ENTERTAINMENT 2005: KATRINA SHOWED TV'S WORTH BESIDES STORM COVERAGE, MAJOR STORIES INCLUDED BROADCAST HOST CHANGES.Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer In 2005, television news made news. In the days after Hurricane Katrina unleashed its wrath on the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, viewers of TV news coverage found themselves, it seemed, far better informed about the scope of the devastation than government officials were. While the Bush administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the federal agency responsible for coordinating emergency planning, preparedness, risk reduction, response, and recovery. The agency works closely with state and local governments by funding emergency programs and providing technical waited for the appropriate exchange of phone calls and written orders before springing into action, video crews relayed live images of hundreds stranded on rooftops, some dying at the New Orleans Superdome from heat and dehydration, and one insightful boy declaring the situation ``pitiful.'' The official word from Washington was that assistance was reaching those in need, but video feeds told a much darker story, taking a toll on President George W. Bush's job approval ratings and costing FEMA FEMA, n.pr See Federal Emergency Management Agency. Director Michael Brown his job. None of the long-standing anchors at the evening news desks at the Big Three networks was there to report the story. The networks experienced a changing of the guard with the cancer death in August of ABC's Peter Jennings and the March departure of CBS' Dan Rather in the wake of his reportage of documents about Bush's National Guard service that were later deemed fakes. On Dec. 5, ABC ABC in full American Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. announced that Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff would replace Jennings on ``World News Tonight,'' after ABC News President David Westin decided the job was more than one person could handle. The newscast was being reformatted for live transmission in three different time zones, a broadcast network first. Its anchors also were being called upon to update stories during the day on the Internet and for cell-phone viewers. At NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. , Brian Williams had settled comfortably into the ``Nightly News'' chair he inherited in December 2004 with Tom Brokaw's retirement. But CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. was taking time with its decisions, hoping to find an anchor and a format that would reinvent the franchise for the next two decades while attracting younger viewers. Ted Koppel stepped down Nov. 22 after 26 years as sole anchor of ABC's ``Nightline,'' turning the job over to Martin Bashir, Cynthia McFadden and Terry Moran. The future of the program, a bastion of serious discourse amid lightweight talk shows and Comedy Central's news parodies, remained perhaps as tenuous as it was in 2002, when ``Nightline'' survived ABC's attempt to lure David Letterman away from CBS. In his final broadcast, Koppel asked viewers to give the new anchors a fair chance. ``If you don't,'' he said, ``I promise the network will just put another comedy show in this time slot. Then you'll be sorry.'' On the entertainment front, broadcasters embraced high-tech media with unprecedented gusto. UPN UPN User Principal Name (Microsoft Windows 2000) UPN United Paramount Network UPN Unión del Pueblo Navarro (Navarrese People Union) UPN Umgekehrte Polnische Notation posted an alternative ending to a ``Veronica Mars'' episode online, and CBS premiered a Coldplay ringtone on a ``CSI CSI Crime Scene Investigator CSI CompuServe, Inc. CSI Commodity Systems, Inc. CSI Commodity Systems Inc. (Boca Raton, FL) CSI Crime Scene Investigation (CBS TV show) CSI Christian Schools International : NY'' episode and then made it available for download moments later. AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. and Warner Bros. announced a deal to bring `'Welcome Back, Kotter,'' ``Growing Pains'' and other old series to broadband on In2TV. CBS took some of its current hit series to video-on-demand with Comcast. It probably was far off the radar of ``Sesame Street'' fans, but Washington insiders and adult followers of PBS PBS in full Public Broadcasting Service Private, nonprofit U.S. corporation of public television stations. PBS provides its member stations, which are supported by public funds and private contributions rather than by commercials, with educational, cultural, and NPR NPR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Nepal Rupee. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. took notice when it was learned that Kenneth Tomlinson, as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is a private non-profit corporation which is chartered and funded by the United States Federal Government to promote public broadcasting. The CPB was created on November 7, 1967 when U.S. president Lyndon B. , was bent on bringing a more conservative slant to their programming. His actions, including using some sort of political barometer in appointing former Republican National Committee co-chairwoman Patricia Harrison as the CPB's president, were deemed violations of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which prevents political interference in tax-supported public broadcasts. Valerie Kuklenski, (818) 713-3750 valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Brian Williams (2 -- color) Ted Koppel |
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