Chicago -
Who Did It Best?
Not sure if there are more recent examples, but for Hollywood sitcom writers running out of ideas, the hometown Dodgers were always an easy plot line to turn to.
To wit:
Herman Munster Tries Out For The Dodgers.
Posted on September 30, 2020
By David Rutter
After WGN-TV gave itself loud cheers for “landing” an interview with President Trump on Tuesday, anchor and face-of-the franchise Joe Donlon managed to eviscerate WGN’s old reputation and humiliate its new national news show.
That self-cheer should have been your first clue.
We were hoping for 60 Minutes but got Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
Even the normally passive Chicago media observer Robert Feder was embarrassed. “Disappointing,” he wrote, but then what did anyone expect?
Posted on September 24, 2020
By Gleb Tsipursky/Common Dreams
Consuming the wrong news can kill you. That’s the fundamental insight of a powerful new study about the impact of watching either Sean Hannity’s news show Hannity or Tucker Carlson’s Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News: one saved lives, and the other resulted in more deaths, due to how each of these hosts covered COVID-19.
This research illustrates the danger of falling for health-related misinformation due to dangerous judgement errors known as cognitive biases. These mental blindspots impact all areas of our life, from health to politics and even shopping, as a survey by a comparison purchasing website reveals. We need to be wary of cognitive biases in order to make wise decisions about our health and our politics to survive and thrive in this pandemic.
Posted on September 23, 2020
By Benjamin Woo, Erin Hanna and Melanie E.S. Kohnen/The Conversation
With the vast majority of North America’s thousand-plus fan conventions cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual conventions (called cons) have been a bright spot for fans in an otherwise bleak year. Although organizers have experimented with different ways to run an online convention, none had as high expectations as the San Diego Comic-Con’s Comic-Con@Home.
The virtual event, held July 22-26, featured content distributed across several platforms, including video panels, a virtual exhibition hall and a cosplay masquerade on Tumblr. From the beginning, it promised not only to fill the Comic-Con-shaped hole in regular attendees’ summers but also to make a Comic-Con experience accessible to fans who ordinarily can’t attend or are turned off by the scramble for badges and hotel rooms or by endless lines.
Comic-Con@Home inevitably drew comparisons to the in-real-life event, but some critics promptly branded it a failure – perhaps most prominently in Variety, the entertainment industry trade magazine.
But calling Comic-Con@Home a flop for not having enough exclusive movie reveals or failing to produce enough social media buzz assumes too much. Not all participants share the same goals as the largest industry players.
Posted on September 12, 2020
By Truth Initiative
A groundbreaking new report released this week by Truth Initiative – the national public health organization behind a youth smoking, vaping and nicotine prevention campaign – finds that youth and young adults with high exposure to tobacco imagery in streaming and TV shows are three times more likely to start vaping compared to their peers with no exposure.
Straight to Vape: Pervasive Tobacco Imagery in Popular Shows Poses New Threat, Making Youth More Prone to E-Cigarette Use is the first study to establish a direct link between smoking imagery on the small screen and youth e-cigarette use.
This new vaping data come as the most popular shows among young people aged 15-24 years old continue to prominently feature tobacco images, and as streaming grows even more rapidly amid the COVID-19 pandemic with many young people spending more time at home.
With youth e-cigarette use already at epidemic levels, and a recent study showing young people who have vaped more likely to be diagnosed with coronavirus, it is clear that tobacco content on the small screen is a growing and urgent health risk for young Americans.
Posted on September 5, 2020
