Someday it will write all my copy

Vacation starts now.  New articles will keep going up, but that will be done by robot, not me personally. Someone will be checking the site regularly to make sure the links work. Just not me.

Your comments may or may not post before I get back.

See you Emmys night.

He was the SECOND best all-time "Jeopardy!" champion.

(Looking for the Dan Verbeck interview?)

"Jeopardy!" is wrapping up its summer of repeats by re-airing the "Ultimate Tournament of Champions" this week. Today's broadcast is the second of the three-day showdown between Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and Jerome Vered. This is the one where Rutter starts to pull away from the pack, and by day three his accumulated lead is so wide over KenJen that the final "Final Jeopardy" is a mere formality. Unlike so many games that rely on the physical fitness of its competitors, it is actually possible for "Jeopardy!" to assemble these very occasional series among its best all-time players, which may be why I'm finding the tournament satisfying to watch the second time around, when I know a lot of the questions. Also, last week I saw for the first time the very first KenJen appearance, in which the Utah computer guy (who's speaking here later this month) barely eked out a win over another sharp challenger.

Also, "The O.C." returns tonight, followed by a disappointing new show from Fox called "Reunion." Review's MIA, but should appear shortly on my other page.

Update: On the jump page, big "South Park" news.

No relation to Keith (we think)

Perhaps of interest only to our Boston and Kansas City readers, but WDAF, the Fox-owned Fox affiliate here, has been without a 10 o'clock co-anchor for Phil Witt since ... well, it's been a while. But now...

Shelli Lockhart will make her first appearance on the FOX 4 evening anchor desk beside news veteran Phil Witt, announced V.P. of News Bryan McGruder. "We had a lengthy search to find Shelli and I think viewers will agree with me that the wait was worth it. Shelli is warm, friendly and inviting,” said McGruder. Lockhart joins FOX 4 from Boston where she anchored for WBZ-TV and freelanced. Born in Jamaica, Shelli graduated from Southern Methodist University with a degree in Advertising, but her love of writing and a desire to write something meaningful led her to intern at a TV station in Dallas. After college she started her career reporting in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and then moved to Waco, Texas, where she covered David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. From Waco, she made the move back to Dallas to be a morning anchor/reporter at KXAS for six years.

Another announcement that caught my eye was this one from CNN:

KC reporter becomes lifeline to New Orleans

Link: Kansas City Star | Barnhart | KC reporter becomes lifeline to New Orleans.

That's the story based on the interview with Dan Verbeck. As always, your miami.com or ohio.com or mercurynews.com or other RealCities account is honored at kansascity.com.

Also, I've created a category for all Katrina-related postings.

Update: Friday's "Shelter from the Storm" concert -- this year's answer to "America: A Tribute to Heroes" -- will air on all the broadcast networks, which means I'm getting six copies of every press release. Today's announced that the fundraising phone lines will be open all day long, from 7 a.m. ET until the end of late night.  So you'll be seeing a lot of that on Friday. The one-hour broadcast airs from 8 to 9 p.m. ET on all the big nets and many of the cable ones, and among the many guest artists performing is ... Randy Newman.  I wonder if he'll sing the original lyric to "Louisiana 1927."

Best "American Dad" Ever!

OK, that's not much of a claim for a show that's only been on since May. But Seth MacFarlane and co. have a doozy of a season premiere scheduled for "American Dad" when it returns on Sunday. I've just viewed the episode, and it's absolutely brilliant.  It's the closest thing to a "South Park" episode you'll see on broadcast TV ... uh, until later this month, when "South Park" reruns start syndicating on broadcast TV.

The episode is rated TV-14-LDSV.  It's got everything.  There's fornication, there's swearing, there's wildly gratuitous violence, there's the breaking of the fourth wall and of bones and of at least a couple of commandments. But man, is it funny.

I believe this is the episode referred to by Seth MacFarlane in his commentary to the Stewie Griffin DVD that you illegally downloaded last month. He wanted an episode that would satirize the FCC's ridiculous indecency crackdown. And I think he's got it. (By the way, care to guess how many indecency fines have been levied in 2005? Zero.)

All the Fox shows return Sunday, along with the token non-animated comedy, "The War at Home," which to my own personal surprise I wound up enjoying.   It's the ideal hammock show, the "Yes, Dear" of Sunday nights, a show you wouldn't go out of your way to watch but smartly positioned between two favorites, "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy."

Also this weekend, "Rome" continues on HBO. About which, reader Glenn Pilcher observes, "There was an article the other day saying that the writers were not in a hurry to introduce the characters in the series. That is the understatement of the year.  The whole thing is shot in the dark and you can't see them anyway.  I thought my TV was out of adjustment until I flipped to another station and it was normal. I watched most of the first one and some of the one last night and changed the station in disgust."

On the jump page: numerous news and notes about ESPN, Link TV, "Inside 9/11," HDNet, and that mindfreak on A&E.

Interrupting the president's vacation was an avoidable tragedy.

