Official Optimism

"The show that premiered on ABC Monday night (or early Tuesday in the East, post-football) was a solidly produced newscast. But in tone, look and content, it was far closer to a half-hour version of 20/20 than it was to the distinctive classic Ted Koppel led for 25 years -- and that is a tragedy. Something extraordinary has been replaced by the commonplace."

The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik even objects to the look:

"There is polished, and there is excessively slick. In trying to energize the broadcast through the use of flashing lights, banks of video monitors, quick camera cuts and a backdrop of Times Square, [producer James] Goldston has created a garish-looking TV creature more reminiscent of the carnival midway than the pioneering broadcast whose name it bears. A stylistic marriage of prime-time newsmagazines and MTV, this hyped-up, neon-lit news program seems like the last thing one would want to see before trying to fall asleep.

"The irony is that Goldston and ABC News in some ways are trying hard to respect the program that Koppel and the late Roone Arledge built . . . The balance between substance and style at Nightline had been decisively - and sadly - reversed in the last week."

LAT blogger Michael Hiltzik is not a big fan, apparently, of MSNBC's "Rita Cosby: Live and Direct." He begins with an excerpt:

" 'But first, our top story tonight. An aspiring Broadway dancer by day, a topless stripper by night. Twenty-one-year-old Catherine Woods was found stabbed to death in her New York City apartment this weekend, and police are struggling to find her killer. . . .

"Tragic for her family back in Columbus, certainly. And the aspiring star making ends meet by dancing as a stripper . . . that's sort of like Rent, isn't it? But our top story tonight ? Let's see. Among stories fresher than a 48-hour-old murder among La Boheme de Manhattan, we've got a Republican Congressman pleading guilty to taking millions of dollars in bribes. More politicians, principally Republicans, in the crosshairs of the same corruption case. President Bush talking about an Iraq pullout. The death penalty erupting into a political issue in two states, California and Virginia. Shiite death squads operating in the guise of Iraqi security forces. Nine foreigners kidnapped in Iraq, including an American. The Vatican taking a strong stand against gays in its clergy. Saddam throwing a fit at his trial.

"Rita's number-two story, by the way, was more no-news in Aruba. The woman's got to be shooting for a permanent slot as a punch line on The Daily Show."

You'd think she was the only TV person focusing on crime!

Finally, an SBA spokesman responded yesterday to my New Orleans column by saying the agency has approved more than a couple hundred loan applications. The official figures: 264,000 applicants (businesses and homeowners in the Gulf region), and 1,703 approved.

When I suggested this seemed a rather slow pace, the spokesman assured me that 85,000 applications are being worked on in some form and $881 million has been approved. But 1,703 still seems to me to be a paltry figure, given the magnitude of the disaster.