Replay do domingo, 4 de junho de 1995

No News, Most of the Time

Date: 04 June 1995

By Andy Newman

Andy Newman

IT is Monday, May 22, a fairly brisk news day in New Jersey. An Essex County freeholder has been accused of stealing $2 million from the City of Newark in a scheme to rent it a dilapidated school building he secretly owned. The State Assembly has passed a bill aimed at preventing hospitals from discharging new mothers the day they give birth. But here is the entirety of New Jersey coverage on the 11-o'clock news on one New York station, in this case WCBS, Channel 2:

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As TV News Changed, One Program Did Not

Date: 04 June 1995

By Dan Markowitz

Dan Markowitz

THE well-worn face and dignified voice with the trace of a Southern accent were the same as seen and heard every weekday night on "The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour," but Jim Lehrer's folksy, comedic side was more on display before a capacity crowd of 1,700 at Purchase College's Presidential Leadership Forum. The forum -- which has drawn such well-known speakers as Beverly Sills, Elie Weisel and Paul Volker to give free lectures -- is sponsored by local corporations. Mr. Lehrer broke onto the national public broadcasting scene and won an Emmy in 1973 when he teamed up with Robert MacNeil to provide continuous live coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings. He followed that by anchoring public television's coverage of the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon.

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THEATER;Elmsford Company Offers 'Good News' Revival

Date: 04 June 1995

By Alvin Klein

Alvin Klein

A BAD news revision of "Good News" was dubbed "the conspicuous demise of the year" in the Burns Mantle Best Plays annual of 1974-75. The show expired after 15 post-opening-night performances following 51 previews -- and a loss of $1.5 million, something of a record at the time. Now the collegiate football musical, once a hit, has been restored to its kick-off years, the late 20's. Those who insist that the real downer of the version in the 70's was a Depression-era resetting are not acknowledging the 30's as a high time for escapist musicals like "42d Street."

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TELEVISION VIEW;Diluting the News Into Soft Half-Truths

Date: 04 June 1995

By Jeff Macgregor

Jeff Macgregor

NOT LONG AGO, ON NBC'S ubiquitous (and then some) magazine show "Dateline," there appeared a video squib about a new invention. A simple marvel of applied geometry and optical mechanics, it was a mirror that reflected back to the viewer a true and unreversed image. It allows one for the first time to see oneself as others do. Ouch. Alarmed by this uncommon perspective, most who tried it were appalled by the novel and somewhat unflattering reality of their own once familiar faces. Whether shaving, combing your hair or, like me, doing both while brushing my teeth and dancing the Boxer Boy Morning Mosh, we seem to prefer the gentle looking-glass lie to the unsubtle and asymmetrical-seeming truth simply because we've grown used to it.

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THE COMPETITION;NJN: High Energy, Low Ratings, Little Cash

Date: 04 June 1995

By Norimitsu Onishi

Norimitsu Onishi

AT a local commercial station, the news director will say, 'Give me the pictures, and we'll do a story around it,' " said Michael Fairhurst, the news director at New Jersey Network. "We say, 'Give us issues, and we'll do a story around it.' " In a state where television coverage almost invariably originates somewhere else and tends toward the hit-or-miss, the state-financed public television network -- created in 1971 expressly to provide New Jersey programs -- is a sober and comprehensive exception.

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For American Press in Canada, a Simpson Free-For-All It's Not

Date: 04 June 1995

By Clyde H. Farnsworth

Clyde Farnsworth

The judge presiding over a sensational murder trial in Toronto recently warned American journalists here that they could not only be barred from his court but that they could be charged with an offense under Canada's Criminal Code if they reported prohibited testimony. In an American court, as millions know who watch the sparring in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson daily from Los Angeles, little that goes on in open court is withheld from the public.

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THE BIG CITY;No Jackal Required

Date: 04 June 1995

By John Tierney

John Tierney

FOR NEW YORKERS FOLLOWING the recent trans-Atlantic scandal involving Martin Amis, there has been one especially troubling point. We could grasp the basics of the story: Amis, evincing an unliterary desire to get rich from his new novel, "The Information," appalled the London publishing world by dumping his longtime British agent and summoning the brash Andrew Wylie from New York to negotiate a deal worth nearly $800,000. What puzzled us was not the disloyalty or the money (this is New York after all), but the description of Wylie in the London papers. They persisted in referring to him as a New York literary agent "who is known as the Jackal." Since when? Wylie has been called a lot of names, including some from the animal kingdom, but who settled on this one? The only precedent I've found is a solitary mention in the British press back in 1987, when The Sunday Times of London reported that Salman Rushdie and Bruce Chatwin had been snatched from their British agent by "Andrew Wylie, who is known as the Jackal by American publishers." But I haven't found anyone in the New York publishing world (including Wylie) who ever heard that name in the past. It was apparently only this year, after the scandal broke in Britain, that New Yorkers discovered the nickname that they had supposedly invented. The cycle of cultural transfer was formally completed last month, when, without any attribution, The New York Observer's article about Amis's book party here referred to "Andrew Wylie, who is known as 'the Jackal.' "

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Checkbook Justice or Free Speech?

Date: 04 June 1995

Can the jurors in the O. J. Simpson case, or any other criminal trial, be prevented from selling their personal stories to publishers and broadcasters? The question has hovered around the Los Angeles murder trial for months. It has become more acute as the jury shrinks and Judge Lance Ito dismisses jurors who seem to flirt with the idea of wealth and fame from their service. The courts are already being called upon to rule in this potential conflict between the defendant's right to a fair trial and the jurors' right to free speech and press. But a few answers can be offered now.

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Water Contract For Puerto Rico

Date: 05 June 1995

By Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News

The Air and Water Technologies Corporation said this week that one of its units had received a five-year, $500 million contract to manage the water and waste-water treatment system of Puerto Rico. The company's Professional Services Group will manage the day-to-day operations of the system, while the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority will manage the financing of the system and other activities.

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G.E. and Mitsui Get Chile Job

Date: 05 June 1995

By Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News

The General Electric Company and Mitsui & Company of Japan have been awarded a $200 million contract from Compania Chilena de Generacion Electrica S.A., or Chilgener, to build a gas-fired power station in Santiago. The contract involves the conversion and expansion of the existing Renca coal-fired power station to natural gas.

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