Posted on 07/02/2002 3:38:30 AM PDT by Liz
After watching the first week of CNN's "Connie Chung Tonight," I have no idea what kind of news and information show it's supposed to be. I suspect Chung and CNN don't have much of an idea yet, either — but they're trying just about everything.
Partly because of the luck of the news draw, and partly because of the types of stories Chung likes to chase, many portions of her show's opening week seemed populated by, and obsessed with, people who could politely be described as unpolished.
In the case of missing 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart, one of the trailer-park interviews (that's an actual location, not a disparaging description) featured the father-in-law of under-investigation handyman Richard Ricci, who gave his invaluable perspective while standing naked from the waist up.
Chung's show would do well to post a variation on that shopkeeper guideline: "No shirt, no shoes, no interviews."
Like "Larry King Live," which immediately follows "Connie Chung Tonight," Chung's show chased, and interviewed, anyone within six degrees of separation from the Smart case. Ricci's neighbor? Come on down.
It's like Chung's pre-Sept. 11 interview with Gary Condit, or her decade-ago pursuit of Tonya Harding. She's chasing the same people as many others in TV news, and catching them where others have failed. But once they're caught, especially on live TV, what happens? Precious little of value — news value or otherwise.
Chung is much more solid, and watchable, talking to experts about more substantial subjects — with colleague Lou Dobbs about corporate scandals and Washington Post reporter Barton Gelman about possible cyberterrorist targets. These are Chung's strengths, and the first week of shows didn't play to them nearly enough.
In their place were a lot of bad breaks: fire alarms going off during the live show, a guest standing up after an interview and blocking Chung from the camera, one guest having a coughing fit right into her microphone.
Doing a feature on modern-day mountain man Eustace Conway wasn't a bad idea, but the distracting, constantly changing titles superimposed during the in-studio interview were ridiculous. They ranged from telling us what we already knew about Conway to providing misguided attempts at humor ("Never used bird as record player," one superimposed ID noted, an allusion to the rustic inventiveness of either "Gilligan's Island" or "The Flintstones").
Chung asked a good question of one guest on Thursday — comparing the discovery of one CEO scandal to finding one cockroach in the kitchen ("You know there's more") — then diluted its impact by asking the same question to another guest the following night.
And with too many guests last week, their lack of sophistication as communicators did nothing to help Chung make a good first impression. The show is so young and unformed right now, one strong running story could make all the difference. With its opening steps, though, "Connie Chung Tonight" is stumbling out of the starting gate.
And in this particular news race, the track is a short one. In the same time slot, in less than two weeks, Phil Donahue returns with his new show on MSNBC.
E-mail: davidbianculli@comcast.net
And in this particular news race, the track is a short one. In the same time slot, in less than two weeks, Phil Donahue returns with his new show on MSNBC.
With two, you get egg roll.......
Wherever Donahue is, I will be not.
It was the event that counted, not the results.
FOX should get Ann Coulter to host a Larry King “type” show... they could call it “BallBuster!”
Guests could include; Teddy Kennedy, Pat Leahy, Andrew Cuomo, John Kerry, Cynthia McKinney, John Conyers,
Al Sharpton, Rosa DeLauro, Paul Begala, Lanny Davis, Barbara Boxer... the list is endless!
Debbie Schlussel(sp?) could be co-host.
**************** Connie has a unique ability to stare emotionlessly at her interviewee regardless of what they say to her. Like a droid. But hey, Maury Povich has to find her a job somewhere, otherwise she will be in his face. Unless she does her show in the buff, it's gonna fail.
I'd pay good money to watch her destroy that crowd of sniveling liberals.
Please. Don't give 'em any nore good ideas.
Phinally.
Neither will anyone else.
However, under this title she could never have any of the Repulican leadership as her guest!
Maybe Connie should take a cure from her hubby and send her guests off to bootcamp. Anybody here ever see the Maury Povich show? It's actually more sensational than Jerry Springer. Not only does Maury allow his trailer trash guests to humiliate themselves on his show but then he further humiliates them by sending them off to bootcamp to be "cured" of whatever social ailment (prostitution, drug addiction, uncontrollable rage, etc.) afflicts them. Then after we see his guests humiliated in bootcamp, Maury does a phony commisseration with them at the end of the show.
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