From bird flu to Blaine, it’s time for the news

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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WLOSers have been on a sweeps roll with the promotion of ABC entertainment shows spliced into their so-called news. From bird flu to Blaine, it’s been shameless. And non-stop. Onward…

The bird flu is coming!
WLOSers jumped on ABC’s bird flu special that will be aired tonight, “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America,” to do their own bird flu update with Buncombe County health officials.

The local officials said they’re hard at work on all kinds of planning in case a flu pandemic ever hits. So those local quotes were spliced in with video from the fake television show. We also got some shots of Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan looking hilariously serious. We laughed at out loud and her folded hands and her caked make-up – you trying out for 60 Minutes, girl? O, and we got some shots of some nasty roosters somewhere in Asia running around like they were sick. Then more dramatic video from the fake flu epidemic going down in the TV show.

Here’s what one reviewer said about tonight’s “Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America”:

“ABC shamelessly bangs the gong of global disease anxiety with a schlocky “What if?” trauma drama about the ravages of a deadly international avian flu epidemic. … Bodies pile up. Panic hits the streets. But the only things dying in this hysteria-addled TV movie are the brain cells of those who watch it.”

Hold your breath – it’s time for the news
Larry “Gloryhole” Blunt and his crew pulled out a special edition of the News13 Soapbox on Monday – they usually run this filler on Thursdays – to hype Monday’s ABC sweeps gimmick, “David Blaine: Drowned Alive.” Last night was the end to Blaine’s week-long submersion in 2,000 gallons of 96-degree saltwater. He had been on oxygen up until the end, when they removed the breathing aparatus and he was going try and hold his breath for 9 minutes while getting out of some handcuffs. The world record for longest breath hold is 8 minutes, 58 seconds. (The world record for longest waste of breath is set each night on local teevee.)

So of course, all this over-hyped crap came to nothing. Blaine held his breath for 7 minutes, 8 seconds and had to be rescued by divers because he couldn’t get out of his chains.

Here’s what the New York Times said about the show: “It is a sign of the pumped-up intensity around his whole enterprise that “David Blaine: Drowned Alive” commanded two hours on ABC. One way to fill 120 minutes of airtime with programming that promises at most nine minutes of actual suspense is to offer dire warnings about what is taking place — should anyone in the audience have been left with the impression that seven uninterrupted days in a water-filled tank would put you at risk of little more than a sinus infection.”

Back to WLOS – the special edition of the soapbox was a News13 photographer going around to ask people to hold their breath, then the photog whipped out a stopwatch and timed them. Throw in a little Jeopardy countdown music and voila you’ve got a ready made non-news promo to stick in your non-news show.

So little kids at the pool held their breath. And so did some adults on Pack Square. Looked like the winner was a man who held his breath for just over 1 minute.

Disposable report
The other spectacular sweeps non-starter on Monday was Holly Headache’s “special report” on our “Disposable Nation.” We have yet to figure out what the hell this story was about.

We’ll describe the elements of the story and see if you can figure this out: first, lots of shots of the Buncombe County landfill, and talk about how, in this country, lots of goods are designed to be used a couple of times and then thown away.

So Holly talks to a couple of moms, who really like cleaning wipes because, hey, they’re moms and they need a quick, efficient clean up. And Holly shows us some commercials for Swiffers and a new disposable toilet brush. Then Holly goes to the store and shows us a graphic about how much Swiffers cost, versus how much the old “mop and bucket” method costs, and she tells us we’ll save a lot of money by going with the mop and bucket. Duh.

All the above is interspersed with a lot of static from a television, and someone changing channels quickly. And they keep turning to video of a landfill. Static. Buzz. Landfill. Then we get Holly talking some more.

Holly talked to the landfill guy, who said we dump a lot of shit in the landfill. And Holly said some of the disposable stuff isn’t biodegradable and might hurt the environment. Then Holly said tune in for part two of Disposable Nation, when she’ll talk about all the computers and other electronics we throw away.

Whaa…..?