Media event: A posse of local TV reporters and personalities will help stage a benefit for members of the Chicago unit of the Writers Guild of America, currently on strike against CBS television and radio.
”That`s Info-tainment” will turn up Sunday, March 29, at 8:15 p.m. at Cross Currents Theatre, 3206 N. Wilton. The $20 ducat goes toward the WGA strike fund. Among those scheduled to appear are WBBM-Ch. 2`s Bob Wallace and the Shannon Rovers, along with Lester Holt, Phil Ponce, Mike Parker and Mary Nissenson. Harry Porterfield will be on hand from WLS-Ch. 7, along with the inimitable WMAQ-Ch. 5 team of Paul Hogan, Phil Walters, political editor Dick Kay and a band to be named later, and WBBM Radio newsman Donn Pearlman.
Added starters: WBBM-AM Radio`s John Madigan as emcee, WGN-Ch. 9 sportscaster Bob Hillman and Bozo the Clown.
Participants and organizers are hoping the affair will be carried off as a celebration of the end of the strike, which began in New York and Chicago March 2.
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SAMPLING
— Last week, Peter Lund left CBS Television Stations division to head up Multimedia Entertainment, which produces and distributes ”Donahue.” The first news Lund gets from the CBS-owned station in Chicago, WBBM-Ch. 2, is likely to be disconcerting.
It appears Channel 2 will not pick up its option on ”Donahue,” and by September the long-running show will be available to other stations in the market. Continued ratings difficulties for ”Donahue” and concern over the lead-in to Channel 2`s news shows are the reasons WBBM is severing its connection.
— WFLD-TV-Ch. 32 and Fox Televison will roll out a new ”prime-time”
lineup beginning Sunday, April 5. A half-hour comedy, ”Married . . . With Children,” with Katy Sagal from the now-departed ”Mary,” debuts at 6 p.m.; ”The Tracey Ullman Show” follows.
”21 Jump Street,” a one-hour cop show turns up Sunday, April 12, as a two-hour movie at 6 p.m. ”Duet,” another half-hour comedy, will make its debut April 19 at 7:30.
— ”Siskel & Ebert & the Movies” offers a one-hour special, ”If We Picked the Oscars,” Saturday night at 10:30 on Channal 2. The regular movie- review edition will follow at 11:30 . . . WBEZ Radio stages its third ”Teen Stand-Up Comedy Contest” on Wednesday, April 1, at Ditka`s/City Lights. . . . Joel Weisman and Peter Treistman of WGN-Ch. 9 won the Jacob Scher Award for investigative reporting on television. The series, ”The Contract Charades,” dealt with municipal construction contracts.
— WPWR-Ch. 50`s gamble with the De Paul-Louisiana State NCAA basketball tournament game last Friday paid off with a 10.7 rating and an 18 audience share. It was the highest rating ever achieved by the station, which was formerly Channel 60.
Asked for his assessment of station`s maneuver, given the $125,000 price tag for the broadcast rights, Channel 50 executive Neil Sabin said, ”I`m upset De Paul lost.”
Interestingly, Channel 2`s broadcast of the Indiana-Duke game, which followed the De Paul contest, collected a 12.4 rating and a 22 share. In Chicago, a rating point represents 30,000 TV households.
— And, finally, it`s always a treat to be in the sights of WBBM-AM Radio press critic John Madigan. Last week, the irrepressible Madigan took an overdose of umbrage at this columnist`s assessment of the working press`
performance at the recent presidential news conference.
According to Madigan, my lack of service at these East Room affairs, where once he sat, disqualifies me as a hired observer. And he says that no one else ”found serious fault with the Washington press corps.”
Well, Time correspondent Hugh Sidey, a legendary presidential idolator, suggested to ABC News that, based on what he`d seen that night, the whole press-conference format should be scrapped, as it serves no useful news-gathering purpose. The president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors characterized the Fourth Estate`s conduct as ”tame.”
And, in a March 22 review in the Sun-Times of ABC White House correspondent Sam Donaldson`s new book, veteran Washington reporter William Hines wrote:
”If ours were a parliamentary system of government, instead of whatever it is, you wouldn`t need a Donaldson pushing himself forward and shouting at Reagan; the chief of state would be up before the legislature answering even meaner questions put to him by his political opponents. And what`s more, people would expect his answers to be truthful.”