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Salzman: 'Reality Check' segments do CBS 4 proud

Reporter Chohan's analytical pieces far from fluff

Published March 3, 2007 at midnight

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Apologists for the mayhem and fluff dominating local TV news will tell you that TV viewers don't like political news.

But CBS 4 News (KCNC, Channel 4) thinks it has hit on a regular feature disproving this assertion.

During the last election season, CBS 4 News aired stories checking the facts in political advertisements.

These "Reality Check" segments were so popular that CBS 4 News is now using the same format to report on national and local political issues, according to CBS 4 News news director Tim Wieland.

Just like he did with the political advertisements, CBS 4 News' Raj Chohan dissects political rhetoric. He'll show a politician speaking and intermittently freeze the frame as words like "TRUE," "FALSE" or "SPIN" fill the screen. Chohan then explains what's really going on.

The format creates tension and clarity that make compelling TV. The segments become even better after you become familiar with the graphics and anticipate their whooshing appearance.

Chohan's 10 Reality Check segments since the November election addressed the "opposition to the Iraq surge," "Gov. Ritter's new agenda," Sen. Ken Salazar's "moderate position on Iraq," and other complicated political topics.

The pieces run three to five minutes, an eternity on local TV news where the "Your-National-News-in-a-Minute" mentality rules.

And here's what's really great: CBS 4 News isn't slipping these pieces into the noon show. They're featured on the station's more prominent 10 p.m. broadcast.

Three "Reality Check" segments, with Chohan reporting live from Washington, D.C., were aired during the February "sweeps" when the competition for audiences usually brings out "investigative" features about stuff like germs on cell phones.

In fact, CBS 4 News included a four-and-a-half- minute "Reality Check" in the newscast following the Super Bowl, which was broadcast on CBS.

"We wanted to have a 'Reality Check' in the newscast following the Super Bowl to make a statement about who we are as a news operation, what makes us different from the other guys," Wieland told me.

Well, as Chohan likes to say, that's "SPIN" on Wieland's part.

CBS 4 News still uses the same bottom-line-driven formula as other stations. And we all know that CBS 4 News wouldn't feature the "Reality Check" segments if they didn't appear to be popular - and Wieland isn't shy about saying this.

But CBS 4 News still deserves major credit for having the guts to give "Reality Check" such a high-profile shot.

Wieland told me a similar concept has apparently been successful in Minneapolis, which has a TV audience similar to Denver's. Let's hope it spreads.

So why aren't other Denver TV stations copying the format? It should be a no-brainer for 9News, which in fact checked political ads for years in its excellent "Truth Test" series. News director Patti Dennis has raved about how popular "Truth Test" segments are.

Local TV is the No. 1 source of news for Americans. And believe it or not, people want more serious local news, according to a poll by the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

You can bet TV reporters want to spend more time acting like journalists.

As Chohan, with 15 years in the biz, says of his new assignment, "It's good to get beyond the car crashes and the crime and the rest of that stuff. That's not to say that I'm still not going to be out there in a blizzard."

Mute button abuse. The best talk radio hosts rarely mute out their guests during an on-air argument. Abusing the mute button hurts the entire genre, because it confirms people's mistaken perception that talk radio is all unfair all the time.

So I was surprised that KHOW's Peter Boyles interrupted and then silenced Rocky Mountain News editor John Temple, who was a guest on Boyles' show Feb. 19.

Boyles electronically eliminated Temple from their conversation for 15 seconds, while Boyles spoke.

This was unnecessary and it made Boyles look bad - even though Boyles had a legitimate complaint about a Feb. 17 letter to the editor in the Rocky.

New names? It's clear that newspapers need to operate popular Web sites to survive. That's why the dailies are constantly begging us to visit theirs.

What better way to promote the Web sites than on the dailies' mastheads? Why not change the names on the front of the newspapers to DenverPost.com and RockyMountainNews.com?

Hospital shortage? The Rocky failed to cover Mayor John Hickenlooper's plan to assess the impact of the departure from Denver to the suburbs of four major hospitals.

As described in The Denver Post on Feb. 23, Hickenlooper and others are concerned about emergency services for everybody and general care for the uninsured in Denver.

Reporters should get on this story in a big way, illuminating the magnitude of this potential disaster and what can be done about it.

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at .