can no longer stand Wolf Blitzer. (SNIP) (2) MSNBC wasn't much better -- too bright and brittle; ok for me for political coverage but for this. (SNIP) (4) WABC: I agree -- they had the best shots, but the reporting was mediocre. (6) WNBC: to me, the best of the lot. (SNIP) Thanks Donz.I agree with all of the above, except that I was not able to get the WNBC feed over the internet (it kept asking me to restart my browser to get something like 32 bit something, and I did not want to take the time to do that). Somebody else told me that was the best local coverage to monitor, and maybe in retrospect I should have done it. I switched between CNN and MSNBC, but did not think to check out NBC (much of this was like 2 and 3 in the morning out here) and then read that the Today crew was covering the story there. Take it you are safe and sound. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 3:46 PM, donz5 do...@aol.com wrote: (SNIP) Also, I liked how some of the on-the-scene reporters adjusted in their performances: When they were on MSNBC, they evoked formal, serious; but on WNBC, they came across as familiar, friendly. I'm thinking specifically of Ann Thompson and Matt Taibbi. (SNIP) If that's the Anne Thompson from NBC, then I'm thrilled, having been a huge fan of hers from her days in Detroit at WDIV. She was much beloved for her reporting back then, and I'm glad she's still got the proverbial chops. On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:31 PM, David Lynch djly...@gmail.com wrote: Kurtz gets a huge benefit from the fact that, as a media critic, he pretty gets to wait until the storm is over and then tell people they did it wrong. I wouldn't say that New York dodged a bullet, but it turned out to be a much smaller caliber than it could have been. The prediction was for a category two storm on Friday morning, if not later. If the reverse had come to pass -- that Irene was forecast to weaken to a tropical storm just as it hit NYC but actually was a category 2 hurricane, I'm sure he'd be complaining that there wasn't enough attention being given to Irene before it came and caused billions in damage. And, honestly, when you look at the accuracy of the forecasts for Irene relative to the statistics, the National Hurricane Center (who absolutely everyone relies on heavily when it comes to forecasting hurricanes) did a hell of a job with this one. Irene got more coverage than it might have if not for hitting New York, but I think that the prediction of a category 2 storm hitting a major metropolitan area would have been big news, even if it had been somewhere like Miami or Houston that would shrug off a less-intense cyclone. By the time it became clear that Irene was going to be somewhat weaker than had been forecast, it was too late to ratchet down the hype machine. Anchors had been called in on a weekend, reporters sent out into the field, satellite trucks rented, etc. etc. so the show must go on and they had to make do with what they could find. I've also gotten the impression that flooding has been much worse in the suburbs than in the city itself, which, of course, means it's ignored. I completely and totally disagree. This is a common excuse: We've sent a reporter, so we might as well use the video, even if it there's nothing there. Now let me introduce you to someone called an editor, who, in theory, should be able to make what are called editorial decisions in what you use and what you don't. You'd ideally like a grownup in that chair. Now, I'm aware that this is not what usually happens in real life, but you know what? I think it's okay to hold people to a little higher standard. I have a Facebook friend who posted a link to a huge climate change denier who proceed to say that it really wasn't a hurricane because he found four random data points that showed onshore winds at less than 50 MPH, so therefore the media *and* the government were lying. I said (in a much larger form), You're really going to argue that NOAA is lying? At which point she said Well, I mean the media's lying. And I don't trust a government official. This is what the behavior leads to: people just start believing that everything's a lie. There's, of course, no right answer. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 2:31 PM, David Lynch djly...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 14:27, PGage pga...@gmail.com wrote:
Howie Kurtz, who I guess did not have a show this morning, dumps on the
media hype of Irene
{
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/28/hurricane-irene-hype-how-the-media-went-overboard.html
}
Kurtz gets a huge benefit from the fact that, as a media critic, he pretty
gets to wait until the storm is over and then tell people they did it wrong.
