Covering news when news isn’t news … yet
Shhh. ... Don't tip 'em off. ... We're right behind 'em
BOO!
BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!
Pardon the silly outburst. Just trying to scare "Action News" out of its severe case of journalistic hiccups -- or whatever you'd call compulsively checking in on a single, unchanging story seven times in one newscast.
Granted, it was a confusing jumble of guess-news, wrong-news and nonnews on Feb. 10, when Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, assuming the presidential version of the reluctant virgin, kinda resigned and kinda didn't 24 hours before he finally caved.
Every media outlet -- not just the Action Newsies of KTNV-TV, Channel 13 -- had to stumble through one of those maddening "sources say" days when the sources couldn't really say what was actually happening, delaying and frustrating a national media machine and its local offshoots craving their Moment of History headline.
Locally, Channel 13's cravings were the most naked on its 11 a.m. news that day, ogling the revved-up crowds in Egypt four times in the first half-hour and three times in the second (plus fade-out footage at broadcast's end), all while informing us that we were awaiting a possible official announcement from the Mubarak regime that he'd relinquish power.
Two or three times? Fine. But seven revisits to news-less Egypt tapped into an irritating aspect of modern media -- reporting the hell out of nothing much to report. Two columns back, I did criticize Channel 13 for paying the least attention among locals to the revolution on its evening news, relegating it to a midnewscast roundup that shared time with Charlie Sheen's umpteenth rehab stint.
That's when it was real news, not maybe news.
Tickled to be on the cusp of history, many media outlets -- particularly cable and network -- let their nearly rhapsodic narratives get away from them while passing along unconfirmed reports.
Yet "Action News" seemed determined to experience a journalistic orgasm by capturing "The Moment" -- and footage of jubilant Egyptians -- while already on the air with their newscast. Delayed gratification must have irked them, as evidenced by their 6 p.m. news, when Egypt -- still with Mubarak technically in charge -- rated no mention until the bottom segue into the 6:30 broadcast. ... Bored already?
During their half-hour noon newscasts, neither KSNV-TV, Channel 3 nor KLAS-TV, Channel 8 went bats (KVVU-TV, Channel 5 has no midday news), each visiting it twice, Channel 8 adding interviews with Las Vegas Egyptian-Americans to at least advance the story locally. At 6 p.m., after it was clear Mubarak's resignation hadn't materialized (it would the next day), both did local takes anyway (as did Fox-5 at 5 p.m.).
Cool media catchphrases -- "breaking news," "developing story," "monitoring the situation," "staying on top of it for you" -- are sometimes warranted, and sometimes faux-justifications for taking a story that's simply static at the moment and wringing it for drips and drabs of drama.
Within the often overheated theater of TV news, what's presented as the climactic third act could just be ... intermission.
Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.
