Uncle Gus Dead At 85

[Scott Fybush]

At 12:07 PM 3/20/2005, rogerkirk wrote:

>According to the Union Leader/New Hampshire Sunday News:
>
>"'Uncle Gus' Bernier, the TV friend of a generation of
>New Hampshire children in the 1960s and '70s, died
>peacefully in his sleep yesterday at his home in Hawaii."
>
>A detailed and quite lengthy story at:
>
>http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=52209
>
>Channel 9's Web Site "www.TheWMURChannel.com" managed to devote a whopping 
>FIVE sentences in an AP wire headline halfway down the page - below 
>"Unlicensed Crematorium" and "M.E. Fraud" stories, but above the 
>"Pedestrian Accident" headline.  So much for heritage, local coverage and 
>in-depth reporting.

In fairness, it's a weekend and WMUR is probably lightly staffed. I don't 
know what time the story moved last night, but I'd bet that WMUR didn't 
have it in time to do anything much for their 6 or 11 shows on Saturday 
night, which means the next chance they'll get is at 6 or 11 tonight. I'd 
hope like heck that something more substantive shows up on the web after 
that. (If they're anything like most small TV newsrooms, the website 
content comes out of the on-air product, and if there's no weekend morning 
news, there's no web update, either.)

The Union Leader, if it's anything like most newspapers (which it isn't, 
but I digress :-) maintains a "morgue" file, and I'd bet that their lengthy 
article was already sitting there written and ready to roll. Most broadcast 
outlets lack the staff or the level of advance planning needed to have such 
material ready. (Though I did see a stack of carts atop a filing cabinet at 
CBS News when I visited last month that included a Dick Cheney obit...)

s