Big Story

Forget the presidency's future. The big story this week is the big cat story out of North Carolina. It seems you can't open the newspaper without hearing all the jarring and salacious details.(To our young readers, a warning: The following is graphic material.)"The cat first began moaning in the night, like an anguished woman. It then became vocal during the daylight hours, its hoarse feline voice echoing down the valley," according to the Avery Journal. "Another oddity is the fact that none of the neighborhood dogs bark at the cat."

As a "Media Watch" public service, we're going to let you in on a little secret that is true no matter where you go: Most of the stories you hear and see on local radio and television -- news or sports -- originated in the newspaper.The reasons for that truism are obvious. Given their time constraints, not to mention the fact that newspaper reporting staffs are generally at least two or three times larger than those of their broadcast counterparts, most local television stations and all but a few radio stations can't devote the commensurate amount of time to sports and news coverage that newspapers can in terms of space.

I hate it when they do that.The new administration at the Charles Theater has tried so mightily to provide the city with a menu of interesting cinema, something far removed from the blander product of the suburban multiplexes, and in the long months of their regime, they've not once had to stoop to conquer.Enter: "Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation '95."I hate it when they do that!For those of you not burned hopelessly out on artsy animation, here's a preview, delivered by a man with a jaundiced eye and a clothespin on his nose.

FRED W. Friendly, who created some of the best moments of broadcast journalism during television's Golden Years, is not happy with the direction television news has taken. Here are some excerpts from a conversation with him, taken from the Columbia University Journalism Alumni Journal:Are news standards declining? "No question. I can sum it up in one statement: Commercial television is making so much money doing its worst that it can't afford to do its best."Are you talking now about network news or local news?

Many residents of Oakenshawe, a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood in northern Baltimore, stood up at a meeting the other night to say that murder wouldn't be tolerated in their community.It seemed like a reasonable complaint.In Oakenshawe, a community of fewer than 500 households near Guilford, there have been two homicides in a period of two weeks. People are scared. And they're angry. Why wouldn't they be?In a community already concerned by the crime that is often a condition of city living, death is suddenly an unexpected factor of city life.

A GUNMAN shot and killed eight people in San Francisco the other day. It was a news story, but not a big story because it seems that every week a gunman is killing eight victims somewhere in the U.S.A.For a story to qualify as big news, it has to be exceptional. Since killing people with guns is now the norm in this country, an editor is hard put to know whether to put it anywhere near the front page.Because incidents of gun violence are not big news, it follows that trying to get legislation passed to prevent gun ownership is also not newsworthy.

Reading Time: Two MinutesFor you folks lamenting the horrible start of the Washington Capitals, be advised that heading into Friday night's home game against Vancouver, the team is enjoying its fifth-best start in history (20 years) with its 6-7 mark.* Earl Banks was the kind of guy who made an immediate and lasting impression when you met him. First off, there was the physical presence, the man resembling a couple of granite blocks lashed together. He had huge, smiling eyes behind those thick glasses, and his voice seemed to rumble up from the bowels of the earth.

BEING a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description. It is a strange business, making a living off other people's misfortunes, standing in the rubble with a press card as a nominal shield, writing in a crabbed hand notes no one else can read, riding an adrenalin surge that ends in a product at once flimsy and influential."

In the classic newspaper comedy, "The Front Page," the disgruntled fiancee of a star reporter complains, "It's always a big story -- the biggest story in the world, and the next day everybody's forgotten it."Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur wrote that line more than six decades ago, but unlike yesterday's newspaper, "The Front Page" has endured, not only in various film versions, but also in countless stage revivals.TTC The latest local stab at it comes from New Century Theater, launching the company's summer residency at Goucher College.

From one of the most portentous elections in county history to landmark legislation aimed at preventing trees from becoming an endangered species, 1990 should prove to have left quite a mark on the people and places of Anne Arundel County.In Annapolis, lawmakers dueled over a proposed landfill expansion that city officials say is essential to the capital city's economic health. In Crofton, residents feared for their safety after a woman was murdered in the woods near the library. And in Shady Side, residents pulled together to help an Ohio town ravaged by floodwaters -- even though the only bond they shared was a similar name.

