A Novel Approach To Fixing Local News
Philly TV dean Kane blows up local broadcasting in debut novel
By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/3/2011 12:01:00 AM
RELATED: The B&C Book Review: 'Death by Deadline'
In a top five market, a spurious local TV report on the bombing
of a nuclear plant has caused a mass exodus; the city’s highways are
at a standstill, its citizens frantic. Other local stations, afraid of missing
out on the giant breaking story, parrot the bad tip. Fatalities climb
past 100 as people scramble to get out.
Thankfully, this has not actually happened. But it very well could,
says former Philadelphia anchor Larry Kane, who
depicts the above scenario in his novel Death by
Deadline. The book is a thriller, but could just as
easily be read as a 248-page screed against local
TV news.
“There are a lot of uninformed people in newsrooms
that don’t read and don’t understand the
power and impact of their broadcast,” Kane says.
“There are a lot of people who’d rather be No. 1
than be second and be correct.”
Kane, who turns 69 this month, is a decorated
newsman. He got his start on radio back in 1957,
is credited with breaking the Bay of Pigs invasion
story in 1961 and spent almost four decades at
Philadelphia TV stations, including
WPVI, WCAU and
KYW, starting in 1966.
Kane also worked in New
York for a spell, at both
WABC and ABC News.
He stepped off the Philly
stations stage at the end
of 2002, and has rightly
earned the market’s news
“dean” title, says Philly/
New York news veteran Al
Primo.
“Larry’s a real hard driver,
a dedicated guy who never
quits,” Primo says.
These days, Kane is host
of The Voice of Reason on the
Comcast Network, and contributes
to KYW Radio.
He’s a prolific author as well, with a pair of books on the Beatles and a
memoir in his oeuvre. Kane says fiction represented a vastly more challenging
enterprise than reporting the truth. Death by Deadline took 13
years to write, he says, including four complete rewrites.
While he’s teamed with major publishers for his previous books, Kane
self-published Death. “Publishing fiction is almost impossible,” he says.
“Unless you’re Stephen King, it’s not gonna happen.”
While Death features a handful of honest reporters, the book is filled
with a rogue’s gallery of news hacks: a cocaine-addicted star anchor who
can’t keep his pants on, an anchor with a history of reporting untruths
who commissions the murder of an emerging female co-anchor, a pottymouthed
news director who’s made a long career of failing upward, and
a bloodless station owner in New York who cares for nothing but the
bottom line.
The book recounts reporting lowlights
Kane witnessed firsthand, such as a reporter
referring to Malcolm X as Malcolm “the
tenth,” and another asking a judge where
the heck “Absentia” is after he said a high
profile trial would be held in absentia. Some
of the incidents are real, but Kane says the
characters are composites and are not based
on people he’s worked alongside.
The characters often speak in clichés that
strain credulity, but the suspension builds
toward a harrowing and entertaining climax.
Anyone who works in local television
should appreciate Kane’s behind-the-scenes
rendering, first-time novelist flaws and all, of
a TV newsroom.
Kane insists he isn’t out to blast local TV,
but he clearly has strong feelings on the topic.
The original e-book’s cover tagline read
“The story of what could happen when local
TV news runs amok”; for the paperback edition
that which was changed to “Can out of
control local news kill people?”
“I’m not dumping on the business I’m
in,” he says. “There are quality people in
broadcast journalism, but there are more and more renegades. In some
markets, stations are in the hands of people with no idea about ethics.”
A Pew Research Center study released last week showed that local TV
remains the outlet of choice for breaking news, with 55% of respondents
getting it from stations, way ahead of the Internet (16%) and newspapers
(14%). But Kane finds local TV content increasingly irrelevant, especially
to a younger generation. He says Philadelphia’s biggest scoops consistently
go to the newspapers; he’d like to see stations do a better job of
covering the environment, education, financial news and local elections.
“News directors, with the rare exception, hate politics,” he believes.
Prompted for instances where he saw bad reporting harm people, Kane
mentions a suicide at a suburban Philly school in 2006 and a station that
sparked an uproar by reporting that several students were killed.
Kane is hopeful local news can retain its relevancy. “We’ve got to reinvent
the wheel,” he says. “I hope we do, because I love the business.”
E-mail
comments to
mmalone@nbmedia.com
and follow him
on Twitter:
@StationBiz
No related content found.
-
No Top Articles
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
