Secrets of the City

Not sure if you can call what WCCO has “woes” when they are kicking ass in the ratings. Personally, I think it’s DeRusha, although I have no hard data to back it up.

news?

huh?

Woes indeed. My research also shows the huge impact I’ve had on the ratings.

I am amused that someone upset about people talking about Frank and Amelia took the time to devise of poem about Frank and Amelia. Then posted it publicly. Now people are talking about him talking about them.

I don’t have a teevee and have never seen any local news, but derusha is still my favourite local tv newsman/secret perv!

Last night after a story on men getting post partum depression, Frank and Amelia had to mention what a good dad Frank is. It’s awful cutesy in the way that delivers certain demos to advertisers, but not in the way that makes a NEWS program in the public interest. I was starting to like CCO and the effort they are making with the energy stories and the Shelby opinions and the Kessler truth squading, but avoiding a reoccurrance of that cutesy moment of cringe is now goal #1.

I learns my news from the same place I gots my sex education — grade school kids who have ditched school to smoke stolen cigarettes.

I agree that even a little personal information can be too much, especially when the anchors are married. We just don’t want to know. But that poem … funny? Totally lame.

Agreed. Lame.

Now if someone were to write one about Jason…

Not lame, for what it was. It was as cute as…well…a 10 p.m. newscast. If you are going to critique poems as poems, start here, which is a pretty good summation of the news lately, if you ask me.

So you’re not a big fan of the local news. I don’t think it’s spectacular, either, but there are a lot of places where it’s worse. In fact, where the news more closely resembles the “blood-dimmed tide” tone of that poem. Have you ever watched the local New York news? A city that is probably safer than Minneapolis at the moment. Most news stations have been “Foxified,” so I for one am glad that at least we don’t have to watch our newscasters try to scare us on a nightly basis. (Incidentally, I’ve been discouraged that even the National Geographic channel and Discovery Channel seem to be following suit. For all I know, I might be attacked by a rapid pitbull/swarm of angry bees/fatal cloud of airborne bacteria/terrorist/manhole cover that is carrying electricity/gang member/[fill in the blank]. There has to be a balance between lulling us to sleep and trying to give us nightmares.

And are you really comparing the earlier posted piece of poetic drivel to Yeats? Saying it’s as cute as the news isn’t saying much.

Did you really just compare that to Yeats? I think your falcon has gotten a bit too far away from its falconer.

Oh my god, TBartel, how DARE you compare that one poem to a poem by YEATS.

I will have to tear at my woolen turtleneck sweater and readjust my tight binding pantaloons at this mockery of poetry.

tight binding pantaloons” should have a hyphen between “tight” and “binding.”

For God’s sake, I wasn’t comparing the Frank and Amelia poem to Yeats. I was making fun of you all, especially the one who evidently just wasted four years at a very expensive college that I paid for, for even bothering to critique the ditty as poetry at all. Of course it was lame. As lame as its subject matter.

The Yeats reference was to suggest that perhaps the news ought to be serious…perhaps even more serious than F and A, and Matt’s friend, Katie C, can make it.

Oh never mind.

I got it, TBartel.

“especially the one who evidently just wasted four years at a very expensive college that I paid for”

LOL. Sigh.

My original comment that the “poem” was lame was in reference to the original posting saying that it was “too funny to pass up.” Because that it ain’t. We should’ve passed it up.

Katie C is a friend of Matt’s? I apologize for wondering if she was Katie Couric last month.

Couldn’t we just have another nice thread in haiku form? Limericks? I liked that.

So WHO are you comparing the poem to TOM? BLAKE? SHELLY? CUMMINGS?

The only poetry worth a damn anymore is doggerel anyway.

