Sandy Steinpas admits that, at first, she didn't buy the idea that a "reality" TV shows could really help her and her husband, Scott, find the daughter they put up for adoption in 1979.
"Oh yeah," says the Brookfield woman. "I was very skeptical of this. That's not how I wanted to meet her, on TV. That wasn't my plan."
After lots of research, she agreed to participate in ABC's new "Find My Family." The results of the search air in the show's premiere at 8:30 p.m. Monday on Channel 12.
Sandy was a 10th grader when she got pregnant. And, for many reasons, she's wanted to reconnect with the daughter she gave away.
"I wanted it all. I wanted a relationship," she says. But there were also health issues. Diabetes is rampant in both her family and her husband's.
They did connect, and Sandy says "we're happy with the outcome."
But it was an emotional experience that will play out on camera Monday night in the show from the producers of ABC's heart-tugging "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
Sandy, 46, admits that she's the outgoing half in her family. But Scott -- who turned 50 last month -- says he's satisfied with letting the reunion happen on TV.
"At first, you don't know any of these people," says Scott of the crew that chronicled the reunion. "They're in your home, they're telling you when to go, what do do."
But he's happy with how things went.
"It's been a great thing, to be able to have meet our daughter, and find out everything is OK."
Scott's reporting is verse: Channel 4 weatherguy and feature reporter Scott Steele rhymed his way through a report on the lighting of Milwaukee's Christmas tree on Thursday.
"Twas three dozen days before Christmas and all through the city people gathered together like a tree-lighting committee," he began.
The weakest point comes when he rhymes "sentimental" and "detrimental" in describing the donation of the 27-foot tree.
And then there's this: "Indeed this tree-lighting begins this season of giving -- although there may be a bit less with the current cost of living."
It is, of course, easy to make fun of a rhymed report, especially when the rhyming is stretched so far. But at least Scott had a bit of fun with one of those frequently deadly dull annual stories.
A new weekly: A free weekly newspaper targeting Milwaukee's gay and lesbian community hit the streets this week. The first edition of the Wisconsin Gazette, dubbed "the voice of progress for Wisconsin's LGBT community" is a 32-page tabloid-sized paper using full color.
The newspaper's Web site is still under construction.
On TV: Daytime TV queen Oprah Winfrey is ending her syndicated talk show Sept. 9, 2011. She announces it on the show that airs at 4 this afternoon on Channel 12.
- ABC says the final season of "Lost" will start Feb. 2 in the 8 p.m. Tuesday slot on Channel 12.
- Michael Ausiello reports NBC's "Chuck" will be back Sunday, Jan. 10, with two new episodes, before moving to its normal 7 p.m. Monday slot the next day, on Channel 4.
- NBC's "Trauma," which had been reported dead, isn't. More episodes are being ordered for the hospital show because the network has holes to fill in the schedule and there was a bit of an improvement in the ratings.
- Fox News Channel is happy with both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. Sean Hannity's Wednesday night interview with Palin pulled in 4.2 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, while Major Garrett's sitdown with the president earlier Wednesday had 2.4 million during "Special Report with Bret Baier."
Why Jon Stewart doesn't like Sarah Palin: "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart is tired with other people telling him what he doesn't like about last year's Republican vice presidential nominee as her book tour continues.
Here's the video of this week's explanation of exactly what it is about Palin that bothers Stewart so much.
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Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
