Posted by Bud on December 13, 2009 at 07:14:33:
No chance of a list-less columnist this time of year
Agony of choosing, ranking subsides, at least long enough to come up with these picks
Phil Rosenthal
Tribune Media
December 13, 2009
If there's one thing there's too much of in the media this time of year, it's lists.
It's December, and they're everywhere. Everyone from Santa on down has one, maybe more.
This is the month of looking back, looking ahead, ranking the top, the best, the worst, the least, the most, the highest, the lowest. You get the idea.
T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month. It's not even in the top 5.
My job description at one time was "critic." As such, it fell to me at year's end to compile a list of the best and worst of the previous 12 months. Most years I would agonize over this responsibility.
I would have ties so I could get more entries on my lists. I would come up with more categories to cover more ground. And then I would include also-rans at the bottom, so people would know I hadn't forgotten whatever it is they thought I had given short shrift.
There was the year when I foolishly pressed on despite sleep deprivation after my wife delivered our first kid. My top 10 had only nine entries. That no one apparently noticed this until I was on the radio, and the host asked if I did this on purpose, did not speak well for the enterprise.
This was a helpful reminder that:
1. There are important lists (like the one for receiving donor organs).
2. There are lists worth caring about (standby for an earlier flight home).
3. And there are lists that exist for some other purpose (anything based solely on someone's opinion of something of which you are also an observer).
Category 3 lists are fun, but they exist largely because people like:
A. Order.
B. Arguments.
For the media, these lists are really a storytelling device, a way of saying, "Here is the year that was" by breaking it down into a series of items. Ranking them by quality, value or importance is preferable to alphabetical, chronological or random order because it is nearly impossible to start a rousing debate over the calendar.
Another reason the media love lists is they are proprietary. They can be owned, branded, promoted. It's the Fortune 500, People's sexiest men alive, TMZ's list of Tiger Woods' girlfriends.
David Letterman is at the top of the list of list people, thanks to his nightly Top 10, which made its debut on Sept. 18, 1985, with "The Top 10 Words That Almost Rhyme with 'Peas.' " Considered the father of the bit is Steve O'Donnell, then a writer for NBC's "Late Night."
O'Donnell told me back in 1990 that he came up with the idea after growing tired of the lists he saw in the media that might as well have been dreamed up by comedy writers. What set him off in particular, he said, was a Cosmopolitan magazine list of the top 10 eligible bachelors that included CBS boss William Paley, an octogenarian widower at the time.
"They had no credentials, but they were making these lists," O'Donnell said. "I thought: 'We have no credentials. We might as well do it too.'"
Letterman nearly ditched the Top 10 when he moved from NBC to CBS in 1993, but he reluctantly kept it.
"Every night, when I mention it, the (studio) audience, bless their hearts, is very excited, very receptive," Letterman told me 15 years ago. "(It's) 'Oh boy, here comes something we know. Here comes something we can understand. Here's something we've seen at home.' I think that's an indication it's still useful."
My one-on-one talks with Letterman would all make it in a list of the top 20 interviews I've ever done, but we can save that for another day, or another month.
Because I should do this: Top 5 media stories I covered this year.
1. Sun-Times saved.
2. Jay Leno show debuts in prime time; NBC quickly sold.
3. Oprah Winfrey announces end of talk show.
4. In local radio shake-ups, smooth jazz pioneer WNUA-FM goes Spanish; Jonathon Brandmeier, Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey, Tom Joyner upended, at least temporarily.
5. Rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli on Chicago trading floor inspires some to protest and Jon Stewart to skewer CNBC and Jim Cramer.
Think I left something off?
Exactly.
The incumbent departs: WFLD-Ch. 32 mainstay Jack Conaty, 63, the Fox-owned station's chief political reporter, is leaving the newsroom he helped establish 22 years ago.
Conaty's contract was not renewed, a station spokeswoman confirmed. His last Channel 32 appearance is expected to be on this weekend's "Fox Chicago Sunday," taped Friday and airing 8:30 a.m. Sunday. "We appreciate all of Jack's hard work and dedication during his time with Fox Chicago," a station statement said.