Shame.
Channel 4 and Channel 7 both deserve it for overplaying “Sex and the City, Part 2, Batavia Style.”
At 6 p.m. Tuesday, both stations lead with the story about the alleged picnic table sex at a Batavia park that resulted in a rare adultery charge against 41-year-old Suzanne M. Corona of Batavia. She and Justin M. Amend, 29, of Oakfield, also were charged with public lewdness, a misdemeanor.
Mind you this was the day that former Niagara Falls Mayor Vince Anello was in two federal courts dealing with charges filed by the U.S. attorney’s office.
And the park sex story didn’t really advance much from Monday except for court appearances by the accused. The Buffalo News didn’t carry anything about the story in my edition today.
Sure, the park sex story is bound to be continually talked about, which undoubtedly was behind the stations’ decision to lead with it.
Corona also gave the stations’ something they badly needed – an ill-advised, on-the-street interview that provided video. In the interview with her husband by her side, Corona publicly disputed some earlier statements made by Batavia city police but admitted some “inappropriate” behavior.
According to Channel 7, Corona was given two weeks to find an attorney. If she had an attorney Tuesday, he or she presumably would have told her that TV time is less important than avoiding jail time. There is a good chance an attorney would have advised her to keep quiet unless she is in court.
Channel 7 and Channel 4 also provided some irrelevant details about the case. Both said that Corona told police upon her arrest that her husband was a transgender and they hadn’t been intimate for some time. I’m no lawyer but that didn’t exactly sound like a good legal defense for allegedly having sex in a public park.
Of course, the story is news. It is where and how it was played that seemed so out of line. If the stations had promoted the story on the top of the news and played it 10 minutes later where it belonged, surely viewers would have waited for it.
In a way, that would have played to the stations’ advantage by keeping viewers waiting for 10 minutes and forcing them to watch more important stories.
* Now on to something much more wholesome: Tuesday’s season finale of “Glee,” the Fox series about a diverse glee club that became one of the season’s most-talked about new shows.
Any episode that features songs from Journey gets two thumbs up from me. The music in the episode that featured the regional finals competition was inspiring and top-notch.
The story? Not so much. It was sickeningly sweet as practically every season-long plot ended happily with reunited parents and romantic partners. Even nasty, dirty tricks cheerleader Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) turned into a softie who saved the day – and next year -- for the Glee Club supposedly so she can get into director Will Schuester’s (Matthew Morrison) beautiful hair for another season.
Call me a softie, too, because I loved it even while recognizing it may have been a little too feel-good for regular viewers of the series.
pergament@msn.com
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