Starting now.
Commonalities where guests find
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conversations, politics,
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all the topics your grandmother told
you not to discuss with friends.
And now your host, Matthew Dowling,
and today's guests on commonalities.
Well, good morning everyone,
and thank you for joining us.
We are actually doing today's
show, uh, while we pre-record, uh,
for the convenience of many of
our guests. Today's show is live,
and I am, uh,
doing it from the W N B S studios off
of Morgantown Street in Uniontown and
producing is Bill Madden
here with us today. Um,
and we have a wonderful
guest with us, a uh,
Pittsburgh media icon,
John Steiger, while John,
how are you doing today?
Good. How are you doing, Matthew?
I'm doing well. I think, uh,
most people, uh, in the, uh,
in the Fayette County Uniontown area,
know your credentials, know that, uh,
you know, I remember as
a, as a child that, uh,
you were doing sportscasting with, uh,
with some of the greats like Myron Cope,
um, oh yeah. And you've been,
uh, you've been doing, uh,
some conservative talk radio
since that point in time.
But the reason we wanted to have you on
today was so that we could have a little
bit of discussion about
the media's role in
politics and how you've seen,
uh, that kind of change in, uh,
in your career span, uh,
over the last couple decades.
Well, I mean, how much time
you got <laugh>? Uh, um,
actually, um, you know, it's, it's two,
it's two different from a national
perspective, it's obvious. So,
I mean, I'm, I'm pretty old.
So I was out there selling
cable TV door to door when I got
outta college in, uh, 19 72, 50
years ago, believe it or not.
Um,
and I had to tell people when
I knocked on the door, I,
I,
what part of the sales pitch was
I would point outside to the,
to the wire running on the
telephone pole outside, I'd say,
you see that silver wire that's a cable,
and we're gonna connect
the cable from to that,
that's gonna run directly to your TV
and you're gonna get great reception and
blah, blah, blah. And
I had people say to me,
I will never pay for to watch
tv. I'm never gonna pay.
Just imagine somebody saying
that now. And they said, um,
some people would say, that's the way,
that's a way for the
government to spy on you.
That's never gonna be in my house.
I actually made really good money doing
it cause, because I was, I, I was a,
a recent graduate from college, and
I, you know, I was getting, I, I,
I had feelers out to get a, a real job,
and I was making the
equivalent of about probably,
I don't know, $1,500 a week, working
like 18 hours a week selling it.
So,
but I was good at it because I knew what
it was and I knew what the future was,
but I, you know, I was, I was
charging five, I was asking for $5,
that's how much it costs for a
month, and look where we are now,
where not, and, and back then,
all you got really was some, um,
good reception on the local channels,
you know, perfect reception on, you know,
the <inaudible> cable gives
you and the, and the big, uh,
the attraction that I was selling was
that you could watch W o R TV in New York
and watch Mets games. Um,
so right now you have 150 channels
at least, that you can watch,
and then they're streaming.
So just the, the,
the way how much the
technology has changed since,
since I got out of college and the way,
forget about what people see on tv,
the way they watch TV has
changed so much, much. Um,
and then in the last 25, 26 years
since, um, Fox has been on the,
obviously they, they, the main
cable news networks, msnbc, cnn,
and Fox are competing. Um,
but Fox jumped in there
smart enough to see the,
the void that was there
for conservative news,
and they're killing everybody.
So the biggest change in
the last 25 years has been
Fox cuz, uh, because if you
just try to imagine, you know,
all the discussion that you're seeing
now about the Hunter Biden laptop,
there would be millions and
millions of people still today
that would not know what you're
talking about. If you said, uh,
hunter Biden's laptop, what do you think
of that? And you asked 'em, they said,
who's Hunter Biden? What's that? If you,
that's what would be going on if there
was no Fox tv because the other networks,
including not just the two
cable networks, but um, abc,
cbs, nbc, they've basically, until
very recently, they ignored the story.
So if you don't have Fox there,
and that's just one example of,
you know, the same, you could say
the same thing about the border.