I wouldn't say that New York dodged a bullet, but it turned out to be a much
smaller caliber than it could have been. The prediction was for a category
two storm on Friday morning, if not later. If the reverse had come to pass
-- that Irene was forecast to weaken to a tropical storm just as it hit NYC
but actually was a category 2 hurricane, I'm sure he'd be complaining that
there wasn't enough attention being given to Irene before it came and caused
billions in damage. And, honestly, when you look at the accuracy of the
forecasts for Irene relative to the statistics, the National Hurricane
Center (who absolutely everyone relies on heavily when it comes to
forecasting hurricanes) did a hell of a job with this one.
Irene got more coverage than it might have if not for hitting New York, but
I think that the prediction of a category 2 storm hitting a major
metropolitan area would have been big news, even if it had been somewhere
like Miami or Houston that would shrug off a less-intense cyclone. By the
time it became clear that Irene was going to be somewhat weaker than had
been forecast, it was too late to ratchet down the hype machine. Anchors had
been called in on a weekend, reporters sent out into the field, satellite
trucks rented, etc. etc. so the show must go on and they had to make do with
what they could find. I've also gotten the impression that flooding has been
much worse in the suburbs than in the city itself, which, of course, means
it's ignored.
I think I dispute some of this David. While the storm was predicted to be
Category 2 when it hit North Carolina (and I believe that is what happened),
as early as Friday morning lots of experts were saying that it would likely
be Category 1 by the time it got to NYC - and some were saying it might even
be Tropical Storm by then, which it was (caveat here, my Friday morning is 3
hours earlier than NY Friday morning, so that might be part of the
discrepancy). This is what I mean by the cablers regularly confusing worst
case scenarios (it might be Category 2) with most likely scenarios (which by
Friday morning I believe was Category 1).
Additionally, the point of critics like Howie (and myself) is not that this
was a non-story, or not deserving of high-volume coverage (it was an
important story, and justified a lot of investment of resources and time in
coverage). The point is that the nature of the coverage was focused on
fanning anxiety in order to create viewer interest and decrease viewer
turn-over during commercials. Instead of providing sober reportage that
viewers could consume on as needed basis, they are motivated to create
viewer dependency on their coverage by over-emphasizing the most dramatic
and frightening aspects of the story.
I don't blame CNN for making me stay up all night watching a glorified
weather report 3000 miles away from home - my own neurotic anxiety about a
(newly) grown child is the source of that, and I take responsibility for it.
I do blame them for giving me a distorted understanding of what was going on
3000 miles away, and significantly complicating the planning and
decision-making process for the event. By Friday night we (my wife and I)
were pretty clear the Hurricane would not be Category 2 by the time it got
to NYC, and were just trying to figure out how extensive the fall out from a
Category 1 would be. It turns out CNN knew pretty accurately what the
Category 1 fall out would be, and new it would likely be Category 1 or
higher, but spent the vast majority of its on air time talking about what
the Category 2 consequences - without even doing us the service of clearly
labeling what they were doing. I repeatedly found myself Friday afternoon
and evening trying to resolve what seemed like an unacknowledged
contradiction between what almost all of the experts interviewed on CNN were
saying (this will be a Cat 1 or Trop Storm by the time it gets to NYC) and
the near hysterical commentary/advice from CNN reporters and anchors that
people should be getting out of lower Manhattan (with little or nor
attention to the subtleties of which Zone people were in). Relatively few
people in Manhattan, and even in lower Manhattan, live in the Zone A areas,
so this seemed that CNN was saying that even if you are not in Zone A, the
smart thing to do was to evacuate. It took me a while, but I eventually
figured out that this was not accurate, and that unless you were in Zone A,
the smart thing to do was stay home.
