I like hard news.
Really.
I like it with no frills and not sugar-coated.
After 32 years in the business of hard news, would you expect anything else from me?
I don't need happy talk.
I don't want any more stories about Britney or Paris.
I don't need to know the gross receipts of the new James Bond film after its debut this weekend.
I don't need police chases with coverage by helicopter.
I don't need my anchors and reporters to look like Ken and Barbie.
That's why I don't like like news satire shows.
I admit they can be very funny.

I'm not one to praise broadcast news. I spent 32 years in the business at a major TV network in news so I'm tough to please. But election night coverage by the networks--both over the air and on cable--really made me feel good. In fact, I was proud of their respective coverage of an historic event.
It's said that journalism is the first draft of history. John Chancellor once stated that "news is a chronicle of change." This certainly was the case for Election 2008 and the broadcast news media really rose to the occasion.

Where do you start? Tis is not the way to start any piece of writing--with a question--but it is appropriate.
Where do you start to overhaul the insanity of this country's way of selecting its leader for the next four years?
Do you change the time frame? Yes, everybody agrees that two years is TOO long. It's like the baseball season, which runs too long, too. Everyone agrees that it does but nothing is done to change it. Fans quickly forget the sight of bundled up players with heavy sweatshirts and earmuffs built into their baseball caps while they play in 30-degree temperature.

I thought it might be nice to NOT write about the election for a change so I'll write about a conversation I had with my niece (and godchild, too) at my mother's 78th birthday. It's a good story that the media really hasn't covered but then again, the media looks past so much stuff it's incredible. So I really can't blame them; they are what they are. They remind me of umpires; they see the play right in front of them and then they blow the call, like tonight's (Sunday) game between the Phils and the Rays. Tim Wilke, the ump at third, saw a play right in front of him and he blew it.

I really must have kidded myself. I didn't think it was there. Oh, yes, it was there. It was there all the time.
I write, of course, about race and color or, more precisely, the inability of so many who live in this country to deal with race. It came to the surface in these last days with the Presidential Race and our good ol' buddy OJ Simpson, who was in the news again.

I really must have kidded myself. I didn't think it was there. Oh, yeah. It was there. It was there all the time. Just like it always has been. For a long, long time. It's just beneath the surface. You can't see it...but it's there. Just out of sight where no one can see it. But how quickly it can come to the surface and stare you in the face. It's never been resolved and I wonder if it ever will be.
I'm talking about race or more precisely, the inability of this country to deal with race.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the debate is over but the debate about the debate continues. It just goes on and on.
Of course, we're talking about Joe vs. Sarah, or the Vice-Presidential candidates that duked it out or avoided the questions (depending on your point of view) last Thursday in Missouri, I believe. It's so long ago that my memory is fading already on this piece of Americana.

I've been watching a lot of TV and this past week I saw some good TV and some bad TV. Sunday night-- a week ago from writing this--I saw some good TV and this Sunday afternoon past I also saw some good TV. This past Friday I saw some bad TV but I'll talk more about that later.

Go ahead and take a time out. Please! Run to the sidelines and catch your breath but only for an instant. Inhale deeply a couple of times and get your breathing back to normal and then plunge back in by turning the news on via your TV set or by picking up a newspaper. Maybe you better do both so you can be well-informed.
By doing so you have re-entered the crazy world in which we have been living in the last few months or so.
It's called news and it just continues to happen. Non-stop.