The border is now,
the other networks are finally paying
attention to the border after Fox has been
beating on it for a couple of years. Um,
so the fact that Fox has created a,
a spot for conservative
news and commentary, uh,
that's the biggest change aside from the
technical change that I just described
from going from, you know,
I watched you watching, uh,
three stations to watching
150 stations and on the local
level, um, when I started
working at Channel four,
we had a half hour news at six o'clock.
We had a half hour news at
11 o'clock, that was it.
Now they have a four o'clock,
a five o'clock, a six o'clock,
they're on three or four hours in
the morning, all three stations.
And most of it's garbage.
But it's, it's different.
And so that's the biggest
change quantity has been is,
is great. Much, much
greater the quality. Much,
much less.
Yeah, I, you know, I've been
surprised seeing the advances of,
uh, what quality is acceptable,
um, in news production.
You know, I, years ago, we would've
never thought, uh, of, you know,
a reporter getting on their, uh,
Facebook live on their cell
phone right in front of them. No.
And doing a preview of that story. Now,
you know, that's expected in the field.
And, and I'm even seeing people, uh,
in the media world who, you know,
their stations have requirements on them
for a number of social media posts and
interactions. Um, oh yeah. Because, you
know, they, they really want them to,
to be a persona. But, you know,
the other change that, uh,
that I think you started to get to with,
with Fox is the 24 hour news cycle.
And I think back here in
Pennsylvania to, uh, I believe it,
and I could be wrong,
um, so catch me if I am,
but 2005 ish was the legislative
pay raise that happened in the
middle of the night. You
know, you think back to 2005,
how much different, uh,
even just then politics and
the way it was covered was, uh,
that you were able to,
to push a pay raise through in the
middle of the night because no one was
watching.
Yeah. And you, there's the
things, and again, though,
to me, the, the big, it's obvious that
you can't get away with certain things,
politicians or, and,
and other people. And,
and nobody can get away with
anything anymore. You can't,
you can't beat somebody up in a subway
station without it being recorded by
somebody and out on video,
seen by millions of people.
So you really can't get away
with anything. But, but, um, the,
the difference is that these,
the stations have the ability
to do this kind of stuff,
but they, the, to me, the biggest
sin that's being committed,
not just by national, but
even maybe more so by local,
is it's omission, not
willing to cover a story.
There. There are great
stories out there, uh,
pushing through a pay raise in the
middle of the night as one example. Um,
I don't know that any of
the three local stations,
news operations would really
make a big deal about that today.
I just don't think they
would. They did. Um, there's,
there are so many stories that I
see that I, excuse me, that I, um,
covered on my radio show that
I discussed on my radio show.
And I look, and I, I I, I, the, the
local stations aren't covering it.
They just don't cover it.
If it's not a murder or a fire or a car
accident or the weather, it's not in the
newscast. Anything that requires, um,
enterprise, uh, requires a little
bit of guts maybe to do the story.
Um, it's almost non-existent and
it's embarrassing. And I know,
I know the people. I,
I don't blame the people that
you see on the local stations,
and especially the ones who have
been around for a while. If you,
if you agree with what I'm saying,
don't blame them because they know as,
as well as I do, that it
stinks and that it's the,
it's the way it's being run
by ownership and management.
And they're afraid to do controversial
stories cuz somebody might get upset
and, um,
it has to be a certain kind of a story
for them to have the guts to do it.
But they, they'll stay away
from anything that, um, would,
would get anybody upset. And even
in sports, I don't know how long,
how far you go back, excuse me, a lot. Um,
you mentioned Myron Koch.
Myron Koch did a commentary every
night at six o'clock. Um, I,
when I was doing sports at,
I moved over to K D K A,
the news director came to me and she said,
I want you to start doing commentaries
at 11 o'clock. I said, okay.
Um, and Sam Nover was over on channel
11. He was doing commentaries.
Not every night, but often,
you tell me the last time you saw anybody
do a commentary on a local sportscast
doesn't happen. And it's not because
they're not capable of doing it or not,
not even because the people
you're watching aren't good at it.
It's because management
doesn't want it. It's, it's,
it's evolved from being afraid
that you might offend somebody
to, you might say something that
someone disagrees with. And that's how,
that's how insane it's become.
