Is Sarah Palin Liz Lemon ... or Laura Roslin? You decide

  

With thanks to my tweeps, especially Jason Snell, here are side by sides of the new Republican VP pick and two other gals on TV she reminds us of.

As Jason pointed out, should something happen to President McCain in a Cylon attack, we're all set.

"Be kind to Gary Lezak" is not in the job description

So KSHB weathercaster Gary Lezak is unhappy that I asked some hard questions about WeatheRate, the Phoenix service that sells its Good Housekeeping-type seal of approval to qualifying TV stations.

"Today, in the KC Star Aaron Barnhart, who is rarely kind to us at NBC Action News still tries to take a shot in the FYI section today," writes Lezak on his blog today. He then quotes a portion of my print story (which was mostly an uncritical piece about the NBC affiliate's spiffy new HD studio and Fox 4's traffic system). He quotes the part where I point out that WeatheRate's service "really never caught on" as it has only been used by a few stations at a time.

OK, first, a message for Gary and the other weathercasters in town who seem to take it especially hard whenever I write about them: It's not my job to be kind to or to promote anybody or anything in town or on TV. It is my job to serve my readers. Most people in local television don't have a problem with that -- or if they do, they have the good sense to keep it to themselves. I think most of them wish I would devote more time to local coverage, whether kind or unkind ... and I totally agree.

Best DNC moments you probably didn't see

While everyone is rushing off to find out if John McCain's VP pick is related to Michael Palin, I want to remind readers that the best political team in television is not necessarily the one in front of the camera.

While I certainly don't mind all the pundit analysis going on during the day, once the convention gavel banged open the session each night, I found myself spending less and less time watching the commercial cable news channels and more time enjoying C-SPAN's unfiltered coverage.

Sure, there was more canned rhetoric produced in Colorado this week than canned beer. But it just strikes me as rude and pointless to have the news anchors continually talking over it -- anyway, I've already said that.

So let's get to the videos of the best moments from DNC that you probably didn't see because they happened when the networks weren't carrying the convention (and the other cable channels were mostly using the DNC stage as a backdrop).

Rachel Maddow: Those stories about my new show were written BEFORE the announcement

We spoke before the blowups on MSNBC this week. Here the future MSNBC show host described what she'll be doing after "Countdown" starting Sept. 8:

Download RachelMaddow20080822.mp3

And now we know the REAL reason MSNBC hired Rachel Maddow

Shortly after MSNBC announced last week -- which suddenly seems like last year -- that it had given Rachel Maddow her own show beginning Sept. 8, replacing "Verdict with Dan Abrams," Maddow and I had an amusing conversation to discuss the initial over-reaction to the announcement. But before I could post the interview (it's below), all hell broke loose.

For reasons known only to them, MSNBC's leading personalities chose the biggest media clustershag of the year to go after each other on live TV. Even if you've watched all the clips before, "The Daily Show's" treatment last night is worth at least a couple of watches. Jon Stewart's writers get extra points for assigning "Muppet Show" characters to each MSNBC personality:

While in the long run it's just as well that Olbermann and Matthews aren't permanently paired like Huntley-Brinkley -- "It's like watching a high school news team in action or something," observed Travis Fox -- for now I can't imagine MSNBC chief Phil Griffin is completely unhappy to see all this on-air sniping. He told Politico yesterday that that's what you get when you "hire smart people who are passionate about their love of politics and love of news."

That's true, Phil. But you just hired a very smart and passionate person who also plays nice and doesn't even yell at Pat Buchanan. And who happens to be a female.

WeatheRate creator: Gary Lezak "does not have an unfair advantage"

For years -- five, to be exact -- you've been reading about KSHB-TV weathercaster Gary Lezak being "certified" as the "most accurate forecaster" in Kansas City. Every now and then a viewer writes in wondering: What exactly is this WeatheRate service that keeps voting him most accurate? And: I hear KSHB has to pay the service that names him most accurate. Isn't that a scam?

Ye olde local news and notes thingy

Putting on my Barry Garron eyeshade for a moment, here are a few miscellaneous tidbits from the wonderful world of broadcasting (and webcasting). In today's edition: A "Shield" star's winning film entry; an unconventional Royals road trip; Ashton comes to town; new Time Warner channels; last chance for WTP 08 tickets; and more.

• "I see that you mentioned 'The Atom Smashers' in your post about the new season of Independent Lens," writes Lee Ingalls. "Thought you might like to know that there's an interesting local connection. Clayton Brown, the director, grew up in Liberty. 'Smashers' is quite a coup for his budding film collaborative (137 Films), but he's an interesting story unto himself. In addition to teaching in Northwestern's documentary studies program, he's a really talented musician and plays more instruments than most people have limbs. In fact last winter he subbed in on stand up bass for the Wilders on several shows."

