Channel 13 takes admirable ‘Action’

Guts trump chutzpah.

(Define the former as bravery, courage, fearlessness and fortitude, the latter as arrogance, audacity, temerity and gall.)

Refreshingly, Channel 13 "Action News," often adrift in an ocean of chutzpah, paddled against the tide last week, diving into stories that were gutsy not so much for their subject matter -- though it was solid journalism -- but a newscast strategy of story length and placement.

Viewers witnessed nearly six-minute Darcy Spears reports, based on a monthlong investigation, on University Medical Center and failures to provide proper care in its ER -- at the very top of the newscasts.

Bang-bang pacing -- story, story, move it, move it, pushing past two minutes, their remote fingers are gettin' itchy, next! -- renders long-form gambits dangerous and counterintuitive as leadoff news. Certainly they wouldn't bury such strong work way down the newscast anyway, yet it still demands nerve.

Speed and volume mostly rule. Last summer, this column monitored random half-hour newscasts for story counts. While channels 3, 5 and 8 racked up 15, 18 and 17, respectively, spread over 23 minutes of news apiece, Channel 13 galloped away with a breathless 25, averaging a mite less than a minute per story.

Those tendencies still dominate. Yet on these nights, Channel 13 risked running time-gobbling openers -- a chunky quarter of its airtime -- for detailed investigations of UMC important to all viewers, minus whirling blue-red police lights, yellow crime-scene tape and the shot-stabbed-crashed-killed-murdered narratives preferred for grabbing viewers by the neck to lock them in from the opening greeting.

"Contact 13" pieces play like "Dateline" miniatures. One told of a man made to wait 10 hours, bleeding through his catheters. Another reported on a baby excessively bleeding after a routine circumcision, and how the mother claimed efforts to treat him were sporadic and inadequate, not permanently stanching it until a hospital administrator interceded some 12 hours later, the child then receiving a supply of fresh, frozen plasma.

Interviewees included two UMC officials -- one of whom, Chief Operating Officer Brian Brannman, called the failure rate "one or two per million" but still "unacceptable" -- and Spears cited state records of complaints filed against UMC over several years for either not seeing patients in a timely fashion or turning away those with legitimate medical emergencies.

Remaining the market's drama queens, Channel 13 did inject trademark hyperbole: co-anchor Steve Wolford declaring that "conditions there are critical" and co-anchor Nina Radetich listing "rude staff" among the charges, whereas Spears cited staff neglect, not rudeness.

Heart monitor beeps were among the silly sound effects -- yes, we get that it's at a hospital, thanks -- and the sweet-sad guitar strumming playing underneath closeups of the infant, eyes wide, tiny face crisscrossed with tubes and tape, was a ham-handed emotional cue.

Plus, all the nothing-happened-until-they-called-us! blather also was typical station preening and posturing.

Overdone touches notwithstanding, Channel 13 challenged viewers and risked their defections with lead news stories that were long and journalistic, when short and voyeuristic is the reliable hook.

Chutzpah? Yes. Often. Even so -- they've got guts.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.