Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Breaking news: I40 wreck kills two
WLOS pressed Jon “Punnyman” Le into actual reporting duty Tuesday night to help cover a horrifying car wreck on Interstate 40 Tuesday evening. Cherub Charu teamed up with the Punnyman to tell us that two people died in the wreck in what began as a police chase.
The police started after someone in an SUV after a report of a man harrassing a woman at the Asheville Mall. The SUV ended up going the wrong way on an interstate exit ramp and hit a truck, which hit another vehicle.
All three went up in flaming inferno, which WLOS brought to us courtesy of a family home video. The amateur video showed a ball of flame and black smoke rising from the scene. WLOS said police hadn’t released the victims’ names.
WLOS quoted the Ashvegas police chief as saying the chase didn’t reach high speeds until the SUV hit the exit ramp, at which time the cops doing the chasing backed off. We’re sure WLOSers will pursue the police chase angle Wednesday – what’s the department’s policy? was procedure followed in this case? how fast were the police car and the SUV going? will there be in-car police chase video?
The tragedy tied up traffic, the angle Charu covered. Traffic still looked jammed at 11, some five hours after the crash.
Goodbye, Scottie
Remember that you heard it here first – Scott “Scottie2Hottie” Wickersham and wife *Candice “Candycane” Little are leaving WLOS. WLOS finally acknowledged that fact Tuesday evening. “Tallahasee Tammy” Watford officially said goodbye to Scottie because she’s headed on Christmas vacation.
Scottie confirmed that he’s going to WSOC in Charlotte, an ABC affiliate like WLOS. His last day is Monday. He said Candice would be joining him in a couple of weeks. Tammy told viewers not to be sad yet, that we’ve got a few days left. Scottie chimed in and agreed.
There’s still “plenty of time to harrass me,” he said.
O, we know Scottie. We know.
Speaking of Scottie…
Scottie2Hottie told us in sideline comments after some dumb story that he only spent $175 on his bachelor party. And that that money included “Fritos.” Damn, Scottie, you gotta do better than that.
‘Yes Virgina, there is a Santa Claus’
WLOS stayed on top of the power outage story. Homes, mostly in Henderson and Rutherford counties, remained without electricity for a sixth day following last week’s ice storm. One woman was so happy to get electricity back that she gave Scottie the quote above. WLOS also covered a couple of other angles: whether homeowners insurance would cover spoiled groceries; and the impact on school calendars.
How in the hell is power still out six days after this storm? The weather has been perfectly fine since. I don’t think power was out this long after the Blizzard of ’93. What is going on? Was the storm really that bad, or does Duke Power suck that much?
By the way, Larry, did you ever get your car out of the ditch?
Haywood County prosecution team
WLOS touted a Tuesday press conference by the Haywood County-based district attorney, who announced some kind of plan to prosecute people charged with DUI and reckless driving. Candice’s report gave no detail on how the DA proposed to do that. But she was compelled to follow the story because she did a big sweeps report about the lack of prosecutions of such cases. Good for her for prodding officials to action, even if she can’t tell us what that action is.
She or he?
A Franklin High School student stole $10,000. Larry Blunt talked about the suspect, Shannon somebody, and said “she” was charged with taking the money. Only the mug show showed a dude, with a prominent Adam’s apple and shaved head. Blunt apparently spotted the mug shot and corrected himself mid-report: “…rather, he…”
New bus route maps
How hard is it to ride an Ashvegas city bus? Pretty hard, according to city transit leaders, who unveiled new, color-coded bus maps. Michelle Boudin brought us the story.
Michelle, hope your cold gets better. You didn’t sound well, child.
New WLOSer photos
Loyal reader Janice alerts us to new the new glamour shots posted on the WLOS web site. We’ll be taking a look at them through the week.
Larry Blunt can’t pronounce names of his colleagues nor local area place names. Then he calls a man "she" simply because the name was Shannon. This shows how the anchors are just "teleprompter readers" and not true journalists. It’s quite obvious they don’t take the time to at least preview the stories and related material before going on the air.
I can remember a brand-spanking-new Tammy Watford during the Blizzard of ’93 asking Bob Caldwell for help pronouncing Isothermal Community College during the school closing announcements. Things haven’t changed much.
the "other reporter" wasn’t "pulled off" – john was on the scene first – and she was bitching all night about why the station shouldn’t be doing the traffic story.
I’ve always thought John is one of their better hard news reporters, when pressed into it. His "live" work isn’t the smoothest (but, then, on Susan and Michelle really seem comfortable doing live shots), but he usually gets the facts right and appropriately conveyed in his taped piece (unlike the one who, appropriately, was pulled off the nuts & bolts and given the sidebar last night).
mr. fu – i gave him credit. ijust said his report was awkward. which it was.
Give John Le some credit. He did a good job on the story (and notice they put him on the actual news part of it, odd). Though honestly, I almost expected to see the AbsoluteLe animation thing they have and make some jokes about the whole thing.
Yes, curious. I noticed that. I didn’t like it. Didn’t seem to fit the tone of the story, which was already a little off because of Le’s awkward reporting.
Did anyone find it curious that we had two people dead last night in the chase and charu is doing a story with people laughing at being stuck in traffic????
Glad to see you’re back bringin’ in the noise, bringin’ in the funk.
I was tired of reading about horsies and afraid you were frozen to the ground during the ice storm trying to take the perfect photo of a pine cone.
Holla.
Kaboom! .. rumble, rumble, rumble… Lightnin’ has spoken (and never lost his power once during the ice storm)….
– WL –