New Low In Local TV: Reporting The Nudes

Just when you think you’ve seen it all — thanks to WTSP Channel 10 — you really haven’t.

The local CBS affiliate recently ran an item as a lead-in to John Nugent and sports on its 11 p.m. newscast that had to have viewers wondering if Reggie Roundtree were channeling Howard Stern.

The piece, actually a video clip that ran some 35 seconds, was on “Hunting For Bambi.” To the uninitiated, “Bambi” is a pricey (4-figure fee) “sport” that permits paint-ball “hunters” to stalk naked women on a Nevada preserve. Even with strategic, Jerry Springeresque body-part blurs, it was apparent these women, some of whom are “escorts” when otherwise occupied, were wearing nothing but that bimbo-caught-in-the-headlights look.

By contemporary standards, this would be appropriate fare for, say, “The Best Damn Sports Show Period.” Or maybe run as background ambience at some bar. Something for everyone, including all the less-than-subtle societal messages you care to acknowledge. Someone’s debasement for profit or exercise in exploitation is someone else’s unadulterated hoot.

It’s consenting adults; it’s legal; and it’s your choice. If you don’t like it — don’t watch it; don’t go there.

It’s probably a quaint notion, but shouldn’t the local news, even if it does share a time slot with White Chocolate, not be so easily confused with, say, “The Man Show?” There’s barely enough airtime to report the news — let alone the nudes. Let alone running a promotional clip from a sleazy video that’s now for sale.

Interestingly — and maybe predictably enough — no hue and cry was raised over the CNN-fed, “Bambi” piece. Maybe we’re just inured to an increasingly tabloid culture. According to WTSP News Director Lane Michaelsen, the station received nothing more than a single e-mail on the “Bambi” spot. And that, said Michaelsen, was from a guy — not exactly in the fit of outrage — noting that the female targets should at least wear goggles to prevent injury.

Internally, “There was discussion in the newsroom that night,” acknowledged Michaelsen, but it was hardly heated. “It was one of those stories that was so amazing — that people were actually doing this — that you wanted to tell people about it,” he explained.

So they told and showed.

One more thing.

In her happy-talk banter, co-anchor Sue Zelenko looked a mite non-plussed about the “Bambi” exposure and the “boys will be boys” guffawing of Roundtree and Nugent. Hopefully she was also plussed-off enough to voice it to management. Hopefully “News Gone Wild” is merely a poor judgment call — not a ratings strategy.

Good Timing For “Olympics of Geography”

Well done, Busch Gardens, for hosting the biennial National Geographic World Championship, the international competition for students 16 and younger. Sure, it was a great marketing coup resulting in national and international media coverage for the theme park and the Bay Area. But the timing could not have been more pertinent for underscoring interest in — and the value of — knowing a lot about the rest of the world.

Americans in general have long been geography-challenged. Embarrassingly so. Stories about high school students not being able to locate Mexico — much less Iran, Iraq or North Korea — on a map are not apocryphal. American “empire” notwithstanding, we as a country can no longer afford such ignorance and the cavalier attitudes that often accompany it. One post-Sept. 11 lesson in self-interest must be this: we can’t stay largely ignorant of the world we are so dominant in — for we do so at our own peril. The U.S., without precedent in its power, remains uniquely vulnerable to those hostile and resentful of our might, our culture, our success, our values and our reach.

“It’s healthy for U.S. citizens and North Americans to get more exposure to international issues,” said Sheila Voss, the St. Louis-based director of environmental and educational programs for Busch Entertainment Corp. “On a national level, we don’t have a lot of standards and international focus. The U.S. tends to be U.S.-centric.

“We also leave a large footprint,” added Voss. “And along with that goes a lot of influence and a lot of responsibility.”

By the way, the three-member U.S. team — teens from North Dakota, Tennessee and North Carolina — won the 17-country competition.

“Busch Gardens Tampa Bay was the perfect blend of fun, education and competition,” assessed Voss. “The kids bonded with their own and their peers from all over the world.”

The American Prime Minister

The other day it was announced that the presidential succession had been changed such that the secretary of homeland security — Tom Ridge — would move from 18th to 8th in line. That’s all well and good and, arguably, Ridge belongs ahead of Gayle Norton and Ann Veneman, the secretaries of interior and agriculture, respectively.

But it still disappoints that there is no loophole that would move Tony Blair onto that list, say, right in front of Dick Cheney.

The British prime minister, for all of his domestic troubles back home in the United Kingdom, remains as valuable an asset as the Bush White House has. He not only agrees with the administration’s post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, he articulates it better than the administration does. He’s not only a hardliner on Iraq and a stonewaller about certain evidentiary matters, he looks good — certainly by Bush standards — doing it. And by so doing, he immeasurably helps the Bushies earn whatever measure of legitimacy they enjoy in international circles.

