News organizations must devote more time and expertise in satisfactorily reporting the Who, the What, the Where & the When before earning the right to go deeper into the story and to seek the Why.

Apologists for perpetrators of violent crime waste no time proffering excuses for the heinous act. Likewise, the media who highlight a basis for evil actions over the necessity to identify the next stop for the wheels of justice simply full-monty their liberal bias every time.

Long before reality TV, there was reality (talk) radio.  I considered callers to any talk show I was hosting over the years as a guest. Even if things went bad, as it were, I was the host and they were my guest, not fodder.  I consistently felt somewhat responsible for that person who would now be off of the phone, left to deal with whatever was going on, now alone.  (I know that sounds a bit over-ripe, but….)

Likewise, broadcasters (remember those?) need to remember that the cattle parades that line up for reality TV are invited guests.  And how we treat our guests says more about us than other measures of success or power.

The SUN story notes that the $150,000 per year that Bay State taxpayers sent to Lydon did not include payroll and state benefits provided to four of his staff including his producer, Mary McGrath. Although the Lydon hour aired daily on WUML (91.5 Lowell) it originated and was distributed via WGBH radio in Boston to around 30 other stations.

Throughout the contract, Lydon had no involvement with WUML at UMass Lowell. File under: Nice work if you can get it.

From NBC10.com

An incredible video from CNBC shows an AOL customer trying to cancel his account, but a phone rep won’t let him do it. What customer Vincent Ferrari got when he tried to cancel his account was a lot of frustration.

It took him 15 minutes waiting on the phone just to reach a real, live person.

And, what happened next was recorded by Ferrari on audio and lasted about four minutes:

CLOCK READOUT – 00:00

AOL REPRESENTATIVE: Hi this is John at AOL… how may I help you today?

VINCENT FERRARI: I wanted to cancel my account.

AOL: Sorry to hear that. Let’s pull your account up here real quick. Can I have your name please?

VINCENT: Vincent Ferrari.

CLOCK READOUT – 00:30

AOL: You’ve had this account for a long time.

VINCENT: Yup.

AOL: Use this quite a bit. What was the cause of wanting to turn this off today?

VINCENT: I just don’t use it anymore.

AOL: Do you have a high speed connection, like the DSL or cable?

VINCENT: Yup.

AOL: How long have you had that…

VINCENT: Years…

AOL: …the high speed?

VINCENT: …years.

AOL: Well, actually I’m showing a lot of usage on this account.

VINCENT: Yeah, a long time, a long time ago, not recently…

CLOCK READOUT – 01:47

AOL: Okay, I mean is there a problem with the software itself?

VINCENT: No. I just don’t use it, I don’t need it, I don’t want it. I just don’t need it anymore.

AOL: Okay. So when you use this… I mean, use the computer, I’m saying, is that for business or for… for school?

VINCENT: Dude, what difference does it make. I don’t want the AOL account anymore. Can we please cancel it?

CLOCK READOUT – 02:21

AOL: Last year was 545, last month was 545 hours of usage…

VINCENT: I don’t know how to make this any clearer, so I’m just gonna say it one last time. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well explain to me what’s, why…

VINCENT: I’m not explaining anything to you. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well, what’s the matter man? We’re just, I’m just trying to help here.

VINCENT: You’re not helping me. You’re helping me…

AOL: I am trying to help.

VINCENT: Helping… listen, I called to cancel the account. Helping me would be canceling the account. Please help me and cancel the account.

AOL: No, it wouldn’t actually…

VINCENT: Cancel my account…

AOL: Turning off your account…

VINCENT: …cancel the account…

AOL: …would be the worst thing that…

VINCENT: …cancel the account.

CLOCK READOUT – 03:02

AOL: Okay, cause I’m just trying to figure out…

VINCENT: Cancel the account. I don’t know how to make this any clearer for you. Cancel the account. When I say cancel the account, I don’t mean help me figure out how to keep it, I mean cancel the account.

AOL: Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know what anybody’s done to you Vincent because all I’m…

VINCENT: Will you please cancel the account.

CLOCK READOUT – 03:32

AOL: Alright, some day when you calmed down you’re gonna realize that all I was trying to do was help you… and it was actually in your best interest to listen to me.

VINCENT: Wonderful, Okay.

CLOCK READOUT – 03:39

“I’ve never ever experienced anything like that,” Ferrari told CNBC.

He recounts how the AOL representative – as a last resort even asked if his dad was home.

