TV ‘talents’ who shouldn’t win awards

Our occasional notes on dubious TV awards have elicited the ire of some readers, who see nothing wrong and everything right in viewers’s groups citing what they feel is good work on the tube. Great, but why do the many new TV awards groups’ verdicts vary so much? Whatever happened to objective, reliable and consistent standards for outstanding performance?

It isn’t enough to say, “this is what I sincerely think.” —Have you, in fact given the evaluation process the time, effort and discernment it needs for your choices to serve as believable touchstones of output for other TV workers to emulate?

Let’s look at the problem another way: Who are the TV people who shouldn’t win awards for “outstanding” work? By their sins of commission and omission shall we know them:

Some TV talents who keep winning awards they don’t deserve are notorious for not reporting the news objectively and even making subjective comments about events and personalities. This is a big no-no in journalism, which prides itself on the objectivity and reliability of its reports, above all else.

In addition, some news readers think more of themselves and how they look and sound, and not enough about the important facts they’re tasked to communicate. They think that simple, “undecorated” reporting is “boring,” so they “jazz up” the news with visual and verbal flourishes, to make it more “dramatic” and “exciting.”

—For this, they win awards?

Some news readers have even acquired the bad habit of embellishing their delivery with “echo” effects, like adding an extra vowel to words ending in consonants—like “ospital-ah,” “digmaan-uh,” “kasalan-ah”—yikes!

Misplaced ideas

In fact, around 50 percent of our radio-TV on-cam or on-mike reporters have been “infected” by this “virus,” and they sound so smug and pleased with themselves, even as they drive some listeners nuts with their obviously misplaced ideas about what a newscast should really be about.

Other radio-TV talents shouldn’t win awards because they encourage viewers and listeners to believe in superstition, “traditional” practices, pamahiin, cults, people blaming “fate” for their failures, freaks of nature—etc.!

These so-called “talents” trap their audience in a time warp of discredited practices and beliefs, so they should be chided and penalized, instead of “awarded.”

Why do they persist in featuring freaks and pamahiin? Because they know that those warped notions are still popular with some viewers—so, instead of enlightening their audience, they cynically keep them from truly growing and progressing, all in the name of ratings and popularity.

Are these the “talents” we should encourage to continue to do their worst on the tube?

The TV awards situation has gotten so rife that we suggest that any new school-based group of viewers that wants to express its opinions in relation to television should desist from putting up even more awards.

Instead, it should initiate a TV viewing advocacy charged with regularly watching local TV programs, and pointing out both negative and positive aspects of the shows the group views. That way, industry workers know that proactive viewers are watching—and will be guided accordingly!