As you may know, I get all of my news from "The Daily Show." And although I'd heard warnings that the tone of national media coverage of the Katrina disaster was shifting -- me, I mostly monitor New Orleans media, being unable to pull away from the tragedy still unfolding there -- it wasn't until Jon Stewart last night showed clips from the president's Tuesday news op that I got a taste of the federal abdication of responsibility that's going on this week.

Stewart came out with both barrels. It was about as good as it gets, both as political comment and as political comedy. He reminded viewers that when Bill Clinton dated Monica Lewinsky, it was a failure of the federal government at the very top, and every member of Clinton's party had to come out and ritually denounce him. "Hurricane Katrina is President Bush's Monica Lewinsky," Stewart said to a din of applause, adding, "The difference being that tens of thousands were not stranded in Monica Lewinsky's vagina."

Stewart played a clip reel with all the hits, showing the tone-deafness of the Bush Administration to the magnitude of human suffering going on in the Gulf Coast: Bush heading west to push his Social Security program after the storms had struck; Bush flying to Washington to do "GMA" and telling Diane Sawyer "we" didn't know the levees could be breached; Bush telling "Brownie" over the weekend he was doing a great job.

Video from Tuesday's "Daily Show" should be posted here today sometime. It's probably whipping around the BitTorrentsphere as we speak. (Update: CrooksAndLiars.com has it.) In the meantime, I've posted above the checklist graphic from Ed Helms' segment, which was one long extended and very funny riff about the massive federal effort being waged right now to save ... this president. At one point, talking about the herculean resources being thrown at this effort to save ... this president, Helms put up the list, noting that experts kept track of the disasters striking the Bush Administration by naming them alphabetically. Now, we as Americans must come together and do what we can to restore order and normality to ... this president.

***

One thing Stewart did not address is what I'm calling the Magic School Bus theory: that canard that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin could have saved thousands of people by loading them into the 350 school buses at his disposal and gotten them out of there before the levees broke.

This theory only works if you suffer from short term memory loss and forget (a) that with Katrina bearing down on New Orleans, tens of thousands of residents were refusing to leave, something that Dan Verbeck witnessed himself, as you'll hear in the interview I posted below; and (b) that the actual tragedy came when the levees were breached, something that the federal government -- and only the federal government -- could have done something about ahead of time, and (c) once the levees did break, city officials were everywhere, they worked efficiently and effectively, and FEMA let them down. Also, (d) there were 350 school buses.  An average of 10-20 people, plus possessions, could have boarded each bus.  That wouldn't have even saved "20,000 lives," as Fred Barnes claimed ... and that assumes residents of the Ninth Ward would have agreed to evacuate.

So don't give us the Magic School Bus theory, Shep, Fred, Neil, Karl ... how did Rather used to say it, or at least Harry Shearer impersonating Rather? That dog won't hunt.

Media eyewitness: "I wasn't prepared...."

I've just interviewed Dan Verbeck, a veteran radio reporter for Kansas City's KMBZ-AM. The owner of KMBZ, Entercom, was looking for volunteers to go down and work the hurricane at sister station WWL-AM in New Orleans. Dan had gone down three years ago to cover another hurricane and decided to go down again. Little did he know that he would be working 22 hours a day for more than a week, interviewing those who streamed into the emergency command center run by the local government and WWL and talking to callers who phoned in on the two working land lines.

Dan is a straight shooter. He does hard news. He hates spin. He likes keeping his opinions to himself. And he asked me to shut the recorder off when sharing his personal feelings about his harrowing week inside the flood. He's only comfortable describing what he saw first-hand as a journalist. And what he saw was a responsive, well organized local government and a federal response that was "almost criminal" in its indifference and incompetence.

Dan told me about a harrowing phone call he took from a woman in distress in her own home. He witnessed the cheerful resignation of many of New Orleans' poor as he cruised the neighborhoods before the flood. And what about that Fox News canard that the Mayor could've saved lives if he'd just gotten 350 buses out there? "I don't think anyone would've gone," Dan said.

Dan Verbeck was one of the first people on the scene of the 1981 Hyatt disaster in Kansas City.  He has witnessed countless tornadoes, disasters, and of course accidents and fires. But he said "I wasn't prepared for this."

Download interview (28 minutes, MP3).

Program notes

Sorry I'm late posting my review of "The Closer" finale. It airs again at 11 ET tonight on TNT.

Also, I really dig the new "Dora" spinoff. As has been noted elsewhere, "Dora" is now tops among the toddler TV demo, which does not bode well for PBS, since it has entered into a risky marketing alliance with the company behind "Barney," which looks dopey and dated next to Dora and Diego. Also, as I pointed out this summer, Nick has shown it can gather up educational experts to bless their programs just as easily as PBS can.

And in case it slipped your notice:

Ted Koppel will anchor ABC News “Nightline” from the Belle Chase Naval Station in New Orleans, where he will be based with the Army’s First Cavalry Division beginning tomorrow, Monday September 5th and for the indefinite future.