“I think I could’ve put up with everything, but at the point when he asked to speak to my father, I came very close to losing it at that point,” said the 30-year-old Ferrari.

Ferrari then posted the call online, and the response was tremendous.

AOL sent him an apology and said the customer service rep was no longer with the company.

“The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor.”
— Leading off the March 16, 1995 CBS Evening News.

“Republicans kill the bill to clean up sleazy political fundraising. The business of dirty campaign money will stay business as usual.”
— CBS Evening News, February 26, 1998.

“There was no doubt Republicans in the House had enough votes tonight to pass another key item in their agenda to rip up or re-write government programs going back to the Franklin Roosevelt era. It is a bill making it harder, much harder, to protect health, safety, and the environment.”
— CBS Evening News, February 28, 1995.

“On Capitol Hill, the Republican-controlled House voted mostly along party lines tonight to pass President Bush’s federal budget blueprint. This includes his big tax cut plan, partly bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid programs for children and education.”
— CBS Evening News, March 28, 2001.

“President Bush tonight outlines his cut-federal-programs-to-get-a-tax-cut plan to Congress and the nation.”
— CBS Evening News, February 27, 2001.
“President Bush insisted today that he was not caving in to big money contributors, big-time lobbyists, and overall industry pressure when he broke a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the air was thick today with accusations from people who believe that’s exactly what happened.”
— CBS Evening News, March 14, 2001.

“Good evening. Texas Governor George Bush tonight will assume the mantle and the honor of President-elect. This comes 24 hours after a sharply split and, some say, politically and ideologically motivated U.S. Supreme Court ended Vice President Gore’s contest of the Florida election and, in effect, handed the presidency to Bush.”
— Beginning the December 13, 2000 CBS Evening News.

“Have you ever had any anger about President Bush — who spent his time during the Vietnam War in the National Guard — running, in effect, a campaign that does its best to diminish your service in Vietnam? You have to be at least irritated by that, or have you been?”
— To Senator John Kerry in an interview shown on the July 22, 2004 CBS Evening News.

Bill O’Reilly: “I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?”
Dan Rather: “Yes, I think he’s an honest man.”
O’Reilly: “Do you, really?”
Rather: “I do.”
O’Reilly: “Even though he lied to Jim Lehrer’s face about the Lewinsky case?”
Rather: “Who among us has not lied about something?”
O’Reilly: “Well, I didn’t lie to anybody’s face on national television. I don’t think you have, have you?”
Rather: “I don’t think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it’s one thing – ”
O’Reilly: “How can you say he’s an honest guy then?”
Rather: “Well, because I think he is. I think at core he’s an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.”
— Exchange on FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor, May 15, 2001

Featuring Live Appearances by WCAP Alumni: Joe Corcoran, Dave Faneuf, Mary Blake, Bill Smith, Doug Barker, Chuck Jenest, Mark Adams, Joe Abrams, Gordon Hamilton, Don & Anita Hill, Fred Faust, along with Congressman Marty Meehan, State Senator Steve Panagiatakos, Lowell Mayor Bill Martin, and a host of others.

They open with the two of them doing a Q&A with a pre-recorded bit by Connie on the topic of Katie Couric moving from Today to CBS Evening News. The “bit” was Connie and Maury “talking” to “Connie” and even getting into an argument with “Connie.” And then the two on the couch get into an “argument.” Connie can be clearly seen glancing over at the TelePrompTer. Connie even tosses in a scripted profanity that is beeped-out.

Then, the next segment with a guest, thirty seconds in, they kick, unannounced, to a spot break likely in error only to return from the break mid-sentence.

Povitch has always been a low-rent bottom-feeder from a TV perspective. Connie, on the other hand, was a ground breaking television journalist with an admirable resume. An Asian-American woman, Chung occupied the most visible of anchor and reporter slots for well over a decade. It is a woeful miscalculation to pair Chung with her husband, Povitch. If it works off-camera, wonderful. Keep it there.

Here’s the deal: College kid sitting in the livingroom. He’s eating some white stuff out of a half gallon carton of what used to be…milk.

College roommate walks by and asks him what he is doing. The first guy says,

“Eating.”

The other guy,

“What are you eating?”

First guy,

“Cottage cheese.”

Second guy,

“Hey, dude, that’s not cottage cheese.”

And then the punch line that kills me, the first guy, nonchalantly and then reaching back in with the spoon for more of a taste,

“Oh.”

Then some big boy announcer comes on and says stuff that the sponsors hoped I would have remembered. Maybe next time.

Say, “Cheese.”