--
TV or
RE: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
He also made a cameo appearance on the NBC affiliate here where he made fun of reporter Pat Collins' hat: http://www.nbcwashington.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Brian_Williams_on_Pat_Collins _Washington_DC-128560243.html BTW fortunately I didn't lose power, but Comcast service has been intermittent all day. -Original Message- From: tvornottv@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvornottv@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of donz5 Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2011 4:47 PM To: TVorNotTV Subject: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info The highlight, for me, was Brian Williams' cameo walk-on described earlier; he pretty much ended up doing his stand-up, cracking up much of the staff. And today he filled in solo for an hour at 1 PM. Classy guy. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
OTOH Nate Silver just tweeted: Per my research, which I'll be writing up later, Irene received only the 13th most media coverage among Atlantic hurricanes since 1980. http://twitter.com/#!/fivethirtyeight Will be interesting to read his analysis, though given a background norm of media over-hype, this does not really counter the criticisms I have had of the coverage (which I don't think was too much in volume, but too histrionic in tone). -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
[TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
It was more than fictional. Benny was playing the Orpheum in Los Angeles and would frequent the May Company store across Broadway to court Sadie Marks, whom he had known from Seattle (she had a crush on him and he had ignored her). Legend has it that he bought so much hosiery from her she set a store record. --Dave Sikula On Aug 28, 12:18 am, Michael mikethekn...@gmail.com wrote: Apropos of nothing but TV-related stuff, Jack Benny's wife/girlfriend Mary Livingston was said to work at the May Company in L.A. as part of Benny's fictionalized comedy life on his program. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 16:54, PGage pga...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 2:31 PM, David Lynch djly...@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 14:27, PGage pga...@gmail.com wrote:
Howie Kurtz, who I guess did not have a show this morning, dumps on the
media hype of Irene
{
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/28/hurricane-irene-hype-how-the-media-went-overboard.html
}
Kurtz gets a huge benefit from the fact that, as a media critic, he pretty
gets to wait until the storm is over and then tell people they did it wrong.
I wouldn't say that New York dodged a bullet, but it turned out to be a much
smaller caliber than it could have been. The prediction was for a category
two storm on Friday morning, if not later. If the reverse had come to pass
-- that Irene was forecast to weaken to a tropical storm just as it hit NYC
but actually was a category 2 hurricane, I'm sure he'd be complaining that
there wasn't enough attention being given to Irene before it came and caused
billions in damage. And, honestly, when you look at the accuracy of the
forecasts for Irene relative to the statistics, the National Hurricane
Center (who absolutely everyone relies on heavily when it comes to
forecasting hurricanes) did a hell of a job with this one.
Irene got more coverage than it might have if not for hitting New York,
but I think that the prediction of a category 2 storm hitting a major
metropolitan area would have been big news, even if it had been somewhere
like Miami or Houston that would shrug off a less-intense cyclone. By the
time it became clear that Irene was going to be somewhat weaker than had
been forecast, it was too late to ratchet down the hype machine. Anchors had
been called in on a weekend, reporters sent out into the field, satellite
trucks rented, etc. etc. so the show must go on and they had to make do with
what they could find. I've also gotten the impression that flooding has been
much worse in the suburbs than in the city itself, which, of course, means
it's ignored.
I think I dispute some of this David. While the storm was predicted to be
Category 2 when it hit North Carolina (and I believe that is what happened),
as early as Friday morning lots of experts were saying that it would likely
be Category 1 by the time it got to NYC - and some were saying it might even
be Tropical Storm by then, which it was (caveat here, my Friday morning is 3
hours earlier than NY Friday morning, so that might be part of the
discrepancy). This is what I mean by the cablers regularly confusing worst
case scenarios (it might be Category 2) with most likely scenarios (which by
Friday morning I believe was Category 1).
I just looked through the NHC archive and it's less clear about the strength
than I remember seeing, so it could be that my memory or some forecaster I
saw/heard/read confused could be category 2 and will be category 2. The
5 AM EDT advisory from Friday -- which the east coast woke up to --
predicted a strong category 2 over Albemarle Sound, NC on the wee hours of
Sunday and a tropical storm over western Maine on the wee hours of Monday,
with no intermediate predictions. (This was when Irene was still supposed to
hit NC as a major hurricane.) By 11 AM Eastern (8 AM Pacific), they had a
forecast point just offshore from Atlantic City, or 70 miles due south of
the southern tip of Staten Island, with an intensity right near the cat
1/cat 2 line. I wouldn't rule out a category 2 storm over/near NYC from
either of these forecasts, but it's not explicit.