And just, just, and, and again,
I don't know how far you
go back, Matt, but, um,
Al Julius, when I was working at
K D K A was a guy named Al Julius.
He was a Shakespearean actor,
but in a really smart guy.
He did at least a two and
a half minute commentary
every night at six o'clock.
And it was just him,
his face speaking into
the camera. No B roll, no,
no other video to talk
about. No sound bites.
Just his well-written,
Shakespearean delivered commentary.
Try to imagine somebody getting away
with doing that on local news today.
Wouldn't happen. Can't do it. Yeah,
they don't, you, they don't, you don't,
you can't do anything that takes
longer than a minute and a half.
Yeah. Every, everything has to be in
that concise, uh, sound bite and Oh.
Yeah. Well, here's what happened. I, I
get let people in on a little secret.
I can't tell you exactly what year it
was, but it was in the late nineties,
probably, uh, maybe even closer
to the mid, mid nineties, uh,
which is a, you know, a long
time ago to some people.
But when you get up to be in your
seventies, it's not that long ago, um,
back then, um, they, they,
uh, the meters showed up.
These are meters that are connected
to your tv and that's how they
measure or record what you're
watching. They used to do it.
The Nielsen, uh, ratings used to be they
would give people a diary to fill out,
and you took their word
for it. That, that,
that they wrote down what
they were watching. Well,
then they came up with these
meters and it's probably,
it's probably more sophisticated now
than I remember. Probably not even a,
a wire. It's probably Bluetooth, you
know, it's probably re it's wireless.
But anyway, it, it, there's, there's
like, I think there's like, uh,
600 TVs they would hook it
up to in the, in the market.
And that's how they
would get their ratings.
But they were able to
measure the ratings in, uh,
every 15 minutes. So they,
when they produced a newscast,
they were mostly concerned
with ratings. So they,
it wasn't about a story that you wanted
to do. And if it required three minutes,
three and a half minutes, uh,
or a two minute report followed
by a minute and a half interview,
that would be okay. But now it's all,
and I'm not that familiar
with exactly how it works,
but it's structured in a way that
in order to get the credit on
the meter, a certain story
has to run at a certain time.
And if the meters record
every quarter hour, so there,
when a story hits, what time
weather hits and the newscast,
what time sports comes on,
all that is determined by how it's gonna
affect the meters. So they're think,
so there's no thinking involved anymore.
It's, it's all about the meters.
And it's all about the ratings.
The only ratings they
look at are, are, uh,
that they care about are people 25 to 54,
because that's what the advertisers
care about. Say if you're,
if you're 60 years old or if you're 20
years old, they don't care if you watch.
You're out of that demographic and, and
you're not who they're targeting. Hey,
we have to get a quick
break in here, John. Uh,
but I want to keep using the same example
that we were before because you were
talking about news stories that
people may be afraid to cover.
And I haven't heard as much coverage
about this as I thought I would. Uh,
back to, uh, the same example,
legislative pay raises.
And I don't mean to beat up my, uh, my
recent colleagues because I know they,
they do work hard, but we see, uh,
a huge increase December 1st. Those, uh,
state representatives and state
senators got a raise of $7,400
a year. Um, this year,
uh, huge increase tops,
uh, six figure salaries for legislators.
And we're not hearing talk
about that in the media.
So when we get back from this
commercial, I wanted to discuss why, uh,
why we may not be, and see what
your thoughts are on that. Uh,
automatic cola increase that
the legislators got. John.
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That's commonalities.online.
I'm Matt Dowling, your host, uh,
along with our guest, John
Steiger Wild Media Ledged, uh,
from the Pittsburgh area. And, uh,
we're talking today a little bit about,
uh,
media and politics and that importance
and how that's changed over the years.
Uh, before we went to break,
we mentioned that there was an automatic
cola increase for legislators that, uh,
equaled $7,400, uh, this
year. And like I said,
I don't mean to, uh, to beat
up my colleagues, but, uh,
this is something that
I'm not hearing, uh,
out there in the media as
much as I thought I would.
Now that Pennsylvania legislators are,
you know, topping six figures. John,
what are your thoughts?
When, when did that happen?
Uh, that happened on December 1st.
