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ANTHONY ST. JOHN: since inception, CNN has chosen commentators without regard for race or sex. He says the station's graphics department designs the best guise of all satellite stations. The station has a good mix of news and entertainment, he says.
ANTHONY ST. JOHN: since inception, CNN has chosen commentators without regard for race or sex. He says the station's graphics department designs the best guise of all satellite stations. The station has a good mix of news and entertainment, he says.
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ANTHONY ST. JOHN: since inception, CNN has chosen commentators without regard for race or sex. He says the station's graphics department designs the best guise of all satellite stations. The station has a good mix of news and entertainment, he says.
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Mister & Miss Annual Satellite Newsbroad caster Beauty Pageant ANTHONY ST. JOHN
I have always esteemed CNN for one precise motive: From
its inception the satellite newscaster has steadfastly selected broadcasters without regard for their race or sex. We have been awarded with a variety of characters hailing from all spots on the planet, and while all commentators have been obliged to speak English clearly and distinctly, none of them have been snubbed because they did not enunciate with an Oxford or Cambridge inflection. I find that refreshing.
I am fond of the CNN graphics department as well. I think it
designs the best guise of all the satellite stations with the BBC often coming in a close second. CNN’s presentations are elegant, ingenious and they are transmitted at a pleasant pace. I am even sometimes delighted to watch the commercials because they also permeate a pleasing to the eye appearance.
I have been watching CNN on and off since it started its
satellite ball rolling. In August 1984 at the Hotel Dante Lugano in Switzerland, the receptionist invited me to tune in on, in my room, a new satellite, all-news station called CNN. I had heard about the world-wide transmission before and was anxious to have a look for myself for the first time. I liked it—watched more of it when not sightseeing in the beautiful Lugano. On the second day of my sojourn, the LARRY KING LIVE show popped up and, low and behold, there was a coiffed Larry King wearing a tie! (I do not remember if he wore suspenders.) I re-identified him instantly, and then I ruminated about what I had seen in him before—Larry had interviewed me on WIOD radio in Miami in the early 1970s when he wore a sports shirt without a tie and drank coffee after coffee from a Styrofoam cup—that now would have propelled him to start on that trajectory which would make of him one of the most-recognized faces on this planet. And I was proud. For him, for me. After all, I too, had become one of the more than 30,000 interviewees he had grilled during his thirty-five years (1996) of interviewing! (Larry will never win a beauty contest. Saddam Heussin is more bello than he is!)
CNN has come a long way since 1984. Indeed. And so
have the other satellite broadcasting companies that have come to emulate it. BBC is exceptional in its reportage but can be staid to the point of being zapped. If you want to know about English culture or English news, I find SKYNEWS to be very informative and low-brow without being scrappy. On the other hand, FOX—apart from its political bias which I find alarming—is disjointed, often rude and excessively meat and potatoes. FOX is conservative and I find that traditionalists want to see things always in black and white conditions. I never watch RAI (Italian state television) on satellite because they are serviced by the big satellite broadcasters and there is no need to stay tuned. Unfortunately, the news about Italy always leaves me perplexed. Can I believe what they are dishing out? Is the broadcaster’s news copy blue-penned with insertions and proofreaders’ marks inscribed to satisfy the whims of some political splinter group? And the RAI telecronisti recite the news as if they are chanting the Dies Irae at a funeral ceremony.
Whenever I connect to my sat service (SKY) I zap through
SKYNEWS, FOX, CNN, CNBC and BBC to see if any of my favorite Beauty Queens are on the air. SKYNEWS girls are attractive and sedate; FOX lasses are adorable and prissy and remind me of old Doris Day movies; CNN babes are a little snobby and Christiane Amanpour’s, The Mother Hen of CNN, dress code disappoints me: She looks as if she is on her way up a mountain to interview Fidel Castro in revolutionary days or has just come out of a spider hole in the Middle East; NBC sweeties are saucy; and, BBC mademoiselles are….
I have a confession to make. I’m in love with a satellite
newscaster. In all honesty. And I want to see how my Secret Love would fair in a Miss Satellite Newsbroadcaster Beauty Pageant. She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen slip through a satellite dish. Can you guess who she is?
I must go. Have to clean my lip smudges off my TV screen.
I love my Ethereal Goddess so much that the front of my TV is always fogging up with my smacks for her, and I can’t distinguish Ronald Rumsfeld from Dick Cheney.
Toodleoo.
Anthony St. John, a resident of Calenzano, has been living
in Italy since 1 May 1983. Send him your kindest regards through www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior