Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Scottie2Hottie looked a little down in the dumps today. … Wonder why?
Jennings, gone but not mourned
“People all around the world are mourning the death of Peter Jennings tonight…” blathered Scottie2Hottie on the 11 pmmer tonight, but apparently not in Ashvegas. At 6 and 11, our local ABC affiliate duly noted the passing of ABC’s main man, then kicked it directly over to national tape.
There were no fond remembrances from local people who watched as Peter led them through any number of tender, or tense, moments. Nope. Not on WLOS. Just a health story about how people should really stop smoking if they don’t want to die of lung cancer. Thanks for the heads up, WLOSers.
One sidenote: All of the coverage of Jennings’ death never once showed the man with a cancer stick in his mouth. Not one picture. Except for Entertainment Tonight, which ran a bunch of smoke-filled shots of Jennings in the newsroom, doing his thing.
Wunder weather
Julie “All the World’s a Wonder” Wunder told us what we already know – that it’s been raining a lot – in a useless report in which she really amped up the drama, popping open an umbrella during one little transition. You been taking drama lessons from Jay again, Julie? Stop it.
Cuevas, back from vacation
Yawn.
Tammy turning orange
Tammy, seriously, lay off the fake bake.
Mater hater
Russ Bowen really stepped in it during a big report about some controversy over at this weekend’s Mater Festival in Canton. Russ warned us that the story was admittedly a “he said, she said” report, but he plowed ahead anyway.
Note to Russ: Any report that includes the words “Mater Festival” and “he said, she said” probably isn’t worth doing.
But back to the time slot to fill: A Canton mom’s little kid was apparently running around a ring set up in a parking lot, a ring in which some dumb rednecks were imitating their favorite wrestling heroes. Mom says the kid got knocked in the head with a metal chair one of the wrestlers (who looked like he couldn’t wrestle his way out of a wet paper bag) picked up to use.
The fake wrestler (wait, aren’t they all fake wrestlers?) says the kid ran into the chair. You know, like when you tell the officer, hey, that tree ran into my car. And anyway, mom shouldn’t have been letting the little rugrat run around unsupervised, says the Mater Mauler.
No charges have been filed, Russ tells us.
End of report.
“We’ve really hit an all-time journalistic low,” Russ muttered to me as we finished interviewing a meth-head trailer whore, who claims that an amatuer Christian wrestler assalted her 6-year-old daughter at a public festival with a metal chair. “I know we have Russ,” I said, “I know.”
I thought back to how our day started. “This woman has no credibility,” Russ was telling the producers, “everyone besides her is saying that her kid was running around wild and accidentally ran into the chair. I really don’t think a minor redneck squabble is newsworthy.”
“We think it is,” was the answer from management, “so do it anyway.”
As we walked away from the meth-mom interview the Chief of Police for Canton yelled to us, “Good choice on stories…excellent news judgement!”
“We know,” we said “we know.”
The rest of the day was similar– many apologies to everyone involved that we “have to do this story,” and, “we don’t have a choice.”
Later, as I was editing a shot of some Christian wrestlers into the package (we didn’t have video of the actual incident, so we used general file video from the event to fill space) I thought, “wow… this is one classy story. I can’t believe we’re putting such depravity on television. How am I going to call myself a journalist after broadcasting the delusions of this degenerate hillbilly?”
I then went ahead and put her on TV anyway. After our liveshot, while I was getting our equipment put up, an elderly lady pulled up and said, “I can’t believe yall put that lady’s lies on TV! I saw the whole thing. The kid was unsupervised the whole time, and we couldn’t even find the mother for 5 minutes after it happened. She never even saw how her kid got hurt, and was drunk anyway.”
“I know,” I said, “I know.”
You see, Ashe…This story is meant to show that the reporters (and the photographers) don’t always pick the stories themselves and many times actually have no choice but to do the story. I do love my job most of the time, but am sometimes forced into compromising what “journalistic integrity” I fool myself into thinking that I have. Do keep the criticism coming, though (it was dead on in this case). Russ feels left out when he doesn’t make Ashvegas for a while. We in Waynesville can take your worst… so bring it on!
Peace,
Waynesvegas photog
Many times reporters fight against a story like this one with the ones who make the final decision, but nine times out of ten they lose the battle. So the reporter does it anyway, and they’re stuck with their name on it.Not sure how it is at a newspaper but that’s how it is with tv news.
It’s a sad direction the business has gone.
If Tammy goes a shade darker on the pancake, you’ll need nameplates with arrows on the Wloser news desk:
“Tammy” and “Darcel”
Why do the Wlosers spend so much time showing us what the weather did that day? I don’t know about you, but I was there. Monday’s report focused on Monday’s weather. Bulletin: It rained a lot. I saw it.
What would be more useful would be to explain the difference between a forecast of “scattered showers” and “isolated showers.” What’s the difference? If it’s raining on you, does it matter if the shower was “scattered” or “isolated?”
For example, Cabana Boy was on Saturday night forecasting “scattered showers” for Sunday, mostly in the afternoon and evening. Far as I could tell, it rained like a sumbitch everywhere all day Sunday. Wouldn’t that accurately be described as a forecast for “rain all day”? Or maybe he meant the showers would be “scattered” from hell and back.