More DNC coverage that cable news was too busy to carry; Shearer says "it's a branding op"

Of course I'm partisan to Brian Schweitzer ... he's a native Montanan, like I am. Also, John Bohlinger, whom I've known since childhood, is his (Republican) lieutenant governor. But that's not really the reason I think the cable networks should have televised his speech last night to the Democratic National Convention. They should have televised it because it was a helluva lot more entertaining than anything they had to offer.

Rocking nervously behind the podium, like a preacher working his first Billy Graham Crusade, Gov. Schweitzer roused the whole Pepsi Center to its feet while making frequent and voluble pitches for alternative energy. (Livingston, Montana, is one of the country's windiest vistas and site of some of the earliest wind farms.) Cutaway shots on C-SPAN showed Presidents Clinton and Carter laughing while getting out of their seats. They know when a speaker has got the crowd on his side.

Here's what you missed:

HD news and traffic arrive in Kansas City

Technology is creeping into Kansas City's overworked TV newsrooms, slowly but surely.

Most viewers have had a look at the new "NBC Action News" set -- at least those viewers who weren't bleary-eyed and ready for bed after NBC's nightly marathon Olympics coverage. That set is optimized for high-definition television, which KSHB-TV began broadcasting in last April.

And this week, viewers of Fox 4's top-rated morning news will begin getting traffic updates as they happen, rather than a few minutes after they happen. That's because WDAF is introducing a new real-time system that reports changes in roadway conditions directly from the electronic monitors set up by the government's KC Scout network.

New judge on "Idol," new season for "Dancing with the Stars"

Shari Elliker and i talked reality TV on WBAL Radio in Baltimore today:

WBAL20080826.mp3

Did Twitter have the right to ban the "Mad Men 9"? Should Peggy sue?

So you may have heard that under pressure from AMC's legal team, Twitter, the microblogging service that's exploded onto the scene, took down the accounts of nine users who had begun posting messages in the voices of characters of "Mad Men." And if you were like me, you may have asked yourself some questions:

1. How can Don Draper tweet if it's 1962 and the internet hasn't even been invented?

2. Is AMC just bored with all the good publicity it's gotten lately and wants to try some really bad publicity for a change?

3. Does the network have a case against the "Mad Men 9"? Should Twitter have caved in to them?

I don't know about 1 and 2, but as for the last two questions the answers are no and hell no, as two leading intellectual property experts confirmed for me this afternoon. The good news is that after I posted this story, I got word that AMC had called off the dogs. But the whole hullabaloo raises questions of intellectual ownership that are useful to raise every time a new technology comes along.

Why do cable news channels talk over everything at the conventions?

Here's something you probably didn't see last night: my senator, addressing the Democratic National Convention in prime time. Now, you may not care what Claire McCaskill had to say, but you'd think CNN would at least take a passing interest. Instead, as a reader wrote me this morning, "we were subjected to the bloviations of Wolf and company. Unfiltered coverage indeed."

When it comes to covering the political conventions, in fact, the cable news channels are really no improvement over the broadcast networks. They'd still rather listen to themselves talk than the people up on stage. They just do it longer.

I don't get it. These channels (not just CNN) spend millions of dollars schlepping people and resources to an event and then spend 95 percent of their time not airing it. If someone tried that during the Oscars, they'd never work in that town again.

What to watch, what to listen for

Items of note:

• I'm on with Walt Bodine at 10 a.m. at KCUR-FM (listen live), just after I'm on with Shari Elliker at 9:45 a.m. on WBAL Radio (listen live). How do I do that? Well, it ain't telepathy.

• Charlie the Librarian has once more compiled a list of TV marathons scheduled for the upcoming holiday weekend and posted it to his Interesting Pile blog. My picks: Saturday, "Ax Men"; Sunday, "Mad Men"; Monday, "High School Confidential" of course!

In local news, local sports dominates local Emmy nominations

You'd never know from the way I dragged my feet on this, but I actually did attend the event at which the Mid-America Emmy nominations were announced last Thursday here in Kansas City. My colleague across the state, Gail Pennington, knocked out a story right away, so I hope that's not an ominous sign when the crosstown stations duel once more for top honors at the ceremony Oct. 4, to be emceed by CBS anchor Russ Mitchell (who actually worked in both the KC and St. Louis markets).

Metro Sports (18 nominations) led all Kansas City entrants. Interestingly, almost every Emmy nomination was for a different program, a testimony to the volume and quality of production at Time Warner Cable's all-local-sports channel. Of course, Metro Sports also supplies sports coverage to KCTV-5, and I assume it earns at least a hat tip from that station for two of its Emmy nominations as well.

