There are two schools of thought when it comes to what constitutes a quality news broadcast. One belief is that the personalities who read the news should never be personalities. They must have the dry delivery of Dragnet cop Joe Friday, and give us “just the facts.” The other view is that anchor-people should have a great hairdo, and a likeability that makes them your television friends – the photogenic reporters of tragedy. News-reading is simply what they happen to do to justify 30 minutes of face-time. Ultimately, it becomes a battle between media and you-dia. “You-dia” is about sharing information – news-reading as a civic responsibility. Media – in the sense of my double-entendre – is about brand and image being valued above what happened while you slept. There are cases, of course, where an anchor-person can be both a reliable source and an undeniable personality – Walter Cronkite, for instance – but usually it’s a whole different story. And in Cronkite’s case, the boundary between news and newsman was simply nonexistent. Jump ahead 30 years. For an anchor-person like Diane Sawyer to one minute read the news, the next minute commiserate with a disaster victim, strikes me as anathema to the boundaries of objective reporting. I prefer NBC’s Brian Williams’ overheated delivery to the cloying, on-cue tears of Sawyer. Her flaunted emotions seem like a hangover from Good Morning America. I’m not suggesting she’s being a fake –just inappropriate.
On the local level, we have the same battle between style and substance. On KSDK, there is Kay Quinn’s Karen Foss-esque straightforwardness. There’s Mike Bush’s bland, goofy-smiled professionalism. (In this day and age, when a little stubble is a cool, respectable thing, why are KSDK’s Bush and Mike Garrity so relentlessly, predictably clean-cut? The Reagan era is over, guys. Don’t you believe we’d still trust you if you became more hirsute?)
And there are a few local names, anchors or otherwise, who stand out in a crowd of newsroom headshots. Distinguishing themselves is a matter of having a great personality rather than pretending to have one (who’d have ever imagined that news would, or could, become pretentious?). Ultimately, the way we respond to television reporters is not about how they deliver the news; it’s about how authentic they are.
Take KMOV’s Matt Chambers. He’s the perfect balance between nice guy and wacky weatherman. But he’s more than that. He’s an extremely assured meteorologist, has the gift of contagious optimism, and he leavens it all with a smidgeon of self-deprecation. Perhaps Chambers’ likeability has led to his second gig – as co-host of KMOV’s brightly inoffensive Great Day St. Louis.
KTVI’s Tim Ezell is the most upbeat personality on any local news show. Precisely because he’s unafraid to look like a fool, he’s never in danger of it happening. But he flirts with danger in other ways. Perhaps the old cliché’ of “I’ll try anything once” was crafted especially for Ezell’s hilarious morning misadventures. He’ll wear a dress; he’ll allow himself to be thrown around, ragdoll-style, by a martial-arts instructor. He’ll do anything but act like a hotshot. With his off-dude delivery style and penchant for masochistic reporting, Ezell is the model of attractive humility – as much as someone like Steve Carell.
KMOV’s Vickie Newton could never be mistaken for a phony. And while her Ready to Work segments may never put a dent in the local rate of unemployment, she does a great job trying to find one for other people. Her on-air chemistry with Larry Conners has always been undeniable; and ever since Conners ditched his toupee, he seems emboldened (embaldened?) to let his light touch carry the heavy stories.
Marshall McLuhan once declared that the media is the message. The question then becomes, what kind of message are we sending?
Jordan Oakes is a local journalist who has written for publications such as St. Louis Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor. He has strong opinions that begin to atrophy if he doesn't exercise his right to express them. Tune in every Wednesday for another installment of Mediatribe - and if you missed last week's post, click here.