Additionally, the point of critics like Howie (and myself) is not that this
was a non-story, or not deserving of high-volume coverage (it was an
important story, and justified a lot of investment of resources and time in
coverage). The point is that the nature of the coverage was focused on
fanning anxiety in order to create viewer interest and decrease viewer
turn-over during commercials. Instead of providing sober reportage that
viewers could consume on as needed basis, they are motivated to create
viewer dependency on their coverage by over-emphasizing the most dramatic
and frightening aspects of the story.
I disagree with your interpretation of his piece here. When he makes
comments like Every producer knew that to abandon the coverage even
briefly—say, to cover the continued fighting in Libya—was to risk driving
viewers elsewhere, that's not about the tone of the coverage, it's about
the quantity of coverage. He does take them to task for their tone as well,
but that wasn't the only thing he criticized.
I don't blame CNN for making me stay up all night watching a glorified
weather report 3000 miles away from home - my own neurotic anxiety about a
(newly) grown child is the source of that, and I take responsibility for it.
I do blame them for giving me a distorted understanding of what was going on
3000 miles away, and significantly complicating the planning and
[TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
Cool. As it happens, Mary (Sadie) has a star on Hollywood Blvd. near the entrance to the Outpost Building where I occasionally worked for a production company over the past few years. By the way, Mary's star is right near a star dedicated to Benny's frenemy Fred Allen and the stars of two tragic H-wood figures: Fatty Arbuckle and George Reeves. On Aug 28, 4:26 pm, Dave Sikula dsik...@yahoo.com wrote: It was more than fictional. Benny was playing the Orpheum in Los Angeles and would frequent the May Company store across Broadway to court Sadie Marks, whom he had known from Seattle (she had a crush on him and he had ignored her). Legend has it that he bought so much hosiery from her she set a store record. --Dave Sikula On Aug 28, 12:18 am, Michael mikethekn...@gmail.com wrote: Apropos of nothing but TV-related stuff, Jack Benny's wife/girlfriend Mary Livingston was said to work at the May Company in L.A. as part of Benny's fictionalized comedy life on his program. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
[TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
As usual, Melissa knows a lot. The May Company was a St Louis institution, until they were purchased by Federated Department Stores [FDS], of Cincinnati. After their assimilation of all the upper-mid- market department store retailing in the US was complete, they changed their corporate name to reflect the best known name of all their divisions and became simply Macy's Inc [NYSE: M]. Before that change, they renamed all the acquired stores which were not closed due to market overlap or antitrust concerns to Macy's and now only operate two store brands: Macy's and Bloomingdale's. And before that, Federated decided that it would be more efficient to rename the established local stores that they had bought up. So all of the sudden, Pittsburghers who had been shopping at Horne's for decades got to shop at Lazarus, which was a meaningless name outside its roots in Ohio. At least Federated only had to design one ad for all the markets involved, even if the information on Indianapolis store hours wasn't useful for most of the potential customers in other cities who saw it. After the acquisition of May, they went with the Macy's and Bloomingdale's names, which at least had some cachet nationally. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: NO TV: Hurricane Info
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:50 PM, David Lynch djly...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 16:54, PGage pga...@gmail.com wrote: I think I dispute some of this David. While the storm was predicted to be Category 2 when it hit North Carolina (and I believe that is what happened), as early as Friday morning lots of experts were saying that it would likely be Category 1 by the time it got to NYC - and some were saying it might even be Tropical Storm by then, which it was (caveat here, my Friday morning is 3 hours earlier than NY Friday morning, so that might be part of the discrepancy). This is what I mean by the cablers regularly confusing worst case scenarios (it might be Category 2) with most likely scenarios (which by Friday morning I believe was Category 1). I just looked through the NHC archive and it's less clear about the strength than I remember seeing, so it could be