Even in the midst of the African-uranium fiasco, which could be his political undoing in the UK, Blair didn’t lose his rhetorical touch. Fittingly, it was on display in Washington during his recent whirlwind stop. He was the fourth British prime minister to address Congress, and the first since Margaret Thatcher in 1985. And no one did it better.

After he thanked Congress for its “warm and generous” welcome to the U.S. House Chamber, he then drew a rousing, good-natured, bi-partisan response that would be all but impossible for President Bush to muster these days. “It’s more than I deserve,” deadpanned Blair, “and more than I’m used to quite frankly.”

He certainly didn’t come to grovel over manipulated intelligence. And he begged no one’s forgiveness — save historians. But Blair’s presentation, in part designed to provide Bush political cover on Iraq, was no exercise in allied arrogance.

He didn’t traffick in the “bring ’em on” rhetoric Americans seem increasingly ill at ease with. He exalted “beliefs” over “guns” as “our ultimate weapon.” He spoke of courage in a time of peril and underscored a context greater than yellowcake from Niger — or the politics of the moment. And he continued to put appeasement on notice, as only the antithesis of Neville Chamberlain can.

“If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering,” Blair said. “That is something I am confident history will forgive.

“But if our critics are wrong, if we are right — as I believe with every fiber of instinct and conviction I have that we are — and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive.”

Ultimately, Bush and Blair will be judged on what they’ve done. They are in fundamental agreement about rooting out terrorism and those it considers menaces to peace- and freedom- loving people everywhere.

Only Blair says it so much better. So much more presidential, if you will. In fact, one half-expected the opening lines to his Congressional speech to be: “My fellow Americans.”

Criminal Justice System Undermines Iorio’s Commitment

So far, still so good for Mayor Pam Iorio.

Her priorities, personality and professionalism have impressed most observers, including pundits reduced to parody of a squeaky-clean persona and good governance. Financial fiascos involving the cancer survivors’ plaza and the THAPster crowd are hardly her fault.

But something else that is not her fault could undermine this Pamglossian jumpstart.

She has been spending a lot of time — and political capital — on East Tampa and has emphasized that she’s in for the long haul and not interested in lip service to an area chronically infested with crime and poverty. She obviously signs on to the inner city tenet that community-stabilizing investment and resultant jobs can’t happen in the context of drug holes, prostitution and garden variety thuggery. As a result, Iorio has been orchestrating a multi-player approach to East Tampa’s clean-up and economic revitalization.

That has meant beefed-up police work and pro-active code enforcement under the umbrella of the “Operation Commitment” blitz. It also has meant targeting builders, developers and business executives via the mayor’s point man, Ed Johnson, the manager of East Tampa development and community lending. It also has meant neighborhood activists stepping up and being supportive of these efforts, especially those of the police.

But the game plan remains one critical player short — the criminal justice system. Without it, “Operation Commitment” can’t succeed.

Already there are too many habitual criminals being rapidly recycled back to East Tampa.

It frustrates police officers who have to keep re-arresting the same crooks, druggies and predators. It angers and disillusions law-abiding residents who must reinforce police work with citizen vigilance. It discourages the very sort of investment that must happen for East Tampa to escape its moribund moorings. And it mocks authority and all efforts to do something.

No one is suggesting that due process be compromised in the name of cleaning up the mean streets of East Tampa. But a court process that is so lengthy that charges are routinely reduced or dropped is at cross purposes with what the police are trying to do.

For “Operation Commitment” to win, the status quo must lose — especially the protracted court process. Anything less would be a crime.

Bottom Line Or Bottom-Feeding Recruit?

Everything surrounding the legal morass of former Florida State University quarterback Adrian McPherson– not just what happened in court — reeks.

McPherson’s attorney, St. Petersburg-based Grady Irvin, made a lot of whistle-blowing noise about the FSU booster program — as in the Seminoles go down with his client. He threatened to subpoena FSU players and expose alleged improper payments for autographed items. It could have spelled big trouble for FSU with the NCAA.

But it never came to that; there was no trial on felony charges; adjudication was withheld on gambling charges; and McPherson walked away from a plea agreement with the opportunity to have his criminal record expunged. And maybe play again at the college level.

He also walked away under a code of silence, according to Irvin, regarding what he may know about FSU boosters and players that may be of interest to the NCAA.

Only adding to the unseemliness was Irvin’s rationale for why another university, USF, (which recruited McPherson out of high school) would be well-served to recruit him again.

“The University of South Florida is an up-and-coming program, and I quite frankly feel Adrian would be a financial benefit (to USF) as well,” noted Irvin, as quoted in the Tampa Tribune. “I’m certain when he finally takes the field again, at least four games could be televised nationally, and that would have some economic benefit to the University of South Florida

Jeb’s FCAT Irony

Amid all the celebrations by all the FCAT “A” schools, is there not a certain irony?