I'm, I'm, I don't know how I
missed it. A shame on me. Um, if,
if I, I don't read the,
I don't get the newspapers
delivered to my house anymore. Uh,
not that there are any that are
even being delivered, but, um, so I,
I get most of my news online
and I'm surprised I didn't
see that. But, uh, I, and
again, I don't watch local news.
I I can't last a minute and a half
watching it cuz it's, it's so bad.
And so maybe I, I should watch it, but
I I, they don't pay me. Put it this way.
They don't pay me enough to watch local
news every day. <laugh>. So, so, um,
but that, that's a story
that, you know, again,
you're talking about
the changes there used,
the local stations used to
have a Harrisburg reporter.
They used to have a reporter
who lived in Harrisburg and did
reports on state government, if
not every day, several days a week.
And, um, they don't do
that anymore. I mean, they,
they had a regular report from
somebody in Harrisburg on the
state, whatever state, whatever was
happening in statewide politics,
they don't do it anymore
cuz No, no, they're,
they've dumbed down their audience,
Matt, to the point where that's not a,
that story.
This isn't important enough to people
and they don't know how to do it to make
it interesting. Um, what if they, if they,
if they wanted to do that story the
right way, you would, first of all,
you would choose to do
the story and you would
confront the politicians who voted
for it and make them answer the
question, why do you
think you deserve a raise?
And why was this done in the middle
of the night? And if you don't do,
if you don't think that's
a story, number one,
that you have an obligation to
your viewers to do, or number two,
you don't think that's a good
TV story because it's good tv,
then you need to just, just quit.
You need to shut the whole operation
down and go home. So, how they don't,
how they don't see that as a good story,
especially now with the way
the economy's going. Uh, and I,
and I should say that it's
possible that they did the story.
I didn't see it. But, um, my
guess would be if they did it,
they didn't do it right.
They didn't, they didn't, um,
they didn't dwell on the
controversy enough, or they didn't,
they didn't mine the story enough to
get the important stuff out of it.
And also to maybe, I don't know,
cause a little bit of a debate or combine
it with someone from some statewide
organization who could talk about why
they should or should not have gotten the
raise. That's the way you do the story.
Maybe they all did it and I didn't see,
see it, but that's not the
kind of story they do anymore.
And to be honest with you, that's,
that's a big story. That's an
obvious one. I'll give you one.
This is an example of from
just a few days ago I did the,
I did, I opened my show, um, Monday,
I think it was by saying,
don't vote for Rachel Heisler.
That was the first thing
out of my mouth. Uh,
you probably don't know
who Rachel Heisler is.
She's running for controller
for City of Pittsburgh.
Michael Lamb is the guy
leaving the job. He's,
he said he's gonna run for county
executive in Allegheny County.
And Rachel Heisler is his, uh,
his deputy or the deputy
controller. She wants the,
the the top job. So she's running
for it now. It's Pittsburgh.
So I'm guessing that she's running in a
primary because there's not gonna be any
Republican gonna get any votes. So, um,
she had an ad that I saw online that said,
come for donuts and drag.
And she's doing a fundraiser
that will include a drag,
uh, queen performing.
And it said on the ad
that it's family friendly,
a drag queen show.
Now if you have any idea
of what good television is
and someone brings that to your
attention, number one, you gotta,
you go find Rachel Heisler and you say,
what makes you think that a
drag queen is a good thing
to have with donuts and
kids at a fundraiser.
And number two,
you make sure that you tell your staff
we will be at that event and we will get
video of this drag queen and
we're gonna do a story on it.
I would be willing to bet lots of
money that there was not one word
mentioned about that on
any of the three stations.
That is a great, first of all,
it's a story that is a good story.
Maybe you don't care about drag queens,
but it,
I don't know if you're paying
any attention to what's
going on in the national
news. There's a lot of talk about
that, a lot of discussion about it.
And here it's happening
right in Pittsburgh. And if,
if you don't think that that's a good
television, then I, I don't know.
And and then you, then you should
stop wondering why the ratings stink,
which they do, by the way.
Well, and, and I think, so.
That's, that's just an example. I,
and I, again, I don't watch the news.
Maybe I missed it. They did it. But
I'm, I've gotten to the point where I,
I I know well enough to not even bother
to watch cuz it's not gonna be on there.