that my memory or some forecaster I saw/heard/read confused could be category 2 and will be category 2. The 5 AM EDT advisory from Friday -- which the east coast woke up to -- predicted a strong category 2 over Albemarle Sound, NC on the wee hours of Sunday and a tropical storm over western Maine on the wee hours of Monday, with no intermediate predictions. (This was when Irene was still supposed to hit NC as a major hurricane.) By 11 AM Eastern (8 AM Pacific), they had a forecast point just offshore from Atlantic City, or 70 miles due south of the southern tip of Staten Island, with an intensity right near the cat 1/cat 2 line. I wouldn't rule out a category 2 storm over/near NYC from either of these forecasts, but it's not explicit. Right. This is consistent with my experience following CNN most of Friday Morning (PT) - except that I am very clear that the experts being interviewed were saying that (with ample caveats about the difficulties of predicting such a complex, dynamic event) Irene was most likely to be Cat 1 by the time she got to NYC. It is also consistent with my main criticism of CNN - which is that they way their anchors and reporters covered the lead up to the story over-emphasized the extreme estimates, and under-emphasized that likely estimates, causing mis-perception and mis-understanding in its audience. I think the only reason I was more aware of the difference is that I was specifically focused on what the most likely intensity of the storm would be in NYC because my daughter was living in a Zone B (Category 2) Evacuation area. On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:50 PM, David Lynch djly...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 16:54, PGage pga...@gmail.com wrote: Additionally, the point of critics like Howie (and myself) is not that this was a non-story, or not deserving of high-volume coverage (it was an important story, and justified a lot of investment of resources and time in coverage). The point is that the nature of the coverage was focused on fanning anxiety in order to create viewer interest and decrease viewer turn-over during commercials. Instead of providing sober reportage that viewers could consume on as needed basis, they are motivated to create viewer dependency on their coverage by over-emphasizing the most dramatic and frightening aspects of the story. I disagree with your interpretation of his piece here. When he makes comments like Every producer knew that to abandon the coverage even briefly—say, to cover the continued fighting in Libya—was to risk driving viewers elsewhere, that's not about the tone of the coverage, it's about the quantity of coverage. He does take them to task for their tone as well, but that wasn't the only thing he criticized. I do think CNN could have cut away for more brief segments on other important news events during its storm coverage Friday and Saturday (they did a little of this). Doing so would not have decreased in any appreciable way the emphasis they were giving Irene, which in general was justified. Howie is not saying that CNN should have just treated Irene like one of several important stories over the weekend; he is saying that they should have covered the story in a way dictated by what would most inform its viewers. Cutting to a 5 minute update on Libya would not have meant CNN should have invested less money or resources in covering Irene; the reason they did not do it very much is not because they thought the Hurricane story required 58 minutes of every hour, but because they were afraid of losing audience share to a cable competitor. CNN could have devoted just as many resources to this story, and 10 fewer minutes per hour in the days before landfall, and not have substantially reduced their coverage. -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options,
Re: [TV orNotTV] So long, Uncle Frank Potenza
Apropos of nothing, I think Jimmy and company treated Uncle Frank in a way that I wish Mr. Gervais and his co-douchebag would treat Mr. Pilkington. Safe home Uncle Frank. David From: televisiongirl televisiong...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] So long, Uncle Frank Potenza On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 10:34 AM, Bob in Jersey bob.in.jer...@juno.com wrote: Jimmy Kimmel's real-life uncle, a former NY cop and one of JKL's security detail, died Tuesday. 77. http://news.yahoo.com/uncle-frank-kimmel-show-fame-dies-77-170325986.html Bill Simmons wrote a lovely tribute: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6896998/page/2/dawn-mailbag TVG -- TV or Not TV The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups TV or Not TV group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
