{"id":11133,"date":"2016-04-20T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T21:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=11133"},"modified":"2016-04-20T19:22:01","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T00:22:01","slug":"ron-magers-is-no-fan-of-breaking-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2016\/04\/20\/ron-magers-is-no-fan-of-breaking-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Magers is no fan of \u2018breaking news\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ron<\/a>

<\/a> Ron Magers and Carol Marin<\/p><\/div>\n

As if we needed another reason to love Ron Magers, now the retiring anchorman has come out against television\u2019s obnoxious fetish for branding every story \u201cbreaking news.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Breaking news\u2019 is a great idea,\u201d he declared. \u201cBut if you label everything<\/em> \u2018breaking news,\u2019 you\u2019ve now become that fanatic who clings to the idea until the idea is no good anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magers made the comments in what amounted to an exit interview with his longtime former anchor partner Carol Marin. In an intimate and revealing conversation (here is the link<\/a>), Marin questioned Magers Tuesday on \u201cChicago Tonight,\u201d<\/a> the nightly news program on Window to the World Communications public station\u00a0WTTW-Channel 11.<\/a><\/p>\n

Capping a 51-year career in broadcast journalism, Magers is retiring <\/a>May 25 as 5 and 10 p.m. news anchor at ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7.<\/a> He and Marin anchored together at NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 <\/a>from 1985 until 1997, when they famously quit in protest over management\u2019s decision to hire Jerry Springer as a news commentator.<\/p>\n

Magers remains no less outspoken about the judgment of his bosses today. In blasting \"breaking news,\" he\u2019s taking aim not only at the industry in general but at his own station. ABC 7 has been among the worst offenders in beating the label to death on its newscasts.<\/p>\n

When Marin asked Magers about cliches he tries to avoid as an anchor, Magers said:\u00a0\u201cThere are some things that will come up that I won\u2019t read or I\u2019ll try to change just to simply make them more \u2018me.\u2019 We all have some little pet peeves along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy current pet peeve is \u2018breaking news.\u2019 It seems to me that \u2018breaking news\u2019 has become . . . a guy named Tom Robbins wrote a book some time ago, and in it he had a wonderful quote about how good ideas get perverted, how they get seized by fanatics, and they cling to them until their last fingernail breaks, and they get twisted and turned. The wonderful line of his is \u2018how the loving teachings of Jesus became the starving cliches of Christianity.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0[Actual quote: \u201cHow the loving ideas of Jesus Christ became the sinister cliches of Christianity.\u201d]<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that way about \u2018breaking news.\u2019 \u2018Breaking news\u2019 is a great idea. If there\u2019s breaking news, you should do it. And people are interested in breaking news. But if you label everything<\/em> \u2018breaking news,\u2019 you\u2019ve now become that fanatic who clings to the idea until the idea is no good anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I struggle with \u2018breaking news\u2019 and some of those kinds of things. Television news, because it\u2019s trying to ring a bell with the audience, wants to brand things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Magers: \u201cI think the words we say all count for something.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if we needed another reason to love Ron Magers, now the retiring anchorman has come out against television\u2019s obnoxious fetish for branding every story \u201cbreaking news.\u201d \u2018Breaking news\u2019 is a great idea,\u201d he declared. \u201cBut if you label everything \u2018breaking news,\u2019 you\u2019ve now become that fanatic who clings to the idea until the idea... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11133"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11141,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11133\/revisions\/11141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}