ABC's 'Nightline' Runs with L.A. Weekly Story, Goes Soft
 |
Last Friday night, ABC's Nightline ran a six-minute segment on the end of public access television in California. Although the news show never mentioned our paper, the segment was based on an L.A. Weekly cover story, "Shutting Up the Little Guy," in which we took no prisoners in pointing out the sleazy politics of former California State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and the L.A. City Council. Wish we could say the same about the Nightline piece.
Nightline, however, gave face time to the public access folks -- and all of them were first interviewed by the Weekly. Dr. Susan Block, the sexologist; Leslie Dutton, the host of Full Disclosure Network; and Zuma Dogg, the host of his self-titled show, all made important appearances in the segment, and we were happy for them -- at least millions more Americans now know that public access TV is under nationwide threat.
But Nightline without Ted Koppel sure isn't what it used to be. Brian Rooney, the gray-haired correspondent who worked on the piece, let Time Warner, AT&T, and Fabian Nunez take a free ride.
Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
