Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
We’ve still got a few more days to go before TV sweeps (thankfully) ends for our local news stations. Let’s review some of the highs and lows:
Stations routinely hit lows as they try to pump up otherwise bland stories. Regular lead testing becomes, “Can that glass of water kill you?!” But the lowest low I can recall was former WLOSer Heather Childers’ trip into “Hobo Jungle.”
Childers was one in the endless stream of former beauty queens-turned-news readers. (She is a former Miss Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The current reigning beauty queen of WLOS is former Miss Georgia (peach) Candice Little.)
A few years ago, Childers breathlessly stood in the dark during a live shot, decked out in her smooth black leather jacket, to tell us that homeless people lived in places like bridge underpasses and in highway medians. About the same time, I think we actually had one homeless person stab another homeless person to death.
So Childers took us into a homeless campsite, i.e. “Hobo Jungle.” There was the usual: a cardboard box, some newspapers, a few torpedos of beer and some other junk. That was the gist of the report. But I think the title of that report alone is what got her that job in Charlotte.
The one sweeper that I’ve seen that might actually catch on this year is the “Redneck Roulette” story that Fox Carolina did. Here’s the story.
What is redneck roulette, you ask? In a regular game of Russian roulette, one bullet goes into a revolver’s chamber. Give it a spin, point the gun at your head, pull the trigger. In the redneck version, if you don’t off yourself with the first trigger pull, you point the gun at your buddy and give it a shot.
The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department says they’ve had six deaths from regular Russian roulette in the past six months. Now this new trend. What’s going on?
Quick quiz:
Redneck Riviera? Myrtle Beach
Hillbilly herion? Crank
That does seem like an interesting report.Its to bad the promotions department at Fox Carolina dosn’t do the story. Their news product is “JUST GETTING STARTED”.