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Published on 10/27/1999 All articles from this issue

Tia O'Brien tells Morning Forum how TV news differs from print

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By Lanra Brown

Special to the Town Crier

Tia O'Brien, who left her onscreen job to write for West Magazine, recounted her experiences for the Morning Forum of Los Altos on Oct. 1. O'Brien began her broadcasting career in Philadelphia where she covered the Republican National Convention, the Abscam Sting, and the bombing of the MOVE enclave in that city before coming to San Francisco where she reported on business, consumer affairs and Silicon Valley news for KRON television from 1991 to 1994.

O'Brien engaged the audience by telling of her experiences with make-up and image consultants in an attempt to develop the proper television reporter "look." She said that she was never able to achieve TV hair: "strands of hemp that would not move even when reporting from the center of a hurricane." One make-up consultant who was re-doing the entire Philadelphia station news staff said the perfect look was "one notch down from a prostitute."

O'Brien said that beginning in the mid-1980s, when the FCC relaxed its requirement that television stations demonstrate a commitment to news and public affairs, news departments became a profit center for stations, since the programs were relatively cheap to produce. As competition for viewers intensified, especially with cable stations entering the race, sensationalism and gimmicks became more and more prevalent, blurring the line between news and entertainment. By 1994, KRON had closed its Washington, D.C., and Sacramento news bureaus, and O'Brien "hung up her make up bag" to write for magazines.

O'Brien, who is now documenting the revolution in Silicon Valley, recounted how she and Stanford biologist, Robert Sapolisky, observed a "power breakfast" between entrepreneurs at Buck's restaurant in Woodside, which resulted in her article, "Is Your Boss a Baboon?" Sapolisky, who studied baboon behavior in the wild, analyzed the quartet of businessmen, one talking incessantly on a cell phone, one concentrating intensely on his food, another talking and gesturing animatedly, and one taking copious notes. Sapolsky's conclusion: the "Alphas," or power players, were the two ignoring the conversation, while their "Betas" (subordinates) were interacting. The message: Alphas don't work, their Betas do the wheeling and dealing.

The Morning Forum is a members-only lecture series held at the United Methodist Church of Los Altos. Membership is closed for this year. To get on a waiting list for membership, write to: Morning Forum, P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.