The News Cycle Perpetuating Itself

I can understand the constant feeding frenzy of the cable "news" networks during the run-up to the Presidential election. But the election is over, and the networks have found a formula to keep their audiences all day long. Remember when Crossfire was a 30-minute show and not a way of life?

The news, itself, doesn't do it for the American TV consumers any longer. Unless they're invested in it. Hate guns? We got a show for you. Hate Obama? We got a network for you. Want an out-of-context soundbite mash-up to back up your own views? Just stay tuned.

We root for political sides now like we root for our sports teams, and down-the-middle news reporting is now extinct. Not that it's not practiced, but because so few believe that the reporting entity is without bias. With all the black helicopters out there and such.

There is only one thing that can derail the cycle, a salacious sports scandal. The Secret Service sex romp in Colombia and the Petraeus affair are a drop in the bucket compared to Tonya Harding, OJ Simpson, Tiger Woods, Jerry Sandusky, or Manti Te'o.

As Clay Travis headlined on OutkickTheCoverage.com, the Te'o story is the kind of thing that breaks the internet, and causes the whale to show up on Twitter because it's overloaded.

A sports scandal brings both political sides together and takes over the 24-hour cycle. Even on MSNBC's (smartly named) The Cycle, they led with the Te'o fake, dead girlfriend (or is it dead, fake girlfriend?) story. They even had Tom Scocca on, Deadspin.com's managing editor who broke the story.

While we spend the next day or two figuring out exactly how the Te'o situation all went down - as if we ever really will - the cable news networks will move back to partisan fights and rhetoric.

And that all comes from sports, since you can't like Alabama and still respect Auburn. And 24-hour sports radio preceded 24-hour cable news.

Backtime Memo-Random: Las Vegas

I have less than 48 hours between jobs, so I touched down in Vegas today for the closest thing to a vacation I can get.

I got a room for $59/night, plenty to eat and drink, an awesome gym, and of course it's an NFL weekend. I have two Bowl games and a New Year's Eve hoop game to prep and complete before I return home, so it's a nice opportunity to recharge the batteries.

It's only my second ever trip to Sin City as a tourist, and I have no personal experiences to share (y'all know the expression). But I have been there to work on a number of occasions, and one particular event stands out:

June 17, 1994

It was my first "season" as a 25-year old full-fleged associate producer for the network. And while I still had my hands in some MLB and World Cup Soccer, I was traveling on Arena Football.

The games rated fairly well back then, and increased that year once baseball went on strike and took the rest of the year off. But on that night, we had a fairly nondescript game between the Cleveland Thunderbolts and the Las Vegas Sting.

Former West Virginia QB beast Major Harris played for Cleveland, but there weren't any other players that anyone would remember. The coaches, however, had some history. Las Vegas was coached by former Patriots QB Babe Parilli, and Cleveland was coached by Earle Bruce (yes, that Earle Bruce). I was still wide-eyed at that point at who I was sitting with in coaches' meetings.

The game was at MGM Grand Gardens, which was extremely convenient since we were staying at the MGM Grand. I remember calling housekeeping to ask for an iron, and they said "the" iron would be brought right up. The iron? The place has over 5,000 rooms and one iron?

The thing that was important in my world was that we were going to debut an innovation in our graphics. If a flag was thrown during a play, we would flash "flag" in the upper corner of the screen. We were still using those funky espn2 graphics at that point, so it really stood out.

Some management types were alerted to this ahead of time and we were told they'd be watching. But a funny thing happened shortly after we went on the air. Remember the date of the event? What else happened that day?

A white Bronco made a slow ride down a Los Angeles freeway, and ESPN, along with every major network, broke away for live coverage. NBC even ditched coverage of the NBA Finals to cover the breaking news. We on espn2, however, were told to just keep covering the game since O.J. Simpson was already wallpapered across the nation.

So we did our game, ran our "flag" graphic innovation, and nobody said a word about it because nobody watched. In later weeks we fine-tuned it, and later it became part of what we see in today's football coverage, along with the constant clock-and-score and the yellow 1st down line.

