Chicago - A message from the station manager

If You Blinked You Missed The Coverage Of The Bradley Manning Verdict

By Steve Rhodes

Cable news spent about five minutes on average covering the historic verdict – which was just about what they spent covering the trial itself.
“Whereas trials like George Zimmerman’s or even Jodi Arias’s were treated to hours of analysis, dissection and attention, the news that the man responsible for the biggest leak of classified material in American history had been hit with charges that could keep him in prison for over 100 years was deemed worthy of one, or at most two, segments during the hour following the verdict,” Jack Mirkinson writes for Huffington Post.

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Posted on July 31, 2013

Local TV Notes: WGN’s Dean Richards Made Selena Gomez Cry*

Plus: Devin Hester vs. A Cheetah

*Well, not quite cry, but . . .
1. “Selena Gomez abruptly terminated an interview [Monday] when she became frustrated at being asked questions about Justin Bieber,” the Daily Telegraph reports.
“The singer-and-actress spoke to for Chicago’s WGN Entertainment reporter Dean Richards via satellite, but soon cut off the line after staying silent during his questioning.

“You’re, you know, probably as close a friend to Justin Bieber as they come. Is there something about him that we don’t get or we don’t understand?” Richards asked the star.
“I mean, there is one story after another of, you know, pretty outrageous behaviour that we’re reading about.”

“The questions were referring to the 19-year-old’s recent stunts, which include urinating into a club restaurant’s mop bucket and allegedly spitting in a man’s face on a night out.
“But Gomez seemed completely dumbstruck by the questions and merely looked around in confusion as her face was portrayed on a large screen.

“What don’t we get about him or what is it that he’s not getting out there?” Dean persisted.

“But the reporter never received an answer, as the star simply smiled awkwardly before cutting off the line.”
Here it is:

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Posted on July 23, 2013

Dennis Farina’s Old Style

Our Cop, Our Beer

“Dennis Farina, a Chicago native and police officer who turned to acting, has died at 69 in Arizona, his publicist said today.
“Farina, best known as detective Joe Fontana on the long-running TV series Law & Order, suffered a blood clot in his lung, publicist Lori De Waal said.
“Farina was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, a detective who moonlighted on Chicago theater stages and in small movie roles. In the 1980s he was on the NBC television series Crime Story.”
*

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Posted on July 22, 2013

Disability Community Disadvantaged By U-Verse

By Keep Us Connected

Today’s Communications Daily reports that CAN TV is urging the FCC to adopt rules that assure the disability community can access local community television.
“The FCC should adopt user accessibility rules to compel AT&T’s U-verse system to carry listings for public, educational and governmental (PEG) channels in order to make it easier for the disabled to find ‘helpful local programming,’ said the Chicago Access Corp. in an ex parte filing Wednesday. Under the name CAN TV, Chicago Access operates five noncommercial public access PEG channels that feature content for people with visual, auditory and other disabilities.” (Communications Daily, 7/12/13.)

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Posted on July 12, 2013

Arsenio Hall Still Isn’t Funny

Coming Soon On WGN!

We’re not saying he’s so unwatchable you can’t even enjoy him ironically, but we’re also not not saying that.

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Posted on July 10, 2013