And for the big finish, Les Moonves sings "My Way"

This CBS press release announces a new twist to the 57th Emmy Awards, airing Sept. 18:

Throughout the show, in an "American Idol"-esque contest entitled "Emmy Idol," today's top television and music personalities will trigger fans' memories of some of their favorite television theme songs.  Kristen Bell will perform the theme song from "Fame."  "CSI's" Gary Dourdan and Macy Gray will join forces to perform "Movin' On Up" from "The Jeffersons." Megan Mullally and Donald Trump will together perform the theme song from "Green Acres." William Shatner and Frederica von Stade will team up to perform the theme to "Star Trek." During the live broadcast, viewers can log onto www.cbs.com to vote for their favorite of the theme songs performed during "Emmy Idol." They will also be able to vote via text message.  The winner will be announced toward the end of the broadcast.

You know, it's so dumb it just might work ... if Fremantle doesn't successfully sue to block the concept first.

Update: Expect a Bob Denver tribute as well. CBS Radio News just informed me of his passing.

6 feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

What better sign that Fox News Channel has arrived than the fact that Shepard Smith was the guest on "Late Show with David Letterman" last night? True, Shep is stepping into a vacuum -- CBS does not currently have a permanent news anchor and Letterman's old pal Tom Brokaw has retired. But then why not call on CNN's Anderson Cooper, who I'm sure would've found an excuse to get back to New York? (Note: See Update below for the answer to that.)

As I said on the radio yesterday, the media world is coming to grips with the fact that Fox News has moved up to its next level of dominance in televised news. Its coverage of the disaster was consistently gripping, more so as the week went on. If you haven't heard yet the audio or seen the video of Shep and Geraldo at the New Orleans Convention Center from Friday, Paul Harris has it linked (see the next post down).

CNN and MSNBC were good, even excellent at times, but I kept gravitating toward Fox because, ironically, I thought I would find less spin and more reporting there. It did seem at times like Fox was so hellbent for leather that it was like a different channel from its usual talking-points-obsessed self. True, Fox was quick to put into circulation the notion that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin could have dispatched 250 school buses to evacuate people, although it's unlikely (Fred Barnes, I'm talking to you) that would have cleared 20,000 people. More like 2,500, if we use the figures of 10 people per busload that we were hearing during last week's evacuations.

Still, it felt like Fox's personalities were much better integrated into its reporting. I saw a few CNN faces I'd never seen before, though for all I know they've been regulars ever since the last regime change in New York. As for the voice I heard most often on CNN -- that of chopper pilot J.T. Alpaugh -- his day job is chief technology officer for Helinet, a company that leases helicopter TV cameras. (Helinet just installed the first hi-def camera in L.A., which I suppose means viewers at home will now be able to google the license plates of whoever's being chased by police that day.) Over on Fox, meanwhile, Shep Smith, Geraldo Rivera, Rick Leventhal and other familiar faces were all over the hurricane story, and were getting visuals I wasn't seeing elsewhere. This was a big improvement from its 9/11 coverage and I expect it to get even better in future crises.

I was amused to read at various red-meat-eating political websites the idea that Roger Ailes has gone "anti-Bush" or, alternatively, speculation that Shep is not long for the Fox News Channel for his failure to toe the network's supposed party line. They pointed to the exchange between purple-faced Sean Hannity in the studio and Smith:

SEAN: I want to get some perspective --

SHEP: That is perspective! What more perspective do you need??

People are dreaming if they think Shepard Smith is in hot water over that. He made for great television. And that gets people watching, not just the come-to-Jesus types who watch "Fox and Friends" and "The O'Reilly Factor." People like me and Letterman, for starters.

By the way, is it just me, or was Bill O'Reilly completely marginalized during the last week? His rants were so off-key -- his ripping into Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco reminded me of Christopher Hitchens' ill-considered attacks on Mother Teresa -- and he seemed curiously out of the loop on whatever Fox was reporting the hour before he went on the air. O'Reilly is getting more Larry King-like by the day, except that Larry's core demographic is appealing only to the makers of Poli-Grip, whereas O'Reilly appeals both to the Poli-Grip and Smith & Wesson demos.

In the coming years I fully expect Roger Ailes to beef up Fox's global reporting, add some kind of headline service, acquire better radio assets and finally make good on his tiresome slogan, "Fox: The Most Powerful Name in News." Tiresome, but becoming truer by the day.

Update: Maureen writes, "Just for your information Anderson Cooper was supposed to be on Monday's Late Show ... he must have cancelled at the last minute as it was on the Late show website earlier in the day on Monday." So Shep was the fallback guy. Well, maybe next time he won't be.  I thought he set just the right tone.

On the jump page: What the Katrina fiasco means for the indecency crackdown and other so-called "media reforms."

"Fox's finest hour"

Link: Paul Harris Online: Aaron Barnhart, TV Barn Radio.

In today's TV Barn Radio segment of my KMOX show, Aaron Barnhart and I talked further about the TV coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with special kudos to Fox's Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera for not being afraid to allow emotion to enter into their coverage of this story.