KCTV to flicker its analog signal during Tuesday newscasts; DTV-unready sets will go blank

Also: Having trouble seeing Ch.9 in digital? You're not alone.

Kind of a cool idea here: KCTV-5, the most-watched station in the Kansas City area, plans to conduct a "DTV Test" during four of its newscasts on Tuesday. The objective is simple: help the light bulb go on for viewers across the metro who may have been uninformed or in denial about their TV set's failure to receive a digital signal. For a brief moment, those analog-only sets will go blank.

And all the KCTV-5 news haters said, "Why only for a brief moment?" ... anyway, details are below, as is a tip for you converter-box types trying desperately to pull in KMBC-DT.

MSNBC's Imus-ectomy is complete: Gwen Ifill makes an appearance

I knew Don Imus would never be coming back to MSNBC once its chief executive, Phil Griffin, told a reporter a few weeks ago (and confirmed later to me) that Joe Scarborough's "Morning Joe" had exceeded the ratings for the simulcast of "Imus in the Morning."

Still, I must admit to being slightly taken aback when, while surfing the various cable channels' pre-convention coverage from Denver, Gwen Ifill's face popped up on MSNBC. Ifill, moderator of "Washington Week" and this fall's lone vice presidential debate, who will someday occupy the "NewsHour" lead anchor chair, for years served as the butt of Imus' most notorious racist joke. Seeing her on Imus' former cable home was a reminder that wounds can heal ... and that Don Imus really is a jackass.

"The Black List, Vol. 1": Voices of African America

"The Black List: Vol. 1" (8 p.m. Monday, HBO) features 22 prominent African-Americans talking about their lives and their work. Done in the Errol Morris talk-to-the-camera style, the 90-minute documentary culls the wisdom of dancer Bill T. Jones, Negro Leaguer Mahlon Duckett, Rev. Al Sharpton, author Toni Morrison and former abortion-rights activist Faye Wattleton, who reveals that her mother wanted her to be a missionary nurse "to bring enlightenment to the dark continent of Africa," something Wattleton says she did here instead.

"America's Toughest Jobs": Further proof that NBC is morphing into a cable channel

"America's Toughest Jobs" (8 p.m. CT Monday, NBC) is a competition show from Thom Beers, the producer behind such cable TV hits as "Ice Road Truckers," "Black Gold" and "Deadliest Catch." Think of it as a cross between those shows and "Dirty Jobs," only with 12 amateurs competing to see who can drill oil, drive long haul and extreme-fish the best.

They'll also chop wood (a la "Ax Men"), work on construction projects ("L.A. Hard Hats") and fend off charging bull (every Thom Beers press conference ever).

What's working ... August 25

1. "Mad Men." Missed any of the episodes from the sizzling second season? They re-air in a row starting 4 p.m. CT Sunday on AMC.

2. "The Shield." Still as fearless and operatic and deftly hilarious as it ever was. The final act for Vic Mackey and the rest of L.A. baddest bunch of cops begins 9 p.m. CT Sept. 2 on FX.

3. Nightly political coverage. I guess the whole next-leader-of-the-free-world business was sufficient cause to pre-empt "CSI" reruns.

... AND WHAT'S NOT

1. "American Idol" adds fourth judge. Yes, that's just what "Idol" needed: more cacophony.

2. Olympic video delays. NBCOlympics.com took the silver in Web traffic, behind Yahoo, and it's NBC's own fault for refusing to stream live video of key events.

3. "Obama-Bayh 08." I don't blame KMBC's Mike Mahoney for reporting this bumper snicker of a story. I blame KMBC for rushing it to air without doing a smell test first.

Sticker shock! "Obama-Bayh 08" lulu oversold by KMBC's Mahoney; backpedaling ensues; he meant to say "Bayh...DEN"

This is the problem with TV news sometimes. You get a hot tip, it's juicier than the prime rib at Jack Stack Barbecue and you can't wait to break the news on the air. But wait! You're a Seasoned Newsman and you know it's better to be right than first. So you hold the story until the giddiness clears and you can think a little more sensibly about the potential idiot you're about to make of yourself.

Right?

Well, not always. Dan Rather wound up on HDNet after he aired some hot memos about the president on CBS before nailing down their veracity. Micheal Mahoney, political reporter for KMBC-9 News, isn't going to lose his job, but as I write this early on Friday evening, his news judgment sure isn't looking very good, as he and his station are trying to back away from his original, breathless, over-the-top "scoop" that he had learned the identity of Barack Obama's running mate from ... a bumper sticker.