Where is the DeRusha thread?!?! I have a tie exactly like he wore to the PHC movie thing, and I also get compliments on it ever time I wear it. Which is as often as I can once I learned he had a cool tie just like me!!!! But no movie stars gushing over me (yet). Never seen him on the news though, don’t watch the news on TV. When I had infants I was found myself watching that Saturday thinkg on KARE when Frank was on that – I personally found him to be like watching a big dumb log talk about himself. I have no idea what he is like in person, if that fits, but I don’t really care, either. Why would anyone care about these people? That just perpetuates the news as personality thing, when shouldn’t the news be about news? and what is news anyway…ok, enough for me, going to go look at my tie now

For the syllogistically impared:

Ditty is to Frank and Amelia as The Second Coming is to Dexter Filkins.

I too do enjoy
th haiku from MNSpeakers
like an August eve

poetry can sing
not happy talk or chit chat,
but dreams of summer

I find the local news fluffy and quite embarrassingly provincial in its fixation on “the local angle.” God knows, genocide in Rwanda, tidal waves in Indonesia, etc. are of no interest whatsoever unless a Minnesotan was involved–or a brother of a mother’s cousin who once lived in Minnesota.

I especially am grossed out by the banal (”folksy”) small talk, especially about their families…and they DO “foxify” topics, all the time: Is YOUR house at risk of spontaneous combustion? It could happen to you, more at 10! And then the story is about that well-known killer, dryer lint.

damn lying squirrels
they told me they were my friends
then they stole my skin

*snap* *snap* *snap* *snap*

There once was an anchor named Frank
Whom cohort Amelia liked to spank.
But such play when it gets out of hand
Can result in a five piece band
And ratings they can take to the bank.

WCCO too full of itself? That’s a GOOD QUESTION™.

—: Last night after a story on men getting post partum depression, Frank and Amelia had to mention what a good dad Frank is.

When I saw that last night, I found myself actually pining for the (regularly scheduled) “unscripted banter” betwixt Amelia and Don. It is a sign of resignation that I no longer wish they didn’t have the banter at all, like I did when they first started it (right around the time somebody thought it was a good idea to spoonfeed us “In the Know™.”)

Also, when Frank told Paul they were going to cut his time in half tomorrow, Paul should have bitchslapped him. Weather is where the MONEY is, clueless anchorperson!

Who on earth wrote that poem, he or she is worse than the meerkat parents… the poem is not funny and is completely baseless. so what if they talk about crap like that … it takes up like what 4 seconds, its just interactions that get us more involved in the newscast … what a waste of time… just like me writing this response, but i enjoy it … as i wcco! yeah!

Who on earth wrote that poem, he or she is worse than the meerkat parents… the poem is not funny and is completely baseless. so what if they talk about crap like that … it takes up like what 4 seconds, its just interactions that get us more involved in the newscast … what a waste of time… just like me writing this response, but i enjoy it … as i wcco! yeah!

I don’t know why or how it was posted twice…fyi

I think they should make DeRusha one of the anchors…but then we wouldn’t get his fun reports.

Why do fewer and fewer people watch and trust the news these days? Gee, I don’t know. The headline for this on my RSS reader was actually “Penguins Die in Crash, Octopus Injured.”

To borrow a phrase that usally follows my golf swing, you have got to be fucking kidding me.

Thanks Ingrid. That’s very nice. If my bosses read this: I could report and anchor.

Frank and Amelia are real pros… and I’m sure they struggle with getting the balance right of being real people and reacting to stories, and not being too icky personal. The best anchor teams are together for years. They’ve only been together on the desk for a month or so.

I am a big fan of WCCO but having husband and wife share family moments with us on a regular basis is TOO MUCH. Bring Don SHELLY back to the 6 pm news!

Oh and i thought the poem was rather funny… funny haha

Btw, J Derusha, i think you participating in this blog totally rocks! Is it really you though? How do you know for sure?

Hey, you guys, will someone please post the article on WCCOs website about music causing kids to have sex? You’ll love it because it’s fucking hilarious and smacks of something written while Ike was in office.

“Sexual Lyrics Prompt Kids To Have Sex” at WCCO.com in the Health section. Forgot biology, it’s the music. As someone pointed out before on this site, it’s that damn Presley kid.

Rod, how can any of us know? Who are we really? I swear it’s me. How hilarious though, if someone cared enough about some dorky TV reporter to impersonate me on a website.

