September 28, 2005
TV

Long ago, shortly after the invention of the image orthicon tube, a decade of my life was spent working in television.  I didn’t understand it then.  I don’t understand it now.  

For instance how television covers a bad storm.  Like Katrina, or Ophelia and Rita.  “The storm of the century is about to hit the (you fill in the location)”, says the news director.  “Winds over a hundred miles an hour will be devastating the area.  People are being evacuated.  This storm is going to be so bad we need a reporter to go out and stand in it” 

So on every channel from CNN to Fox to networks A, C and N, we are inundated with live reports from the eye of the hurricane.  Like we haven’t seen a wind, rain and blown over signs?  The Weather Channel features that every weeknight for an hour in “Storm Stories.”  And days later when the storm has not only made land but is now in New England or Mexico or Minnesota, all channels in the TV spectrum keep the memory alive by running and re-running  videos of reporters being blown all over the landfall like some stray beach ball.  We also endure countless close call stories of news people ducking flying stoplights, sheet rock and bricks.  And all the while a viewer is saying to no one in particular, “ Does this make sense?” 

It’s not just hurricanes.  Let a snowflake or raindrop fall in Denver during the 5 or 10 o’clock news and all five stations send some poor shlubb out to stand alongside an Interstate to give the audience a new insight into snow or rain.  TV is indeed a visual medium but why does some poor soul always have be standing in the middle of bad weather either freezing his fern or being drenched by spray from nearby traffic just to prove they weren’t kidding when bad weather was reported in the area? 

Speaking of “Why do they do that?” TV questions, I’ve been a Grand Valley resident almost 40 years. And in those 4 decades the nighttime TV news, every evening of the week, starts at 10.  Yet each night at ten the first thing we see is the anchor looking directly into the camera and intoning, “The news starts now!”  Like we’ve forgotten what comes on at 10 and might be so confused as to assume the two people behind the desk aren’t newscasters but the opening of a “Friends”, “Seinfeld”, or a “Tele-tubbies” re-run?   

Is “The news starts now” TV’s equivalent of the NFL two minute warning?  In pro football the players are experienced.  They’ve played Pop Warner, high school and most have at least attended a college class or two.  So isn’t it reasonable to assume even the most scholastically challenged professional footballer can read a digital scoreboard?  Yet once athletes are proficient enough to play the game at its highest level, NFL rules insist on stopping the game to remind participants, “This is the two minute warning.” 

And not to pick on the TV guys but what’s with the “Valley-Cam”?  Between ten and ten thirty in the evening the sun has been gone for hours.  It’s as dark as Egypt.  When they switch to the “Valley-Cam” all one sees are a few blinking lights on a black screen.  The TV talker, doubling as a tour guide, tells us, “We’re looking east toward Clifton” but it really could be Fruita to the west or the Great Wall of China or a carport on Hillcrest Manor. Who knows?