Fun_People Archive
30 Sep
One more reason to avoid television news

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 99 15:57:45 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: One more reason to avoid television news

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From: Kevin Maguire

Last night I watched _The West Wing_ and _Law and Order_ on NBC.  During
these programs every single commercial break featured a teaser for the local
news at 11, promising coverage of Warren Beatty making some sort of
announcement earlier that evening.

Curious about this announcement, and the promised coverage of a new
Congressional proposal to protect children from smut on the internet [1],
I actually watched the news.

The report on Mr. Beatty came late in the program, and every time the news
went to commercial there was another teaser for that report.

When the report finally came, we were told that Mr. Beatty did not actually
make any announcment one way or another regarding candidacy for office.  We
were also told that he spoke (at some "liberal awards event" where he was
given a bust of Eleanor Roosevelt) at some length.  We were shown a video
clip of Mr. Beatty saying that he's been told that being coy about whether
or not he's running will keep him in the public eye, allowing him to get
his message out.

  total time spent on promos for that piece, including commercials during
  other programs and teasers earlier in the news:  well over a minute

  total time devoted to showing old photos of Beatty with Kennedys, other
  politicans and pretty women over the years and Beatty film clips:  about
  30 seconds.

  total time devoted to actual video of Warren Beatty speaking:  less than
  10 seconds

  total time devoted to video of Warren Beatty speaking about the message
  he's trying to get out:  0 seconds

  total time in the report covering the issues Warren Beatty is trying to
  talk about:  0 seconds


- KM

[1]  Someone is proposing a "second domain" of .sex;  having a porn site in
     the .sex domain would be an affirmative defense to charges of
     corrupting minors.  The report was unclear as to whether .edu, .org,
     .gov or .net was being demoted from second domain to third.

© 1999 Peter Langston