My gut reaction was that the story--although a legitimate consumer complaint—seemed to reinforce a cultural stereotype about Black people and chicken. I know for a fact that no one on our staff meant for that to be the point of the story, but the fear that we would be accused of this sounded an alarm to me. It’s sad that I even had to worry about this.

Last week a couple of Popeye's restaurants in Rochester ran out of chicken. And local ABC affiliate WHAM decided to run a story. Some people complained, and WHAM responded. Warning: Second link contains some idiocy.
posted by hifiparasol on Apr 26, 2009 - 135 comments

Some wiseacres slip in risque prank-call names to a local TV station for its "Happy Birthday" segment, and whaddyaknow! It works.
posted by zardoz on Mar 29, 2009 - 65 comments

GEORGE PUTNAM (all caps, because that's the way he said everything), Los Angeles Television/Radio Legend, has died at the age of 94. A protege of Walter Winchell who came to L.A. in 1951 to restart a stalled career as a news anchor, he was famous for his dramatic style and extremely UNobjective reporting. Retrospective of his colorful career: Part One, Part Two. Best known on the Web as the "outstanding news reporter" who narrated the '50s alarmist documentary "Perversion for Profit", he was also acknowledged as the model for the Mary Tyler Moore show's bombastic newsman character Ted Baxter (seen here sitting in on a real newscast). Not restricting his editorializing to his daily "One Reporter's Opinion" segment, he is credited/blamed for the election of Sam Yorty as mayor of Los Angeles. And when TV News outgrew him, he found a home for the next 30 years doing Talk Radio (where some of us believe Rush Limbaugh also modeled his style after him). And that’s the up-to-the-minute obitfilter; up to the minute, that’s all the obitfilter. [more inside]
posted by wendell on Sep 13, 2008 - 13 comments

The music of the news: From Cool Hand Luke and Action News (ra) to today's Enforcer (MP3) and The Tower (WMA), TV stations and the music in their newscasts.
posted by calwatch on Apr 4, 2004 - 6 comments