News-Record.com

Most of the time I write about newspapers and online journalism. This time, it's TV and online.

I was watching Fox8 news at 6 p.m. as I was getting ready for a party. I was waiting for the Dudley state championship score. At about 6:15, the sports guy came on and told me the Western Alamance score, which was great. And then he started flirting with the anchor and teased the audience by telling us that Mt. Tabor and Dudley scores were in and one won and the other lost. We'll need to stick around for the sports report 6:40 to find out, he said.

Here's what viewers do, TV: Annoyed, I immediately switched over to WFMY, which was just starting its newscast because a basketball game ran long. Then I walked to the computer and got the results. (Dudley won.) Of course, I didn't go to the Fox8 site.

They had the information. They did the lead-in with the Western Alamance score. But they wouldn't tell me the results of the other two games because they thought I would keep watching for another 25 minutes. Wrong. Pardon me for being cynical about their motives. I suppose they are in touch with their viewers. They just lost one.

And I should have gone online in the first place.

By the way, I went back to the television and WFMY told me the results of the Dudley game before 6:25.

I admit that I brought this upon myself. I watched Entertainment Tonight last night.

Item: 600 press people at the pseudo Golden Globes. 600 press people at a glorified news conference? (One of them was ET anchor Mary Hart covering Globes presenter Mary Hart.) What are assigning editors thinking? 600 people covering an event in which there were no stars? In which they could have swung by, picked up a news release of the winners and done something else?

Item: Local L.A. TV station helicopter following the SUV in which Britney Spears may have been a passenger when she was thought to be at the courthouse. The video of the SUV from above was compelling television.

Item: 14 minutes into the program the host tease a photo of Britney in something that looks like a wedding dress and says something like: "Coming up, Britney in a wedding dress! Did she elope?" My wife says, "Oh, right, they are waiting halfway into the program to tell us that they are going to answer the question of whether Britney Spears has eloped."

And we changed to a rerun of "Everybody Loves Raymond" before we could find out if Anna Nicole's daughter is going blind.

And journalists wonder why people hate the media.

Update: Terry Heaton tells why.

For a couple years now, I've been half-heartedly discouraging editors from doing much in the newspaper with stories about impending weather. Are we telling readers anything they don't already know? TV and online have won that battle and newspapers have lost. I doubt many people look to the paper for a prediction about an approaching storm when the blanket "team" coverage is ubiquitous -- and more timely -- on television and the Internet.

Ever since I've been in this business, reporters have hated writing weather stories, primarily because they seem so silly and predictable. When we were at the News & Observer, Howard Troxler wrote an "impending storm" story as if it were an investigative piece, full of skulduggery and secret sources at the weather bureau. It was bounced back to him by a dour and unappreciative editor. Twenty five years later, here comes Meranda: Raise your hand if you hate writing weather stories....It's like writing about traffic lights changing colors. Everyone knows it's going to happen, and they can kind of figure out for themselves what comes next.

We try to write them compellingly, but there are only so many ways to write an interesting weather story and an armless man can count them on his fingers. No, that's harsh. There are a couple ways, but not many. To put it another way, how many times do you need to see a TV reporter standing by the side of the road with a yardstick preparing to measure the inch of snow that's fallen and hear her tell you not to drive if you don't have to?

Deepening the issue is that, despite meteorologists' boasts about accuracy, weather predictions are notoriously wrong. Last night the forecast was for it to be snowing right at this minute. Not happening. It's 38 degrees.

But it's a newspaper tradition that's hard to shake. As the storm approaches, it becomes what people talk about. Schools let out. Businesses close. How can a newspaper not write about it? Besides, with everything focused on a snow storm there isn't much else going on to write about.

* We need to log the coming storm in the paper in a small way somewhere, but it's an online story. Now, after the storm hits and power is knocked out, schools are closed and life is changed, then that's a different story.

I was watching sports on a local news channel. They did a segment on the UNC-Miami basketball game, but they didn't tell me that it is on television. They also didn't tell me the Georgia Tech-State game is televised either.

Like, duh, neither of the games are on that station, that's why. No big deal; none of the local stations help their listeners out if a game is on another station. I understand their desire not to encourage viewers to tune in to a competitor. Back in the 1980s, we referred to competing newspapers only when we had to and even then saying something awkward such as "a newspaper in High Point."

But we've entered the 21st century. People have choices and know how to use them.

If the TV stations truly want to help people -- which is part of the branding slogans of most stations around here -- they would tell them that the Carolina game is on WMYV-48. They might also realize that this viewer is going to find the game, regardless of whether they tell me where it is, so why not help me?

How did I know the game I wanted to watch wasn't on one of the big networks? I looked in the paper.

I like the New York Times as much as the next guy but I'm surprised that its non-endorsement of Rudy G. is a lead story on the morning news shows. I know that the Times remains a powerful determinant of what's news. But its endorsement in a presidential primary? A top story? Is it that slow of a news day?

And without having read the Times coverage of Rudy -- it's been pretty tough lately, looking at his lucrative business partnerships after 9/11, among other things -- how are listeners of TV news to put the non-endorsement into any sort of perspective?

I'm responsible for the news in the newspaper and online. Allen is responsible for the editorial pages. Our ad director tends to the ads. Our online director has similar responsibilies. My point: We are responsible for every word and image in the paper and Web sites. On occasion, we make mistakes and publish stories that I wish we hadn't. The vast majority of the time, though, it is easily to justify publishing a story or photo, even as it may make some people squeamish.

I'm glad I'm not a local television network affiliate. They can't possibly want to claim ownership of some of the stuff broadcast on their stations.

I was out sick a day last week and spent too much of the day watching television. Programs on incest. Self-help baloney. Marital infidelity. Britney's breakdown minute-by-minute. Sexual dysfunction. And I didn't watch any soap operas.

I understand the difference in news and entertainment programming. I also understand about the different audiences during the different times of the day. Given the number of people who heap all journalism into the stew called "media," I wonder if most people know the difference.

I probably am reflecting this through a middle-aged newspaper editor's eyes. So I readily acknowledge being the wrong target audience. If there weren't money there, I know the programming wouldn't last. But I know what kinds of calls we get about some of our content. I can't imagine the calls TV officials get, even if they are from the wrong target audiences.

For a time, Andy Griffith references in North Carolina newspapers were gold. Longtime columnist Jim Jenkins used to make them in these pages all the time. Still does elsewhere.

So you'd expect attention when we start a story this way:

Goober Pyle might've had some advice for the job.

A pair of century-old cars in the Greensboro Historical Museum recently were torn down to go into new exhibits.

Salisbury engineer Mike Greene moved them piece by piece. That's similar to what mechanic Goober did in a 1965 episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" when he rebuilt a car in the courthouse and gave Sheriff Taylor a fit.

Readers have questioned our use of Goober's character. That is, his very existence.

They think that we're confused -- that the only Pyle on the show was named Gomer.

Gerald said: "I'm guessing this is only a question because Gomer Pyle later had his own show. Goober was mostly called just Goober on the show, so many folks forgot that they share a same last name. And that they're cousins."

Gerald, by the way, had not been born when Goober made his last appearance in 1968. But his editor, Eddie Wooten, an Andy aficionado, was. And thanks to the wonders of reruns and TV Land....

More on Goober's 86 episodes here.