Media Wore Rose Colored Glasses
Last week we asked readers to tell us what they thought of the media’s Rose Bowl coverage. Apparently, we struck a nerve.
Spotlight’s voice-mailbox was unequal to the task; it was filled to capacity in just a few hours. We don’t know how many callers we missed, but we came up with a final count of 46 responses, including those who sent letters and e-mail.
Of those, 28 felt that the coverage was overkill while 18 thought it was wonderful.
In fact, many of those 18 said they would have loved even more Rose Bowl coverage. Most of the pro-Rose Bowl responses cited the fact that it was a great chance to see and hear positive news for a change.
“It was ‘good news’ that made the community proud,” said one correspondent.
Many mentioned that it was a once-every-67-years event, and they were pleased to see the media make the most of it. The phrase “Go Cougs” appeared on many letters.
“Both Channels 4 and 6 couldn’t have been better, and The Spokesman-Review was fantastic in the space devoted to the game as well as positive coverage of Washington State University,” said one letter-writer.
The number of positive responses may well under-represent the true pro-Rose Bowl sentiment, since people who are happy with something are usually less likely to respond.
Maybe so, but no matter how you calculate it, there are a bunch of ticked-off people out there, according to this pile of 28 anti-coverage responses I’m looking at. The most common gripe was the sheer “overkill” of the coverage.
“I doubt that the end of World War II had such big banner headlines,” wrote one reader.
“This was not the second coming of Christ, you know,” another caller said. “The local channels must have spent a fortune sending so many people down to cover one football game.”
Far from making people excited about the game, it had the opposite effect. One reader summed up this view: “People who are otherwise very happy for the Cougars soon became annoyed by the overblown coverage. The media just ran it into the ground, and the public began to resent the team and the players, when it’s really not their fault.”
“I think The Spokesman-Review lost all sense of perspective,” said one reader. “You would think it was reporting the start of WWII. It was silly, overblown, biased and dumb. Need I say more?”
Most people reserved their complaints for TV, though, because they said that at least in the paper they could skip all the stories they didn’t want to read. On TV, they didn’t have that option.
“It got kind of annoying to have to go through 12 minutes of Randy Shaw and Debra Wilde (KHQ anchors) in Pasadena before you heard one word about the bodies that were found in Spokane that night,” said one writer.
“Randy and Debbie riding around looking at celebrity houses?” asked one caller, incredulously. “If I wanted to watch ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ I’d watch that. But I wanted to see the news.”
Another reader summed it up by saying, “Did they have to take their weatherman?”
KXLY got some of the harshest complaints, for cutting in to the network coverage right after the game.
” Rick Lukens (KXLY sports director) started trying to interview people, but nobody wanted to talk to him,” said one reader. “Then he says, ‘Let’s go talk to the crowd.’ Who cares? It was a real waste of video. They should have let us see the MVP presentation. Everyone I talked to concurred: It was really silly and foolish.”
Many correspondents mentioned this. The words “rinky-dink” and “bush” were used to describe it. By the way, some of the people with the most pointed complaints described themselves as diehard Cougar fans.
Finally, here’s one further comment about the TV coverage:
“The best coverage was done by Channel 7 (KSPS-7) which realized that a lot of people don’t care about football,” said one caller. “So they ran the ‘Lewis and Clark’ documentaries.”
The Rose Bowl ratings
The Rose Bowl game itself, of course, was a big ratings winner both here and nationwide. KXLY-4 took the unusual step of commissioning a special Nielsen telephone survey during the game to measure the coverage.
The result: A 41 rating and an 81 share. That means 41 percent of all households in the area were watching the game. Of those households with a TV in use, 81 percent were watching.
Those are big numbers. In contrast, a typical Monday Night Football game pulls about a 20 rating, and the Apple Cup game pulled a 33 rating.
CdA Summer Theatre season
The Carrousel Players of the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre have announced their summer season, and all of the titles are old favorites.
The season:
“Mame” - The Jerry Herman musical about the irrepressible globe-trotting Auntie Mame. July 9-18.
“Nunsense” - Those wacky nuns of the Order of the Little Sisters of Hoboken. July 23-Aug.1.
“Man of La Mancha” - The story of Don Quixote, set to music and featuring “The Impossible Dream.” Aug. 6-15.
“Paint Your Wagon” - Lerner and Loewe’s classic musical comedy of the gold rush days in the Wild West. Aug. 20-29.
The CDA Summer Theatre is the region’s professional summer-stock company. They stage a four-show season on the stage of the Schuler Auditorium on the campus of North Idaho College.
For season ticket information, call 769-7780 or (800) 4-CDA-TIX.
Danny Glover date changed
Danny (“Lethal Weapon”) Glover’s appearance at Eastern Washington University in the two-man show “An Evening With Langston and Martin” has been moved from Feb. 11 to Feb. 15.
The change was made to accommodate Glover’s schedule in filming “Lethal Weapon 4.”
Glover will portray the poet Langston Hughes , and actor Felix Justice will portray Martin Luther King Jr. in this touring production for Black History Month.
The event will be Feb. 15 at 3 p.m. in the Showalter Auditorium on the EWU campus. Tickets will be $6, available at the door.
Alexie everywhere
Author Sherman Alexie, formerly of Spokane, seems to be everywhere these days. He is profiled in the current issue of Men’s Journal and also in today’s New York Times Magazine.
The Times piece, by Timothy Egan, is particularly well-done. As for the Men’s Journal piece - don’t bother.
Fuhrman makes news
We knew it was inevitable: At least two tabloid TV shows have already expressed interest in doing segments on Mark Fuhrman’s weekly talk-radio stint on KXLY-AM.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: Spotlight is weekly column of news and commentary on the arts and media. To leave a message on Jim Kershner’s voice-mail, call 459-5493. Or send e-mail to jimk@spokesman.com, or regular mail to Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.