19 Action News is getting plenty of pub this week for its “Puppet’s Court,” a segment of the show where puppets re-enact scenes from the Dimora trial down in Akron. Necessary, of course, because cameras are banned from the court.
What? You thought 19 Action News was already a newscast done entirely by puppets? No, Denise Dufala is real live human flesh. For the most part, anyway.
Gawker, the Wall Street Journal, the AP, the Plain Dealer, and a host of other outlets have latched onto the publicity grab. A clip is embedded below, if you haven’t seen one already. Before that, a couple of outtakes from the coverage.
“It’s entertaining … it’s professionally done, but it’s not news,” said Randy Reeves, an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the executive producer of KOMU, the NBC affiliate in Columbia that is owned by the university. “This is a line I wouldn’t cross. The visual distracts from some pretty serious stuff. Even at the end of the newscast, it’s puppets. I can’t get past that.”
“It’s a satirical look at the trial and, again, I think we have it appropriately placed at the end of the newscast,” WOIO news director Dan Salamone said Thursday.He said the puppets are in addition to the station’s regular coverage of the Akron federal trial of ex-Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, the longtime Democratic power broker in Cleveland.
“It’s not intended in any way to replace any of the serious coverage of the trial,” Salamone said.
Other notes: Natural Bridges Lots of Laughs in Parma Heights is providing the puppetry. And 19 Action News is waiting on a puppet that looks more like real Jimmy Dimora, which should come soon, and which should lend a fresh breath of credibility to the proceedings.
This article appears in Jan 18-24, 2012.
This is what “news” has become….very sad….but then again 19 news is something i can’t watch. It’s supposed to be reporting the news…..not telling me how they feel about each story with a snarky comment or stupid headline or eyeroll…..they can go away now.
For those hardworking taxpayers that have systematically been financially raped for over 2 decades and have had our sacred trust stomped and defecated on, and being that cameras are still banned in the federal courtrooms in this day and age, these CREATIVE puppets not only bring the factual dialogue by our ‘esteemed’ so called ‘public servants’ ie. SELF servants but gives us a much overdue and needed chuckles; to a repulsive, dispictable and obscene ‘state of affairs’ that our county is in.
Communication in any form is better than no communication at all. When we have none at all we have the dysfunction which is taking place in Washington DC. I just watched our great Ohio speaker of the house, Boehner, and it is sad that he is from the same state which has produced so many politicians who were able to work for the people and not for a party..a party which made its’ priority one to get the democrat president out of office. He may play golf with Obama (once), but it is clear that he is just another puppet in politics today. John Bohner is from Ohio and our governor of Ohio is from Reading PA. They are both powerful republicans who believe that the biggest problem in the USA today is the liberals and our current president. They think OWS is just a bunch of poop flinging radical liberals who are pissed off because they don’t have a good job. I am so frustrated by corporate America and the control-freak, fucking baby attitude which the republican party has exibited for thirty or so years. I am not of a mind that thinks Vets should get special treatment, but I am sure that they should not be treated like shit by prick republican politicians who have never seen any military duty. Bohner was in boot camp for like a week or two when he was given an honerable discharge because he had, I think, I cry baby condition. Even though he was an Eagle Scout, he did not have the opportunity to do much active duty in a military uniform. He wanted his medals from Boy Scouts to transfere over into his military file, but he could not get that through the VA.
I am sad that our veterans have been pushed around so before they join the military and after they have served in the military. We have many Vets coming home and there needs to be opportunity and jobs for these young folks. They have been sometimes subjected to the hell of our wars and they deserve better than to come home to a job creation group who is more concerned with keeping and increasing their wealth than providing jobs for those who need, and deserve them most.
Jobs are what needs to be created but capital is required to create jobs and the tight wads (mostly republicans) have kept their hard earned money from doing any real good. They give to charity because their bean-counting lawyers and accountants tell them it is a tax break. We have become a society of hoarders of money and power and they will not help anyone or any cause unless they receive an advatage by helping people. Charity has become but an account on the balance sheet and is often given not out of kindness but obligation.
I thank the clevescene people again for not censoring my thoughts like the PD has done. I only want what is going to create good jobs in the USA and the world at large. Why does the republican party and all of the investment capital which it controls hate me? I can answer that easily…it is because I know the game which they play and I do not like it. When I was working for the big boys who used their money to extract what they thought they needed from the mouths of the people in the form of food and minds which follow. I can remember getting reamed for biting the very hand which was feeding me and my family. They would say things like, ‘do you think that you getting fired for getting us mad is worth it? Do you think that you communicating your mind to us is going to feed your children and grandchildren? We hate what you and Obama and anyone who thinks like a liberal. How negative can a ruling class become? I don’t think much farther than the current republican party and the control-freaked out money behind it.
To be honest, I haven’t “scene” (ha, see what I did there) this segment of the 19 news yet. I generally avoid watching the news because it’s generally garbage anyways. Any news I need I can get online from a number of sites.
That being said, at first glance this would seem to be pretty funny. With all that’s at stake here and considering that these guys basically screwed all of us and the city of Cleveland, I think it’s probably not the best idea though. It’s like they make a puppet show of Lebron walking around Cleveland acting like a d-bag; sure you can see the try at humor, but that really doesn’t need to happen. You’re a news show, stick with that. Unless of course 19 news is trying to be more like The Daily Show or Colbert Report.
How did I miss this story from way back? This is priceless.