So I don't have to sit through a
newscast, you know, they didn't do it,
but I'll be happy to be corrected
and criticized for unfairly
criticizing them for not
doing a story that they did.
But I haven't had anybody do it yet.
You know, in, in my time in the
legislature, what I found, uh,
was number one, um,
rather than getting
requests for comment or, uh,
you know, any kind of my take on,
on a bill or legislation
that was happening or,
or anything relevant in Harrisburg, um,
we were really out pitching the
stories that we wanted told. Um,
that's right. You know, there it was.
If we put out a press release and
it was written the right way, um,
a lot of times we could get whatever
coverage we were looking for. Yeah.
Right.
You.
Know.
Well that's the answer to that is
that that shows the laziness and the
lack of enterprise on the part of
the stations, the local stations.
It shouldn't take you sending out a
press release. As a matter of fact,
it should be done the exact opposite.
They shouldn't be doing any stories
based on a politician's press release,
cuz you're not gonna send out a press
release to cover a story that's gonna be
detrimental to your cause. So you're,
you're asking as much for a promotion
of your cause as you are for coverage of
it, which is understandable
in what you should do.
But looking at it from their standpoint,
they should be looking at it whether
it's a good story or not. And they,
and they should have,
there should be some built,
I don't care whether it's a Democrat
or Republican, uh, legislator,
if the press release comes out,
the first thing that you should
view it with is skepticism.
You shouldn't, you shouldn't
say take it as base value if,
if you put out a press release saying
you've just come up with this wonderful
idea. And it's a,
it's a law that's gonna help everybody
and everybody should get behind this.
I, if I'm a, if I'm a good journalist,
I'm not buying that for one second
until I look into it myself and I'm,
and then I'm gonna go
find, I'm gonna go find,
if it's a Republican and put it on,
I'm gonna go find a Democrat
to get his or her, um,
take on it for two reasons. That's the
way it should be done journalistically.
And again, it's good t v.
And, and you know, I,
I think my feet were held to the
fire the most when I was on AM radio
stations across the
Commonwealth, or, you know,
from time to time when I was on the
half hour call in show on pcn. Yeah. Um,
you know, but, but there aren't
many people watching pc pcn, um,
you know, to, to see that
kind of good journalism.
But that was the one time when you were
put on point and counterpoint and, uh,
and had to have the answers.
You could've done the show naked,
Matt. Nobody would've known.
<Laugh>. That that is true. Hey, we
have to get one more break in, uh,
when we come back. I wanna talk a
little bit about Facebook and, uh,
the age of Trump in the media.
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where guests find common ground through
uncommon conversations.
We'll be back after this brief
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premises of quality work done right at an
affordable cost. At Bright Stripe
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We strive to be the premier
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Matt George, the owner
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brings experience from his
construction and maintenance company,
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and Maintenance.
Matt has provided excellent customer
service to many happy businesses and
homeowners.
Bright Stripe is the premier provider
of seal coating or pavement ceiling.
The process of applying a protective
coating to asphalt based pavements to
provide a layer of protection from the
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You are listening to commonalities
where guests find common ground through
uncommon conversations.
This is commonalities on five 90 Wmb s uh,
1 0 1 0.1 fm, and five 90 am Also, uh,
commonalities is available any place
you download your favorite podcasts.
You can also find the video
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Public on Facebook. And, uh,
and connect with us and the show.
Tell us who you'd like to hear from in
the future and what topics you'd like us
to discuss. I'm with, uh,
John Steigerwald today,
who many of you know, uh, from
his days as a sportscaster, uh,
really a media icon or legend
in the Pittsburgh area. Um,
but John now does, uh, a show on AM 1250,
the answer out of Pittsburgh, uh,
and it is conservative talk radio.
Uh, before the break we started to,
to talk a little bit about how the media
in politics and its role has changed.
Uh, and I said I wanted to
get to talking about, uh,
Facebook and what Facebook
has done or changed, uh,
in your opinion as far as
politics goes. And then also, um,
the age of Trump. We saw, uh,
some very big changes here in the
last presidential election and,
uh, in our last, uh, eight
minutes or so. I wanted to,
to touch on that a little bit, John.
