Odds and ends

I am so far behind and I’ve got to hustle if I’m ever going to catch up. I had planned to check out WHBQ’s new News Set which I hear looks pretty good. I had planned to tune in to WREG to see how CB and RR look after a week. I had planned to set my TIVO to see the award-winning weekend newscast on WPTY. I still have time to do all of that, but two of those were planned for last night. Former co-worker and now Religion VJ from WKRN Jamey Tucker distracted me.

He called Monday morning to tell me he was in town and was planning to cover Salman Rushdie who was speaking at Ole Miss. He wanted to know if I wanted to tag along. I said yes for two reasons. One, I wanted to see first-hand how this VJ thing worked and two, I wanted to see this man who gained world wide attention after being put under a death order (Rushdie not Jamey) . For those not up to speed, Salman Rushdie, a Moslem, was condemned to death by the former Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on February 14,1989, after publishing the book SATANIC VERSES.

Rushdie was quite entertaining and later I had him sign a copy of Satanic Verses. I told him I had never had a book signed by an author who was under a fatwa. He laughed and said there weren’t many such authors. Earlier he had called the fatwa "an extreme form of literary criticism."

I watched Jamey work and for the most part it was a simple one-man band as I remembered doing it back when I worked at KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau, MO. It was when he shot his stand-up that I noticed how much things had changed. He set his camera on a tripod, turned the LCD flip out monitor toward the front of the camera and took his place. He made a couple of minor adjustments to the camera and since it is self-focusing, he knocked out a couple of stand-ups with Rusdie signing books in the background. It went much smoother than I remembered since back then no one had cameras that automatically focused and you had to look through the viewfinder from behind the camera to get things framed up. I can see how this VJ thing is poised to take off. I don’t think it will work in ALL applications, but I can see where it will work in MANY applications.

By the way, this is a big week for Ole Miss. While Rushdie had no security and didn’t even want the campus security guards around, the school is ramping up big time for the arrival of the King of Jordan, Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein. He’s scheduled to show up Friday before heading to New Orleans. I was told security was on the level of a Presidential visit. I’m glad I’m NOT going to cover that.

One another note, some folks have asked about me making a big deal about the severe injuries of Bob Woodruff and photographer Doug Vogt in Iraq. The comment was from a fellow blogger and periodic reader of this blog who questioned the big deal that seemed to be made about this as opposed to the U-S soldiers who die there on a daily basis. Hey, the realities are this: here is a recognizable and high profile face. I personally offer prayers to all the people involved in this conflict. It just so happened that here was one person (Bob Woodruff) I was familiar with by virtue of the fact that he was on television. I would not know the photographer if I saw him. I’m sorry if that offended anyone but that’s it plain and simple.

And finally, I think this is the week the new ND jumps into the fray down on the river. I’ve been out of pocket so I don’t know if he’s actually started. Somebody fill me in as I attempt to get back up to speed.