What Newscasters Say (and What They Mean)

I certainly empathize with Howard Rosenberg’s column evoking the spirit of TV journalist Edward R. Murrow and his distress at today’s newscasts (“What If Murrow Could Comment,” Calendar, Feb. 2). We are deep in the bowels of February’s TV “sweeps” period, where hype and hysteria on the evening news are again ratcheted up from their day-to-day levels of excess. One can almost hear the Great Man spinning in his grave at the hopelessness of it all.

But rather than again condemning TV news with righteous indignation, I say let’s throw in the towel and accept the inevitable. In fact, the hype is almost tolerable once you break the code. Toward that end, here’s a handy clip-and-save guide to translate Newshype into English.

“We must warn you this story contains graphic footage.” In case you were even thinking of surfing over to MTV, here comes the good stuff.

“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.” The murder, wounding, illness or kidnapping of any human being not yet 21 whose parent is willing to go on camera and weep.

“A shocking crime in this once quiet neighborhood.” Any live shot from a neighborhood where there wasn’t a similar gruesome murder the night before.

“Neighbors describe him as a loner.” Anyone who kills more than one apparent stranger during a murder spree and/or who once worked for the U.S. Postal Service.

“Meanwhile, there are these ominous developments overseas.” All developments overseas are ominous or you wouldn’t hear about them. Any foreign correspondent who reports “the streets are calm” or “the government is restoring order” will get his story killed and a severe reprimand from the bureau chief.

“Then something went wrong, terribly wrong.” If you don’t believe us, check the bottom of Page D16 in tomorrow’s Times.

“We now take you live, where the fire is raging out of control.” TV fires don’t burn, they rage. They rage “out of control” when the news chopper gets there before the fire is actually out.

“Tonight, live on tape, criminals caught in the act!” We have obtained security camera footage from a supermarket of two men stuffing meatloaf and chicken parts down their pants.

*

Sweepscasts love to emphasize “Breaking News” and “Live Updates” to add to the sense of an adrenaline-fed roller coaster ride. It begins with the tease and the toss to the reporter.

“More on that in a moment, but first we have this breaking story.” Our live truck finally got there.

“We now take you back for this live update. . . .” The fire that was out during the last live shot is still out.

“We’ll have an update with more shocking developments at 11 . . . “ when our intern gets back from the newsstand with this week’s tabloids.

” . . . a terrible accident on the 405 today”: There was an accident on the 405 and our news chopper got there before the tow truck.

“We have this exclusive report.” We’ve just learned our competition isn’t starting their sweeps series on underage transvestite hookers until tomorrow.

“Coming up, Part 4 on our exclusive visit behind the scenes of . . . “ the show that runs right before our news. There we’ll spend another five minutes talking to the cast about how well they get along and why doing the show is so darn much fun.

“When we come back we’ll tell you just what the public thinks.” In lieu of actual experts, our reporter asked the first three English-speaking people with one or more teeth for their expert opinions.

“The White House remains under siege again today.” Nothing really happened today in the Clinton scandal, but we paid to send a reporter to Washington, and by God he’ll be doing live shots.

*

With El Nino in the news, weather is now a big part of the parade of hype:

“We’re on Storm Watch here in the Southland.” Somewhere, west of Los Angeles, out over the vast Pacific Ocean, a geosynchronous weather satellite has spotted a cloud.

“Another great day in the Southland tomorrow.” We can no longer find the cloud.

“We’re keeping an eye on El Nino.” And the other one on Storm Watch, which is why our weatherman looks so wall-eyed.

“Storm surge waves,” or “El Nino-generated storm surge.” Waves that have attracted surfers.

“The storm unexpectedly intensified.” Weatherman talk for, “Last night we predicted partly cloudy. Today it rained 6 inches. Oooops. How’s my hair look?”

After 20 years of entertainment reporting in television, John Corcoran Jr. is now a syndicated columnist and author.