Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Le makes par
John “Punnyman” Le scored with his relatively pun-free report on some crazy dude who wacks a golf ball around his yard up on some mountain. Le treated his source with respect, kept himself out of the story, and painted a warm portrait of a man having fun in his own little world.
Again, Le’s flashes of brilliance keep us hoping there’s some light at the end of the pun-filled tunnel. (The photo, by the way, was from the not-so-great chocolate shop story from a few weeks back.)
Freeborn reborn
WLOS spent 30 precious seconds of its newscast at 11 showing a pool party kicking off the Ashvegas City Council candidacy of Bryan Freeborn, a guy who has run unsuccessfully in the past.
Didn’t look like many people showed up for the party, but WLOS was there. We haven’t been keeping as close track as we should, but our expectation is that every candidate is getting the same, equal-time treatment. We’ve seen similar stories on Robin Cape and Dwight Butner. But did every other candidate that has filed get the same? If they have, we haven’t see it, and we watch closely.
Just who is ‘Minnie People’?
A quick sideline here – WLOS often quotes a souce in doing their stories. Her name is Minnie People, and it’s usually just that one source. But they’ll do stories like, “Minnie People say they’re excited about the shuttle launch and watching closely…”
Who is this Minnie People, and why does she get quoted so often?
Oh – oh, I get it. They’re saying many people. OK. So, how many is many people? Did they talk to all of them? If they did, why don’t they just show me a soundbyte with a name and face? Do they know that many people? Sounds like lazy journalism to me.
Calling out the anchors
Joanne gave me grief about an earlier post, saying we call out reporters but we don’t tell it like it is regarding the local teevee station’s anchors. Well, what is there to call out?
They’re pretty faces that read to us. That’s it. There’s no substance to quantify, rate or grade. Maybe we can start giving out a “tossback of the day” award or “best script of the day” or something, but honestly, there’s nothing much to criticize. At least with the reporters, there’s some work to examine.
Minnie People is a friend of mine. She’s very smart and opionated and usually right.