The ostensible reason why we have FCATs is that they are an integral part of Gov. Jeb Bush’s means to the end of accountability — and a way to determine voucher qualification. No argument here for the need for more accountability — as well as meaningful standards and consequences for those not measuring up.

But what are we to make of the latest statistics that tell us that more than half of the state’s public schools — more than 1,200 — are “A” schools? That, presumably, is a lot of high-achieving students. Moreover, since 1999, that’s more than a 500 per cent improvement.

Before celebrations turn ecstatic, however, it’s worth noting how a school “earns” an “A.” Half the criteria are achievement-based; the other half is improvement-based, including going from bad to less bad. For example, one Miami school was rated “A,” even though six out of 10 students were reading below grade level.

Even the governor now insists the bar may have been set too low, in part to minimize the impact of poverty on under-achieving students.

As a result, in the good name of accountability and standards, we’ve gotten grade inflation and self esteem scoring. Who would have thought?

More Bucs-Eagles’ Hype — No But(t)s About It

Sunday’s Tampa Tribune had a prominent piece on Warren Sapp that included a sidebar of Sappisms. Included is one that we will all see again. And again. It will be airing in the Philadelphia media and posted on the Philadelphia Eagles’ bulletin board from now until Monday night, Sept. 8. That’s when the Bucs begin defense of their Super Bowl championship against Philly in the debut of the Eagles’ new stadium, Lincoln Financial Field.

“My first victory in the NFL was at (Veterans Stadium),” recalled Sapp. “I opened the Vet with a (butt) whooping, and I closed it with a (butt) whooping. And I love it. I’m going to get to open their new house with a (butt) whooping. It’s coming.”

Unless Sapp ups the rhetorical ante, that quote likely will run like a continuous loop over the next two months–right through the Monday Night Football pre-game hype. Red meat for the revenge-seeking Eagles, their love-hate Philadelphia media and Philly’s carnivorous, mutant fans.

And Sapp wouldn’t have it any other way. No buts about it.

Fewer Cell Phonies On Call At The Theater, In Restaurants

Never have such legions said so little in front of so many. In a Publix check-out line, on a health club stationary bike, at a mall. I think we’d all agree that the world of cell phonies is too much with us.

But now, at long last, there’s good news on the cellphone front. Recent surveys tell us that cellphone users are becoming more mindful of their surroundings and, as a result, seemingly more courteous.

A survey in 2002 found that only 6 percent of Americans thought talking on the phone during a movie or a play was acceptable. Two years prior, that figure was 11 percent. Moreover, 28 percent of Americans thought it permissible to cell-talk in a restaurant.

But before you get giddy with the prospect that America will no longer celebrate the Year of the Boor, consider this: there are nearly 150 million cellphone subscribers in this country. That means that, trend toward courtesy notwithstanding, some 9 million Americans still find it acceptable to chat at the theater and more than 42 million think it’s OK to blab away in restaurants.

Bon Appetit.

Yo, Merriam-Web

Yo, Merriam.

May I have a word? “Youse-guys.” n. Actually a gender-neutral collective noun with informal, utterly inclusive overtones. Formerly a pure Philly colloquialism.

I understand that it still doesn’t make it into your book, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, now out in its 11th edition.

But “headbangers” and “dead presidents” did? What’s next? Ho?

Yo!

I know that all living languages are constantly changing to reflect usage, which is a pretty good reason not to grow up speaking Latin. And popular culture, of course, will always be a prime source of rookie words — usually accompanied by a prudent etymological gestation period. That’s to make words prove themselves — showing that they’re not just ad hoc slang from the fringe.

As they wend their way through the pop culture — whether “jazz,” “photocopy,” “superstar,” “jailbait,” “spiffy,” “groupie,” “goon” or “porno” — they subtly seep into broader usage. We’ve seen this with other recent Merriam-Webster inclusions, i.e., “comb-over,” “heart-healthy” and “McJob.”

But there’s a difference between pop culture and sub culture. As in mainstream usage and linguistic retention pond. That’s why “skank” still doesn’t pass muster and “monica” isn’t yet a M-W verb.

By the way, “headbanger” is defined as both a hard rock musician and a fan. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Thanks For Not Calling

One of the best ideas since the weed whacker is the “Do Not Call Registry.” The Federal Trade Commission estimates that more than 60 million will have signed on by Oct. 1, when the registry takes effect.

However, we now hear of a down side. Not good for our fragile economy. According to the American Teleservices Association, eliminating so many callees will “wipe out about 2 million jobs.”

Two questions:

*Even if that inflated, self-serving projection were to be near accurate, won’t many of those lost jobs be made up in spam and direct mail?

*Who keeps buying stuff from these people?