Well, I'm, I'm not a big fan
of Facebook. Never was. Um,
I actually have never really been on
Facebook except for a friend of mine who
was involved in social media
long before it was cool.
And he used to post my column that
I was writing, um, up there for me.
And, and that was it. But I, I never
even, I never posted anything myself,
and I'm not a big fan
of it. And then with,
with what's happened with Zuckerberg and
what's been going on the last couple of
years, um, I, I like it even
less. But I do know that the,
the people who work in
local news are required,
at least they were for a long
time. I assume they still are.
They were required to do things on
Facebook, including live productions.
And it's a, you know,
it's almost gotten to the point
that if you aren't on Facebook,
then you're not doing
your job. And, um, I I I,
it obviously has had a, a major
effect on the way people cover things,
but it's also, I think,
contributed to the laziness
on the part of the,
the news operations because
you have a, an audience,
kind of a captive audience
to your, your Facebook, um,
friends and you,
you put stuff out there and I don't
know how much money they're making from
Facebook right now with,
you know, selling ads. Uh,
I'm sure it's nothing close to what they
make still from selling TV time. But,
um, it's, it's had an effect.
I'm not so sure it's a good one.
And I, I think when you're,
what you're finding out now what's
happening with Twitter and they're finding
out what was going on there and
how it was being manipulated,
that people are going to be
less and less likely to trust
what they see on any, uh, media,
I guess a a news media slash social media
platform. Why would anybody trust
anything you see on it ever again,
based on what we've heard from about
Twitter just in the last month or so, in.
In, isn't.
There social? I don't think the future's
good for 'em from that standpoint.
It isn't there still. And, and you
know, I'm, I'm thinking of the,
the weathermen that I follow from
the Pittsburgh media market, and I,
I know some of those guys
um-huh <affirmative> and
they're good people, but I,
you know, I look at some of the things
that they pa they post on Facebook,
and I know they are just to get likes
and interactions. Um, yeah, no, they're,
they're silly. They're goofy
in a, in a way. And, you know,
I ha I think back to, you know,
when I was a kid or a generation
before that, even, uh,
there was some kind of, uh,
belief that there was honest work
in journalism. And you know, I,
I know that we want to
personalize these people.
We want to humanize these
people that way. You,
you feel like they're your next door
neighbor and and you want to hear the news
from them. I get that.
But at some point in time,
don't we make things a
a little too personal?
Don't we open that door between.
The well, you know, people
well think it's, yeah,
I think it's different when you're,
when you're putting it on Facebook,
it's kind of the thing that people
expect and I think they expect something
different from there. It's, uh,
on there than what they see, uh,
on the, on the news at
night or in the morning.
And so I think you can get away
with it more. I, I I, I, I think I,
I don't know know if I can, I,
Joe Donardo would've done it,
but he would've done it his way. He
took, he took weather very seriously,
so he wouldn't have been fooling around.
He would've looked at it as a way to
give people 24 hour weather service.
So I, I don't see any of the things
you're talking about now. I I,
I've seen him online being done by other
people and I know what you're talking
about, but it's also that,
that's another example of what's
wrong with local news, Matt. The, uh,
the, I can get the,
I can get the weather in Stan
Bowl on my phone in 15 seconds
while we're on the air right now.
I can, I can, while we're speaking,
if I wanted to, I could give you the
we weather forecast for Istan Bull.
And I'm not exaggerating. So.
My phone, whether I want it,
whether I want it or not,
my phone gives me the weather
for Cupertino constantly.
Yeah. Okay. So if you,
if you were doing a n uh,
if you watch a local newscast on
any of the three stations, they do,
how many weather forecasts do you see
in an hour? And they're talking about,
well, it might be raining, uh, a
little later today. We, we, uh,
right now it's clear,
but when we come back,
we'll tell you what it's gonna be doing
later tonight as if somebody has to wait
for them to come back and tell them
what's gonna happen tonight. Oh,
you said might rain. Let me
look at my phone here. Oh yeah,
it says there's a 50% chance
rain at nine o'clock. I get it.