In this business, there's no real personal credit for innovations. I'm not the Neil Armstrong of "flag" graphics, and nobody has called me to set up an exclusive one-on-one interview with a visionary. I can only be in the right place at the right time.

And while I was one of the few people in America that didn't see the Bronco chase live, I just happened to be in LA for pivotal outcomes of the Simpson case. I was there for a Reds-Dodgers playoff game in 1995 when he was exonerated.

And then I was there for a Laker game in 1997 when Simpson was found liable in the wrongful death civil suit.

Simpson later made a regrettable trip to Las Vegas, and he was ultimately sentenced to 33 years on multiple charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery. He has been in prison in Nevada for the last 5 years.

Sorry Juice, I'm only in Vegas for a quick trip. I won't have time to visit.

Ichirolling!

In the middle of the 1999 season, the Seattle Mariners made the move from the cavernous and outdated Kingdome to state-of-the-art Safeco Field.

Before the 2001 season, the Seattle Mariners signed Ichiro Suzuki from the Orix Blue Wave of the Japanese Pacific League. The money was big at the time ($14M) since no Japanese non-pitcher had ever made a mark the US.

Ichiro of course was a sensation in Seattle, bringing the Pac Rim to the ballpark in their #51 jerseys every night. So Safeco Field marketers weren't dumb. The sushi/sake stand was very popular, which included the "Ichiroll," which wasn't anything exotic - a spicy tuna roll - but still far from the standard ballpark fare.

The first time I had sushi at a Major League venue was October 3, 1995 in the press box pre-game at Dodger Stadium, at the height of the Hideo Nomo frenzy. It was also the day O.J. Simpson was found "not guilty" on murder charges. Yes, I was in LA. Dodgers-Reds NL Divisional Playoff Game 1.

But I digress as usual. Like working with Don Criqui, Memory Lane isn't always a straight path.

Anyway I wonder if Suzuki, even in his heyday ever had a 3-game series like this one with Toronto. Two more hits last night, a solo HR, and 3 RBI makes him 9-for-12 in the series sweep and brings him up to .321 as a Yankee - only one point off his career average.

Suzuki is 38, and his skills this year seemed to be diminishing. But streaks like this prove that he's far from done, and his career resume may still have a few lines that are yet to be written.

The Yankees won ugly last night, but Nick Swisher hit a grand slam and Phil Hughes though largely unimpressive, won his 16th. Now the Yankees have won 5 straight, are 1 full game up in the AL East with 13 to go, and trade the Jays in for the smoking-hot A's for a weekend set at the Stadium.

Juneau What I Think

The hardscrabble icecap politics of The Last Frontier must have been too much for this shooting star. Conservatively speaking, of course.

Sarah Palin stirred up the GOP base with her smile, winks, values talk, and her ability to relate to "regular folks" (read: white people).

She was without a doubt an American success story. Mother of five (or is it four or six - I can't keep count) becomes mayor and then governor in her home state. It was quirky and cool until the big fish left the small pond.

Yes Governor, you could see Russia from your home base. You just couldn't see the lower 48.

You could throw your weight around, usurp the legislature, create your own ethical roadmap, and make back-room deals all the way from Wasilla to Ketchikan - until America heard of you.

The national spotlight and Katie Couric's softball questions gave the Alaskan hockey mom a lot of Northern Exposure. She became a target for comedians, commentators, and even some conservatives as she continually put her foot in her mouth, and left a financial twister in her wake.

Palin burst on the scene on August 29, 2008 when Senator John McCain tabbed her as the wild card VP candidate the morning after Senator Barack Obama stirred up 70,000+ at Invesco Field in Denver and hundreds of millions worldwide.

Just over 10 months later, Palin resigned her post as the executive officer of the nation's least-populated state with a ton more name recognition and a lot more baggage.

Cash in those speaking engagements while you can. Your name was in the news cycle longer than Elian Gonzalez, but shorter than OJ Simpson. Your run for the White House was historic, but your footnote in history will be merely historical.