Don SHELBY is on vacation for the next two weeks. (I’m actually filling in on his radio show next Wednesday.)

And here’s the Sexual Lyrics Prompt Kids To Have Sex story. An Associated Press story, with an unfortunate headline. A little confusion there about causation versus correlation.

I would say so. It’s like, well, a lot of kids have sex and a lot of these kids listen to sexually provocative music. ERGO, sexually provocative music CAUSES kids to have sex. The mystery is now solved as to why kids have sex and thank heavens for that.

I hope that derusha doesn’t get fired for using the phrase “causation versus correlation” – don’t they teach you at journalism school that that idea is a No No for TV reporters? Without correlation, where would TV news get all of those attention grabbing stories that make me watch the news after they scared me with a lead-in item right after Without a Trace?!?!?!

Of course, the confusion seems to be in the study author’s mind:

“Teens will try to deny it, they’ll say ‘No, it’s not the music,’ but it IS the music. That has one of the biggest impacts on our lives,” Ramsey said.

It says the RAND Corp. did the “study” and “reseach” and it was published in something called “Pediatrics.” But I would like to know who commissioned the study in the first place.

LOL mgene. The Jesuits at Marquette University taught me well by offering a couple Logic courses.

According to the RAND Corp. press release: “With funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, RAND researchers surveyed 1,461 adolescents ages 12 to 17 from across the nation in 2001, asking them about their sexual behavior and how often they listened to music by various artists. The participants were followed up one and three years later.”

Thanks for the link, Jason. Did I read that correctly? It appears that this “science” was produced on the taxpayers dime? Holy shit. No federal funding for stem cells etc., but we must find out if sexy lyrics cause kids to have sex, and we have. Now, I want to know more, such as cost and who gave the green light on funding and so on.

In the article, they cited a Ja Rule song and in the footnotes they cited “Magic Stick” by Lil’ Kim. But I want to know about the non-degrading, non-sexual (asexual?) artists and music and the kids who listen to it and consequently would never ever think to have sex. I wonder how much money the government spent on this shit.

a few thoughts:

**since it is local news, shouldn’t they be covering local stuff. we already have national newscasts, internet, NPR, etc.

**I, like most of you, are single, live in the core, like funky restaurants, blah blah blah. we are the minority. The majority of MN lives in the burbs, votes repub, goes to church, has kids, blah blah blah. “Married cutesy anchor team very good idea for appealing to suburban families,” says I.

**If they acted all professional wouldn’t we rip on that?

**That new douche at KARE 11 with the 8″ high teeth is always cracking jokes. Is that okay because he’s not sleeping with any of the staff?

I for one would like to see Jeanette Trompeter do a dating blog.

I would like to see Jeanette Trompeter do me.

jeanette is a good looking gal. i wish she was availible to date a dork like me. instead, i sit here writing about her. i suck.

I am the guy that wrote WCCO’s Woes.

Well, I may not be Yeats, but I’ve gotten paid $250 to recite my poetry for 45 minutes. How many of you critics have ever earned a wage like that?

Criticism comes easy
To those who speak and rarely do
I’d rather do my poetry
That earns a smile from one of you
But if you frown and call me lame
I guess that is part of this game.

Well, I once got paid $600 for an article that took me 45 minutes, so in answer to your question: at least one.

And let me introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is scansion. He wants to be your friend too.

Anustubh or moratime
Makes no difference when I rhyme
Mostly it just flows along
Be it poem, be it song
Doggerel or catachresis
Hope I write a thing that pleases
Septenary, Octosyll’
Don’t care how the lines do fill
Couplets, triplets or quatrains?
All I do is take such pains
To compose a verse that means
Brings to readers laughs or screams.
Near rhyme, sight rhyme, assonance
For it all, I plead license
Of the poet, of the muse
Hence I plead you don’t abuse
Your pal, Scansion–What a joke
Seems such a retentive bloke
I’m more fond of Prosody
Though you disagree with me.