They still do it like it's 1956
that you, that you're gonna,
you're depending on them for the
weather. And again, that's laziness.
They gotta fill time, Matt.
And so the weather fill each,
each little weather hit fills two
and a half to three minutes. That's,
we, that's time they don't have to worry
about filling with actual, you know,
news or maybe commentary
or something interesting.
So that's, you know,
when you brought up Facebook and these
guys on the weather doing their stuff on
Facebook, um, that's just, that's a,
that's the best example of why. And I,
I know those guys and they
do a great job and they,
there are times when it's really helpful
when there's a snowstorm coming and
your phone doesn't really give you the
details or there's a tornado in the area
or something like that.
But, and those guys,
I know I won't give you any names, but I,
I've been in situations where they've
been pressured to go on the air and talk
about thunderstorms, severe
thunderstorms on the way,
and they will say to the producer,
well, you know what, I, I, you know,
I don't think they're gonna be that
severe, but that, but they're told, well,
yeah, we'll make 'em severe.
Okay. We need people to watch.
And that's the kind of stuff that goes.
On, you know, and, and in defense
of some of these, uh, journalists,
especially some of these, uh, young
television journalists that are out there,
I know one who's currently on, uh,
W T A E and he hates to
be thrown out into the,
every bureau chief goes out and
does the weather from, you know,
Delmont and Pittsburgh. Yeah.
And, and wherever else. Yeah.
Because he's not able to cover a
real story that he would enjoy doing.
And, uh, you know, and I
had those conversations.
If you're, if you're, yeah,
if you're interested in doing
really hard hitting stories,
local news is the wrong
place for you to be working.
And let me tell you something I
told you about the meters. Okay?
If, if a certain area has a,
a certain, a, a good number,
number of meters during a certain ratings
period, February or May, November,
February and May are the ratings
periods, they know where the meters are.
So if you,
your stories in your neighborhood
become a lot more important to the news
stations if a lot of people in your
neighborhood for that month happen to get
meters, cuz that's how they get
their ratings, it really stinks.
And, and here's the thing,
um, when I was working at,
uh, channel four, four a million
years ago, almost 40 years ago,
I left there in 1985. That's a
long time ago. But in those days,
and, and long after that, but
specifically then I remember,
we know we were competing
hard with K D K A, we were,
we were one and two and in the ratings
periods we would fluctuate back and
forth. And I'm, I'm, I'm not,
I can't be a hundred percent
accurate on these numbers, but I,
I'm gonna say that the
number that we would get,
which would be a share of the
audience, one, one ratings period,
we'd get a 22 and KK would get a 21.
Maybe the next ratings period would be
switched and Channel 11 would get a 12 or
a 15. So you add all that up and
it adds up to about 60. Okay?
If you added up what the
stations get now in the 25 to
54, um, demographic at six o'clock,
it wouldn't add up to 10. That's how,
that's how, that's how it's changed.
And, and they keep doing the
same things over and over again.
The ratings still stink. Nobody
tries anything different.
And this doesn't just Pittsburgh,
it's everywhere. And if,
and if you would get three televisions
and put 'em in your living room and tune
them to two, four and 11, uh,
and turn it on at six o'clock,
if you watch the newscast,
the same thing would be happening on
all three stations at all the time.
The weather would be on at the same time,
sports would be on at the same time.
They would, they would be covering
basically the same stories.
And they do it every day. And believe me,
there are people working at the stations
who were around the old timers who were
around when they actually made some
effort at covering news and there are very
few of them left now. They
know, they just come in and, um,
I don't want you what,
take what I'm saying and blame any
of it on anybody who you see on
television cuz they're not
making those decisions.
No. You know, it all, it all comes down
to ratings and, uh, and we've seen that,
uh, over the years become more
and more important. Um, well John,
I thank you so much for having
this conversation with me. Uh, I,
I've sure en enjoyed talking about,
uh, the way the media's role has,
has changed, uh,
and how we can stay ever vi
vigilant to make sure, um, you know,
that, that the media does things
like fight political corruption and,
and do what they need to do. Right. Hey,
my guest today has been John Steigerwald.
Thank you so much for
being with us from AM 1250.
The answer in Pittsburgh,
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