A Whole 'Nother Approach to Media Reform: Newsbreakers
New York Times
Contributed by Charles Miller, IBLTV
Sunday's NYTimes.com features an article about an outfit that attacks local news from a whole different perspective. Read about the Cheese Ninja, Egg Man, etc.
By MARK LASSWELL
A group devoted to monkey-wrenching live reports on local news, the
Newsbreakers have a standing interest in media mishaps. Since Jan. 6, when the five-member Rochester-based group executed its
first bust, as it calls them, of a live remote in their hometown,
viewers in Boston, New York City, Manchester, N.H., Columbus, Ohio, and
several other cities have seen their local news briefly hijacked by
elaborately planned vignettes that are more likely to baffle or alarm
reporters than make them curse on the air.
The Newsbreakers' repertory of characters includes Cheese Ninja, who
cavorts in the background of live news broadcasts, derisively tossing
slices of processed cheese, and Jiminy Diz, a supposed newspaper
reporter, wearing a loud jacket and a hat with a “Press” card in the
band, who is angry with local television news for lifting reports from
the morning paper, [and] Invisible Suit Guy, appearing live and
unbidden behind a reporter.
During the busts, one Newsbreaker watches and records the newscast,
telling the Newsbreaker provocateur through a hands-free cellphone
earpiece when he is in the camera frame and when to make himself scarce
for a while if the report switches over to a taped segment. The group
sends its own cameraman to record a Newsbreakers'-eye view of the bust,
tape that is then mixed into the actual newscast tape, along with music
and graphics. The results are then posted online at newsbreakers.org.
…The Newsbreakers idea was born of what [Chris] Landon described as his
disillusionment with television news while working as a part-time
assignment-desk assistant for Time Warner Cable's R News operation in
Rochester. The blurred lines between the cable company's business
concerns and its news side – as when management asked to be notified by
the news staff when local officials were being interviewed on the
premises, Mr. Landon said, so the company could lobby them – prompted
misgivings about media consolidation and “vapid and banal” local
television news. “I said: 'You know what? I'm not going to take part in
this beast any longer,' ” Mr. Landon said.
Mark Lasswell is an editor at Broadcasting & Cable magazine.
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