{"id":8341,"date":"2016-02-06T23:49:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T06:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/?p=8341"},"modified":"2016-07-26T15:25:20","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T22:25:20","slug":"intro-disaster-at-the-gop-debate-what-has-become-of-the-network-news-division-i-worked-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=8341","title":{"rendered":"HuffPost: Disaster at the GOP debate. What&#8217;s become of my alma mater ABC News?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"HuffPost%3A%20Disaster%20at%20the%20GOP%20debate.%20What%27s%20become%20of%20my%20alma%20mater%20ABC%20News%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.43.03-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8342\" title=\"Screen Shot 2016-02-06 at 9.43.03 PM\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.43.03-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"266\" height=\"151\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.43.03-PM.png 415w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.43.03-PM-300x170.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 266px) 100vw, 266px\" \/><\/a><strong>By Peter Lance Feb. 7th<\/strong>. <a title=\"HuffPost\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/peter-lance\/intro-debacle-at-the-gop-_b_9183404.html\"><strong>The Huffington Post<\/strong><\/a>. In December of 2002, when the legendary Roone Arledge passed away, I wrote a <a title=\"Roone counterpunch\" href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2002\/dec\/14\/entertainment\/et-counterpunch14\"><strong>Counterpunch piece<\/strong><\/a> for the L.A. Times praising the man who not only set the gold standard for Olympics coverage, but gave us <strong>Monday Night Football <\/strong>and the<strong>\u00a0Wide World of Sports. <\/strong>He was also the broadcasting giant who\u00a0revitalized <strong>ABC News<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The piece was titled &#8220;Arledge no god, but in him we trust.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During the 1980&#8217;s I worked for Roone as a producer and correspondent on such iconic broadcasts as <strong>20\/20, Nightline<\/strong> and <strong>World News Tonight<\/strong> and I can say without equivocation, that if he was alive to watch the open to Saturday night&#8217;s ABC News coverage of the GOP debate, he would have been outraged.<\/p>\n<p>Moderated by <strong>Martha Raddatz<\/strong>, an ex-NPR reporter and the Alphabet network&#8217;s pretty-boy anchor <strong>David Muir,<\/strong> whose principal qualification for the job seems to have been his jawline, the two debate hosts utterly bungled the debate&#8217;s open by leaving <strong>Dr. Ben Carson<\/strong> stranded in a kind of Twilights Zone at the edge of the stage while other candidates were announced and breezed past him to their lecterns.<\/p>\n<p>Seemingly unaware that Dr. Carson hadn&#8217;t heard his name called but incapable of turning away from the audience to assess the pileup on the entry ramp (which soon included <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>) Muir and Raddatz &#8212; and worse, the director &#8212; kept the principal camera trained on the entrance shot as Dr. Carson appeared to move between mild amusement and mortification.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.08-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-8343\" title=\"Screen Shot 2016-02-06 at 9.44.08 PM\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.08-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"262\" height=\"138\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.08-PM.png 410w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.08-PM-300x157.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 262px) 100vw, 262px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here are a series of still shots, but <a title=\"Hill Debate debacle\" href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/ballot-box\/gop-primaries\/268518-debate-mixup-causes-carson-others-to-freeze-in-their-tracks\"><strong>the video<\/strong><\/a> posted on <strong>TheHill.com<\/strong> under the headline &#8220;Debate intro mixup causes candidates to freeze in their tracks&#8221; has to be seen to fully convey the impact of this comedy of errors. By Sunday the\u00a0<strong><a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rQj0jQReCwE\">YouTube\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>video had been screened by more than 78,000 people and was on its way to going viral.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-07-at-2.24.15-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8365\" title=\"Screen Shot 2016-02-07 at 2.24.15 AM\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-07-at-2.24.15-AM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"229\" height=\"133\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-07-at-2.24.15-AM.png 568w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-07-at-2.24.15-AM-300x174.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 229px) 100vw, 229px\" \/><\/a>In fact, the gaff was so bad, that less than an hour after the debate ended <strong>Colin Jost<\/strong> was lampooning it on<a title=\"SNL weekend update\" href=\"http:\/\/zap2it.com\/2016\/02\/snl-colin-jost-weekend-update-trump-carson-gop-debate-traffic-jam\/\"><strong> the Weekend Update segment<\/strong> <\/a>of Saturday Night Live, a broadcast which featured\u00a0<strong>Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/strong> who was vastly underutilized, given that his doppleganger,\u00a0<strong>Larry David<\/strong> was the host.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, what does it say about the reporting skills of either Raddatz or Muir to cover a live event if they couldn&#8217;t even turn around to see how the open was unraveling?<\/p>\n<p>Or their producer who finally must have barked into their earpieces, causing Muir to exclaim\u2026 &#8220;Dr. Ben Carson, please come out on the stage. He&#8217;s standing there as well.&#8221; At that point, a nervous Raddatz chimed in &#8220;and Donald Trump&#8230;&#8221; followed by more awkward seconds in which Muir thought he&#8217;d put a lid on it by announcing, &#8220;and lastly we welcome back to the debate stage Donald Trump.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.59-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8344\" title=\"Screen Shot 2016-02-06 at 9.44.59 PM\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.59-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"260\" height=\"123\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.59-PM.png 451w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.44.59-PM-300x142.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a>But that wasn&#8217;t the end of it. Because the Muir\/Raddatz duo seemed to forget the last candidate &#8212; who ended up having perhaps the best debate performance of the night, <strong>Gov. John \u00a0Kasich<\/strong> of Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>Now the open was so out of the anchor&#8217;s control that it actually took <strong>Chris Christie<\/strong>, looming over his lectern to ask, &#8220;What about Kasich? Can I introduce Kasich?&#8221; to which Muir awkwardly replied, &#8220;Yes we&#8217;re going to introduce Ohio Governor John Kasich.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Contrast this debacle with the stellar performance Thursday night by <strong>Rachel Maddow<\/strong> and <strong>Chuck Todd<\/strong> who moderated the Democratic mano-a-mano clash between Sen. Sanders and <strong>Secretary Hillary Clinton<\/strong>. It was an historic forensic performance that generated, what former ABC News anchor\u00a0<strong>Frank Reynolds<\/strong> would have called, &#8220;heat and light.&#8221;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.47.31-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-8345\" title=\"Screen Shot 2016-02-06 at 9.47.31 PM\" src=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.47.31-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"134\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.47.31-PM.png 481w, https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-02-06-at-9.47.31-PM-300x160.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now imagine if Saturday night&#8217;s ABC moderators had been <strong>Peter Jennings<\/strong> and <strong>Diane Sawyer<\/strong> and you&#8217;ll appreciate how one of the slogans during the Arledge era was &#8220;Experience ABC News.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As an alumus of this once great news division I can only think that if Roone was watching, the performance by David Muir and Martha Raddatz would have given new meaning to that phrase he coined about &#8220;the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"HuffPost%3A%20Disaster%20at%20the%20GOP%20debate.%20What%27s%20become%20of%20my%20alma%20mater%20ABC%20News%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>By Peter Lance Feb. 7th. The Huffington Post. In December of 2002, when the legendary Roone Arledge passed away, I wrote a Counterpunch piece for the L.A. Times praising the man who not only set the gold standard for Olympics coverage, but gave us Monday Night Football and the\u00a0Wide World of Sports. He was also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[814,988,994,997,818,989,991,993,209,992,995,990,996],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8341"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8341"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8348,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8341\/revisions\/8348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}