Blogs > Frye on the News

Keeping his eye on the news and offering commentaries and insights on what is happening in Oakland County, around the world, on the tube and in the news.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Weather and hockey

I can't believe the NBA Finals are starting before the hockey finals. I haven't seen that before, or at least haven't noticed it before.

It pretty much means that hockey will end after basketball (partly because I'm fearing a Heat sweep). It used to be that NBA players played into July.

Oh well, May is proving just as hot at July, with 90-degree highs today, making the broken AC in the office my new nemesis.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Media storms

Ok, I'm back, as Oprah has gone quietly into the night.

So a while back I wondered about the next big media explosion, and it turned out to be a couple of slowburners. Neither the flooding of the Mississippi nor Oprah Winfrey's final episode completely dominated the news, but combined they kept the newscasters and bloggers busy for a week or two, as the water slowed moved southbound and Oprah moved her army of wellwishers through the couches and chairs.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunning double life and admitted affair almost surpassed the royal wedding....oh, nevermind, nothing came close to covering that affair, but Arnold gave it a good go. What's so amazing about that story is how the media MISSED it for more than a decade. It was a juicy story before the political career started but both Hollywood paparazzi and the nation's political reporters had no clue about the love child. How did Arnold get the free pass? Perhaps because he played with the media and didn't run from them, so they had little reason to dig.

How impressive that he kept the child and affair hidden. It almost came out because he (or really, his wife) decided it was time to come out with the separation.

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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

What's next?

Ok, it's been a spring-into-summer news period for the world.

Will there be any rest for the nightly news anchors, the cable news hosts, or any other face of the news who has to travel to every big story, I wondered last month.

Yes, there was. And then came and went the Weiner story, a nice rest from the real news of tornadoes, earthquakes, crumbling economies and ecosystems....ok, I added the ecosystems for dramatic effect.

I count the Arnie and Weiner stories together, they came and went at the same time and almost at the same pace, climaxed by the hurried following of Anthony Weiner to his presser announcing his resignation. But like Arnold in Terminator, He'll Be Back. I'm sure of it.

His sin is forgivable and he had a lovable, though creepy appeal. Why? He stood in there and took it for so long. He answered the questions early on, over and over again.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Cheering death


It takes a special man to be the person who gets Americans to dance and cheer a death.
And Osama bin Laden was the man, a mass murderer who spread hatred across the globe.

Images of people in the Middle East hitting the streets and cheering deaths are not uncommon to hit the TV, but that is not something you see in the U.S. We go out and cheer World Series wins, Super Bowl victories. Sometimes, I'm looking at Lansing, we go out and dance and cheer when our teams lose.

But over someone dying? That's not something we see every decade. In fact, when notorious killers are executed, even child killers, there will be protesters out, objecting to capital punishment. There may be counter-protesters, happy with the execution but not cheering death. It's political activism that got them out.

People may have been happy that Timothy McVeigh was killed, but I don't recall cheering and dancing.

When wars start, we don't rush out to cheer and dance; rather, we go inside and watch the news. When the first Gulf War started, people either ordered or stole cable to watch CNN.

We comment, complain, support, question. We cheer when our troops come home.

Osama bin Laden was just a man. But what he did, what he supported, and in some way, what he started, well, that got our attention. And we waited patiently and we rejoiced when we learned that justice had been served.

No complaints that it took so long. Minimum disbelief. No arguing about methods and overall objective. Makes that birth certificate issue seem quaint, silly and ancient.

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Ooops! Obama-Osama. What's in a name?


A Fox affiliate in California had to explain an on-screen typo that declared "REPORTS: Obama bin Laden dead." As the rush to get the news out that Osama bin Laden had been killed by American forces, a few mistakes were made, several regarding the president's similar sounding first name.


The Fox40 channel in Sacramento had the mistaken phrase typed on its screen. But in apologizing, it noted that the Fox affiliate in San Diego had made a similar but verbal mistake, according to a report in blog.zap2it.com.



Some have complained that these mistakes were intentional. What do you think? Are the names close enough for the mistakes to be honest due to hasty, frantic work late at nght? Share within our comments. (And all typos will be forgiven.)

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