IN BRIEF
Blurring lines between
entertainment and news
NEW YORK — An on-screen NBC
News identifier for a fictional debate
on “The West Wing” and a “news con
ference” by a fake Boston Red Sox ex
ecutive on ESPN show how fuzzy the
lines between news and entertainment
have become.
An NBC News “bug” was kept on
the screen Sunday night during the live
debate between presidential candi
dates portrayed by Alan Alda and
Jimmy Smits on “The West Wing.”
Meanwhile, ESPN’s “SportsCenter,”
in an effort to juice up a segment on
baseball gossip, had analyst Steve
Phillips pose as Red Sox general man
ager answering questions about the
team’s offseason priorities.
The news insignia was requested by
“The West Wing” episode’s producer,
former real-life Washington insider
Lawrence O’Donnell, to help make the
presidential debate seem more realis
tic. Jeff Zucker, the NBC Universal ex
ecutive who has run NBC’s entertain
ment division and produced “Today”
for NBC News, gave the OK.
NBC News programming like
“Hardball” has been depicted on “The
West Wing” in the past, news division
spokeswoman Allison Gollust said.
Even with all the trappings — in
cluding real-life TV newsman For
rest Sawyer as the debate’s modera
tor — no one at NBC believed that
viewers would mistake Alda’s
Arnold Vinick or Smits’ Matt Santos
for real-life politicians
Yet Jack Myers, a media business
analyst, questioned whether NBC
News diminished itself by allowing its
name to be used in this way.
“Is this an appropriate use of the
NBC News and MSNBC News brand
equity, or does it do more damage to
these news brands than the positive
branding it brings to NBC’s entertain
ment series?” Myers asked on his Me
diavillage.com Web site.
The MSNBC.com site went so far as
to commission a poll with Zogby Inter
national, asking 1,208 viewers of “The
West Wing” who won the debate.
Fifty-four percent favored Santos, the
Democratic candidate, which would
have been more impressive if 59 per
cent of the viewers hadn’t favored him
before the episode started.
By 2-to-l, Sunday’s viewers told
Zogby that they preferred watching
a fictional presidential debate to the
real thing.
As a ratings sweeps month stunt,
the live debate was a modest success:
the audience of 9.6 million viewers
beat the show’s season average of 8.2
million, according to Nielsen Media
Research. The show was a distant third
in the ratings to ABC’s “Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition” and CBS’
“Cold Case.”
Over on ESPN, fans who watched
“SportsCenter” Sunday and Mon
day may have done a double-take:
There was Phillips, a former New
York Mets general manager, sitting
behind a bank of microphones and
before a background with the Red
Sox insignia, answering questions
from ESPN reporters.
Was he the replacement for Theo
Epstein, who quit last week?
No, Phillips was just playing one
on television.
A text “crawl” on the screen identi
fied it as a “simulated Red Sox news
conference.” Yet at a time news and
sports networks constantly have a bar
rage of text information on their
screens, it might not have immediately
caught viewers’ eyes.
Vince Doria, ESPN’s news director,
said it was done to enliven what is of
ten a dull segment: analysts like
Phillips sitting behind a desk and spec
ulating about what teams will do.
“We were certainly aware that we
needed to provide some kind of
constant disclaimer,” Doria said. “I
would hope that we haven’t gone
too far. If we thought we had gone
too far, we obviously wouldn’t have
done it.”
Phillips will continue these fake
news conferences for other teams,
he said.
Next up: the New York Yankees,
who, unlike the Red Sox, have a real
general manager in place.
Cruise ship escapes attack
by grenade-armed pirates
MAHE, Seychelles — Pirates who
attacked a cruise ship off the coast of
Somalia grinned as they aimed
grenade-launchers and machine guns
at the deck and staterooms, some pas
sengers said Monday, recounting the
ordeal after safely docking in this Indi
an Ocean archipelago.
The ship escaped by shifting to high
speed and changing course, and the
cruise line said Monday the crew also
used a sonic weapon, which blasts ear
splitting noise in a directed beam, as it
tried to ward off the attack.
“I tell you, it was a very frightening
experience, ” Charles Supple, of Fid
dletown, Calif., said by phone.
The retired physician and World
War II veteran said he started to take
a photograph of a pirate craft, and
“the man with the bazooka aimed it
right at me and I saw a big flash.
“Needless to say, I dropped the cam
era and dived. The grenade struck two
decks above and about four rooms fur
ther forward," he said. “I could tell the
guy firing the bazooka was smiling.”
The Seabourn Spirit had been
bound for Kenya when it was at
tacked by pirates armed with
grenade launchers and machine
guns on Saturday about 100 miles
off Somalia’s lawless coast.
The sonic device that helped ward
off the attack, known as a Long
Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, is
a so-called “non-lethal weapon” de
veloped for the military after the
2000 attack on the USS Cole in
Yemen as a way to keep operators of
small boats from approaching U.S.
warships. Makers of the device com
pare its shrill tone to that of smoke
detectors, only much louder.
The gunmen never got close
enough to board the cruise ship, but
one member of the 161-person crew
was injured by shrapnel, according
to the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise
Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.
Relieved holiday-makers praised
the ship’s captain for foiling the at
tack, but some said they were lucky
to escape with their lives.
A woman survived an explosion in
her stateroom simply because she
was taking a bath at the time. Others
flung themselves to the floor to avoid
bullets that were zipping through the
ship, Charles Forsdick, of Durban,
South Africa, told Associated Press
Television News.
Bob Meagher of Sydney, Aus
tralia, said he climbed out of bed
and went to the door of his cabin
shortly before 6 a.m. after hearing a
commotion outside.
“I saw a white-hulled boat with
men in it waving various things and
shooting at the ship — at that stage it
appeared to be rifle fire,” he told
Australian radio.
“My wife said, ‘Look, they’re load
ing a bazooka,’ which we later dis
covered was called an RPG (rocket
propelled grenade) launcher.”
“There was a flash of flame and
then a huge boom — a terrible boom
sound,” he said, adding the grenade
hit about 10 feet from where they were.
The liner had been at the end of a
16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexan
der Downer said Monday that the at
tackers might have been terrorists.
Others said the attack bore the hall
marks of pirates who have become in
creasingly active off Somalia, which
has no navy and has not had an effec
tive central government since 1991.
Manhunt for Texas
inmate ends in Louisiana
HOUSTON — A convicted double
murderer who spent three days on
the run after slipping away from a
Houston jail was recaptured some
200 miles away — drunk and talking
on a pay phone.
Police acting on a tip Sunday
found Charles Victor Thompson, 35,
standing outside a liquor store in
Shreveport, La., said Harris County
Sheriffs Lt. John Martin.
“You know who I am,” Thompson
told officers when asked his name.
Asked again, he identified himself as
Charles Thompson, Martin said. Po
lice said Thompson was too drunk to
be interrogated Sunday night.
The arrest ended a massive man
hunt for Thompson, who was con
victed in 1999 for the shooting deaths
a year earlier of his ex-girlfriend,
Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her
boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30.
“He never should have got out,”
Martin said. “To have him back in
custody again, this is where he be
longs. He was convicted of capital
murder. He was twice sentenced to
death. There is no scenario under
which he should be free roaming
around on the street.”
Thompson escaped from custody
Thursday using a smuggled set of
clothes and a fake identification
badge to get past guards. His escape
resulted from “multiple errors” by jail
personnel, Martin has said.
— The Associated Press
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