A few months ago I visited Michael Badger at his home to discuss his long-running public access program News View. Michael has produced new weekly editions of his local news and weather broadcast since 2008, but production came to a halt last September. He then went back on the air one more time in March, and later told me that the show would no longer proceed as usual. His plan was to send his show off and have someone else take over in Denver. “I’m just one man,” he said. “It was really too much for me.”
I am delighted to announce, however, that News View is up and running once again with no current plans to cancel.
I asked Michael why he was starting up again. “I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I’ve got nothing else to do. I’m trying to get a job, I get lonesome living alone, you know. It gives me something good to do to give back to the community.”
For those of you who have no idea what you’re reading, let me explain: News View is a public access program that airs on Urbana Public Television out of the Urbana City Building. The public access station is actually located in the council chambers and runs a fairly wide variety of the sorts of public access material you’d expect, ranging from meetings to politically geared shows and even…The Psychotic Comedian. Michael is a Champaign native, born and raised. He hates bugs and loves ordering milk at eateries like Taco Bell and Dos Reales.
His first show aired on July 4th, 2008 when he was only twenty-four. He continued to produce at least one new episode a week and, at one point, was doing two a week — Mondays and Fridays. His interview segments have included Mayor Don Gerard and Garcia’s Pizza in a Pan co-founder Ralph Senn among others.
Badger normally sits in front of a camera, sometimes with a chroma-keyed background behind him. He reads news stories from paper notes or from his laptop screen. A variety of different news music scores have appeared for the opening sequences, which are sometimes narrated by professional voice actor Bill Ratner.
He uses a wide variety of websites to collect his stories before recording the shows, but apparently can no longer use The News Gazette as a source of news. “They banned me from using anything from them,” he said. I asked him why this was, but he wasn’t sure. Apparently they sent him an email, but Michael told me that he deleted it when I asked to read it myself.
The overall reactions to News View have been varied. Michael said that he gets a lot of viewers from the U of I campus, and he goes so far as to call them fans. Others have not been so enthusiastic. “People were calling it a train wreck,” he said. “Some people loved it [in 2008]. Some people hated it. It was just interesting. They compared me to Hans Moleman from The Simpsons.”
On April 16th, 2010, NBC 5 ran a brief report acknowledging Badger as the “newest member of the NBC 5 family.” The reporter on hand, Ben Bowman, christened him the “NBC 5 Chief Grain Silo Correspondent.” The program then cut to a shot of Michael reading a grain silo news report on News View, and then cut back to Bowman responding, and then later back to Michael again, sardonically editing him into the Chicago newscast. It was certainly one of the more creative acknowledgements of the show, if not one of the more arrogant. Unfortunately, the video link seems to have been taken down recently.
Now, it’s possible you’re wondering if News View is even an important enough topic within the local arts and entertainment community to merit a written article. Maybe it isn’t (though I hope that’s not true). First of all, Badger does his show just as much for the viewers as he does for himself. Calling News View a way to “give back” to the community is just about the most selfless way he could phrase it. He doesn’t receive any payment from the city, he’s not allowed to make money from advertising, and he does all of this of his own volition. When you first encountered this article, you probably had never heard of News View, and for Badger to be creating content for people who are most likely unaware that he or his show exists has always sort of touched me a little. He’s giving back to a community that never gave him anything to begin with. Michael Badger is a sincere person, one of the most sincere you will encounter. There’s no angle to his show, no “catch.” He’s not asking anything of you other than to hang out with him for a half-hour as he fills you in on current events, etc.
News View is one of the more entertaining shows you’re likely to find on UPTV. I mean, let’s be frank here: much of their programming is pretty boring. Between city meetings that aren’t much more interesting to view in person and, again, shows like The Psychotic Comedian (which is less funny than it is disturbing), you could do a lot worse than News View. I can’t exactly put my finger on why I think News View really is so awesome, but I think it’s mostly because there’s no hidden agenda. Badger isn’t trying to sell anyone a product or urge people toward certain political points of view. It’s actually just plain news and weather, the most pure newscast you’re going to find on TV.
News View airs on channel 6, Fridays at 10 p.m.