COMMENTARY
Buffalo is a first-rate city for veteran newscasters
What do John Beard, Kevin O’Connell and Irv Weinstein have that Jacquie Walker, Don Postles, Scott Levin and even Carol Jasen don’t?
The answer:
their own Wikipedia page.
Yes, I know Wikipedia can be a decidedly shaky dispenser of information. If, for instance, you go to the WIVB Wikipedia page, you’ll be treated to the news that Jennifer Aniston—yes, Jennifer Aniston— was a “tape operator” at the station from 1987 to 1989. A quick call to the WIVB human resources department elicits this answer: uh-uh. Ain’t true.
Still, a Wikipedia page is, unquestionably, indicative of a certain level of celebrity.
That’s because John Beard and Kevin O’Connell are among those who sprang from Buffalo TV news to major reputations in Los Angeles. Courtesy of Toronto’s cult enthusiasm for Irv Weinstein’s alliterative nightly snarls at “pistol packing punks” and his rich delicatessen menu of showbiz references, he’s an authentic legend in two countries.
Beard, as everyone knows by now, is coming back to Buffalo to anchor the morning and noon news at Ch. 2 after a long stint of anchoring in L. A. Anyone who believes that’s all he’ll ever do at Ch. 2 should steer clear of Bernie Madoff’s old associates. You don’t get a talent as recognized and proven and good to work for you just to give a shot of adrenaline to morning ratings (as important as they are.)
I was on vacation in Los Angeles when the Beard story broke. Which means I was, at night, actually soaking up some of the TV news environment Beard’s been in for a long while. I found myself marveling at how very good the news on KNBC was (where Beard was once employed before leaving in disgust) and, conversely, how smoothly but hopelessly second-rate the news was on KCAL, the CBS affiliate.
And that’s, perhaps, the most interesting part of the whole saga—the assumption that Beard is trading the wonders of the Big Time for banishment to the Boonies. It’s the Wikipedia value system which has, tragically, been ingested and adopted by many people in Buffalo itself who ought to know better—those who live here but still assume everything Buffalonian is second-rate and everything Big Town and coastal is just peachy.
There’s nothing quite like meeting Buffalonians who assume that anyone working in Buffalo media—print or otherwise— must be second-rate, otherwise they’d be working for newspapers or networks in New York, Los Angles etc. There is, in fact, no more second- rate assumption about Buffalo that I can think of than the assumption that everything Buffalonian is second-rate.
In so many ways, Buffalo has been proportionately first-rate culturally, for decades.
What I’ve figured out over the years, in fact, is how many first-rate people who could, given a chance, excel in any coastal environment, are secretly embarrassed by how content they are with life in Buffalo. That renowned and ridiculous “Buffalo inferiority complex,” then, is a way to camouflage the biggest and most shameful secret of all about this city—for many it’s an extraordinarily comfortable city in which to live and work.
The catch, of course, is that’s not close to true for all those caught in the backwash of all the twilight industries that have disappeared and made it the third poorest city in the country. We have a tragic amount of blight and poverty here—not to mention simple business failure and unemployment.
But for those comfortably employed in Buffalo media, it’s not at all a bad place to live. It may not be Malibu, but it’s relatively inexpensive, surprisingly beautiful, culturally active, appallingly well-fed, pleasantly sports-nuts and full of people with a solid and decent Midwestern regard for others rather than a coastal reliance on the craven fiction that the S. O. B.’s way is the only way.
Let me confess to being initially a bit baffled by Beard’s coming off a two-year layoff (after his employment at L. A.’s KTTV ended unpleasantly) to come to Buffalo. Until, that is, I thought about it a little and the whole thing seemed smart all around.
If, as Beard told my colleague Alan Pergament, he’s got good memories of his time at Ch. 4 in Buffalo and good friends here in O’Connell and Ed Kilgore, this is as good a place as any—and better than most—for an anchor his age to ply his trade. What broadcasters always know that Buffalo civilians seldom think about, is that proximity to Toronto gives network affiliates here a major international audience.
For Ch. 2, it’s nothing but smart. To any rational observer, the Ch. 4 anchor team of Walker and Postles has been ripe for the Nielsen taking for years. That Ch. 2 is now an unofficial Buffalo To L. A. and Back club (Beard, O’Connell and Maria Genero now as utility weather-caster) is more than an ample indication that they’re as serious as a heart attack about taking over TV news dominance in Buffalo.
Personally, I think it would be more than a pity if Scott Levin were to be bruised too badly in Ch. 2’s Beard bonanza. On the terrible night when the story of the crash of Flight 3407 broke during the 11 p. m. news, Levin, more than any other local news anchor, truly distinguished himself. And that’s when anchors prove their true mettle.
Whatever happens, this much is certain—this is the biggest wave rocking the local TV news boat since Irv Weinstein retired, Carol Jasen left to get married and former Ch. 2 News director Ellen Crooke set up a tailor shop to outfit her reporters with red jackets and new attitudes.
Ch. 2 tried cosmetology and aggression and achieved some success. Now they’re going for heavyweight news experience as well.
It’s the continuing proof of a competitive new attitude—not Beard himself—that’s quite likely to be a game-changer on this side of the broadcast border.
As local sporting events go, TV News Polo isn’t quite up there with the Bills and the Sabres, but it’s not far behind either.
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