A respected group of media researchers has found that Sen. Barack Obama gets a lot more coverage than Sen. John McCain. I didn't need a think tank to tell me that. After all, Madonna gets more coverage than Mr. McCain does, too, even when she doesn't want it - although it is hard to imagine when she wouldn't. Mr. Obama gets more media attention than Mr. McCain because, as we have heard over and over again, he is the rock star of today's political scene. Mr. McCain, by contrast, is an attractive candidate and war hero who is less intriguing precisely because, in a political world where fresh and new have become the highest virtue, we know him so well.

THE SUN has a proud history of foreign reporting by its correspondents. Comprehensive and perceptive news and analysis are the goals for the daily paper. Although The Sun cannot offer as much foreign news as The Washington Post and The New York Times, the amount of space and the number of front-page positions devoted to reports from abroad have always compared favorably with other metropolitan dailies. Sun readers have a significant interest in world affairs. The newspaper's core readership includes people from the region's many international academic, business and government institutions - all of whom have a vested interest in The Sun's foreign coverage.

In Rome, they call it the Big Story. The deteriorating health and inevitable earthly demise of Pope John Paul II is one of the most anticipated news events in recent history, and the world's television networks have been rehearsing for it for nearly a decade. When the moment does arrive, the pope's death will trigger a vast array of lights, cables, remote control cameras and microwave relays that have been lying dormant in and around St. Peter's Basilica for years, waiting to spring into action and carry out carefully written and repeatedly revised coverage plans.

CBS News anchor Dan Rather has always loved to be in the thick of the big story - whether that story was the Watergate scandal, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or as recently as Labor Day, a hurricane bearing down on the United States. He finds himself at the center of a very different storm today, however, as the public face of his network's recent story questioning George W. Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard. The report, which aired Sept. 8 on 60 Minutes, for which Rather served as the on-air correspondent, relied upon documents said to come from the personal files of Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, the squadron commander.

IT'S THE bad-news bootleg, one of the slickest moves in the public relations playbook. To pull it off, announce negative developments for your company or politician just as the world is preoccupied by a major, breaking story - impeachments, wars, Katie Couric's love life. The bigger the distraction, the better. You, the public relations flack, can feign candor while comfortable in the knowledge that your embarrassing disclosure will appear in the back of the newspaper or after the baby-goat feature on the 11 p.m. newscast.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's commando raid on a cargo ship last week was as flawless as it was daring and ended with the army gloating over a boatload of arms apparently destined for the Palestinian Authority. At the helm of the rusted Karine-A was a crew of Palestinian naval officers. For the Israeli government, it was proof that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was preparing for battle while talking about peace. For Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, it was an opportunity to demand that the world deal with Arafat as a terrorist and punish him in the same way the United States is punishing Osama bin Laden.

TV met Y2K, and the pictures were A-OK. But the personality-first, story-second commentary and coverage were almost too much to bear, especially on ABC. From the islands of Kiribati and Tonga at 5 a.m. to Moscow, Bethlehem and London some 12 hours later yesterday, the pictures of other nations welcoming in the New Year were stirring. There was nothing new about television delivering spectacular images that fairly scream their message of life in a hard-wired global village. We've seen it before in memorable closing Olympic ceremonies and state funerals.

Forget the presidency's future. The big story this week is the big cat story out of North Carolina. It seems you can't open the newspaper without hearing all the jarring and salacious details.(To our young readers, a warning: The following is graphic material.)"The cat first began moaning in the night, like an anguished woman. It then became vocal during the daylight hours, its hoarse feline voice echoing down the valley," according to the Avery Journal. "Another oddity is the fact that none of the neighborhood dogs bark at the cat."

As a "Media Watch" public service, we're going to let you in on a little secret that is true no matter where you go: Most of the stories you hear and see on local radio and television -- news or sports -- originated in the newspaper.The reasons for that truism are obvious. Given their time constraints, not to mention the fact that newspaper reporting staffs are generally at least two or three times larger than those of their broadcast counterparts, most local television stations and all but a few radio stations can't devote the commensurate amount of time to sports and news coverage that newspapers can in terms of space.

I hate it when they do that.The new administration at the Charles Theater has tried so mightily to provide the city with a menu of interesting cinema, something far removed from the blander product of the suburban multiplexes, and in the long months of their regime, they've not once had to stoop to conquer.Enter: "Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation '95."I hate it when they do that!For those of you not burned hopelessly out on artsy animation, here's a preview, delivered by a man with a jaundiced eye and a clothespin on his nose.