Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Holly Headache and Russ “Beefcake” Bowen brought us the weekend infotainment reports, reports so light on any actual news that we’ll just give you what they gave us.
On Saturday, Holly said housing in Ashvegas is really, really expensive, but “there’s help some don’t know about.” The story turned into a big ad for the Affordable Housing Coalition, and was based around an affordable housing “fair” at Tried Stone Missionary Baptist Church. The story offered no solutions, no real critical thinking about the “problem” of affordable housing or the lack of it in Ashvegas. Holly ended it with a simple “go to the Affordable Housing Coalition’s web site” to get more information.
On Sunday, Holly didn’t any better. This time it was an ad for some Presbyterian church in West Asheville that’s going to put a cell tower on its property. The cell tower will be unobtrusive, Holly said, quoting the church officials. Money from the cell companies renting church property will help the church feed the poor, Holly said. That was it. You might find that cell towers are starting to pop up all over the place, a lot of people don’t mind them so much because they help with phone signal. If you have been asked to place a cell tower on your property, then you should click here for more information on what you should expect about leasing your property for a cell tower.
Over and over on the weekends, Russ tells us that Holly will have more information about the same story at 11. But, truth be told, WLOSers give us the exact same story, with perhaps one new quote. It’s ridiculous.
More and more, the weekend infotainment reports don’t contain any stories at all – just filler. On Saturday, Russ stood over in the “weather center” with Jay Seltzerwater and talked about a meteor shower nobody could see because it was cloudy and the best time to see it was 4 a.m. But that didn’t stop Russ from asking over and over if the clouds would pass. And it didn’t stop Jay from throwing up some stupid graphic about how you had to be in the dark to really see the shooting stars.
But the real kicker from the weekend was Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan, who had the lamest of follow-up stories on the election loss of U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman. Ryan’s so-called report was about how bloggers had influenced the election. She had a camerman show her at a computer. Then, all of a sudden, Carolyn was reporting from inside the computer. No kidding. Through the trickery of video technology, she popped inside the computer to make her point. Here’s a tip, Carolyn – when doing a story on the influence of bloggers, how about talking to a real blogger.
What an effing joke. Seriously, Ryan’s story looked like a joke. Like something you’d see skewered on the “Best Week Ever” or something.
In other news…
Shindig on the Green was cancelled due to bad weather, according to WLOSers… The guitarist with Audioslave sent a local teenager a signed guitar. Tom Morello signed “Soul Power” and sent the kid a note… The Sourwood Festival went on despite horrible weather Saturday… And the Kiwanas stuffed a bunch of backpacks with back to school pads and pencils for needy children.
Now that the church has gone into the business of renting property to a for-profit entity, will they have to start paying taxes?