How To Handle Local TV Airheads

[FredLeonard]

I have some sympathy for people who are forced to endure having Ken or Barbie stick a mic in their faces and ask them "how did you feel" on the worst day of their lives. Maybe this will teach them some manners (but it probably won't).

The terrifying moment crazed woman sends female reporter running for her life after throwing rocks and setting her two pit bulls on her

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 19:18 EST, 5 June 2013 | UPDATED: 19:57 EST, 5 June 2013

A young TV reporter from Rhode Island has learned the hard way that covering the news could be a dangerous business when an on-camera interview took a violent turn.

Melissa Lawrence, 35, from Providence, has been charged with assault after she threw a rock, waved a baseball bat and urged her dogs to attack a WLNE-TV news crew reporting on a graduation party shooting.

WLNE-TV reports that its cameraman and reporter were trying to speak with Lawrence, the mother of a victim, Tuesday after a teenage boy who allegedly shot her daughter turned himself in to police. ...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-sends-pit-bulls-reporter.html#ixzz2VQTCu5gn

 

[dmargalotti]

I'm not a big fan of intrusive, in-your-face reporting unless it's one of the expose pieces of someone who is ripping off the public. However, nothing this reporter did warranted that kind of reaction.

 

[Mario500]

Re: Response

I find the name of this topic to be insulting to broadcasters who may be smarter than you think, FredLeonard. I'm sure the reporter had planned on asking better questions (or "follow-up questions") after asking her subject about her feelings. She was just trying to do her job (which may or not have been assigned to her).

 

[anotherguyTN]

What if the airheads (or insert your own term here) are in station management? Like the management of WBBJ TV in Jackson, TN, who decided to get Me-TV, only to use it as filler for 3 or 4 hours a day on their CBS subchannel, yet they recently spent big money on a new news set?

 

[SixtiesGuy]

I do not wish anyone harm but this is a reality check on the conceit of the media. Apparently being a media cupcake doesn't put you in a special class of people who are above the travails of daily life. This is the same mentality behind (stupidly) standing out in the midst of a hurricane to get a great live shot after all the commoners have been evacuated.

 

[hubcity]

Re: Response

I find the name of this topic to be insulting to broadcasters who may be smarter than you think, FredLeonard. I'm sure the reporter had planned on asking better questions (or "follow-up questions") after asking her subject about her feelings. She was just trying to do her job (which may or not have been assigned to her).

Since when are "feelings" news?

I know they're all over the broadcasts we call "news", but are they news?

 

[Morgan Wick]

What if the airheads (or insert your own term here) are in station management? Like the management of WBBJ TV in Jackson, TN, who decided to get Me-TV, only to use it as filler for 3 or 4 hours a day on their CBS subchannel, yet they recently spent big money on a new news set?

Yes, because anyone who doesn't put on your favorite subchannel service out of a gazillion showing classic TV shows, which 90% of people have never heard of and 99% of people don't care about, is clearly a complete idiot!

 

[Mario500]

Re: Response

I find the name of this topic to be insulting to broadcasters who may be smarter than you think, FredLeonard. I'm sure the reporter had planned on asking better questions (or "follow-up questions") after asking her subject about her feelings. She was just trying to do her job (which may or not have been assigned to her).

Since when are "feelings" news?

I know they're all over the broadcasts we call "news", but are they news?

The reporter could have gotten new information worthy of a news report if the subject had not attacked her. The station probably would have not broadcast her interview anyway since not all interviews conducted by news reporters are meant to be broadcast or published (depending on the subjects and the news gatherers' approaches to news).

 

[FredLeonard]

C'mon. These people are Ken or Barbie with a mic to hold. We've all seen the kind of questions they ask. Number one is: How did you feel when _________? They don't do actual reporting. They go out with a van and stand someplace where something did happen, will happen or could happen and work off wire copy or a press release. It's all a show.

This woman's kid was shot. She has no information pertinent to the incident itself. She wasn't there. She's not a cop. Barbie was supposed to get this woman, who can not possibly be in good shape, to cry on camera.

If you don't think that's how it works, you have not been watching local TV news at all.

 

[Morgan Wick]

Re: Response

I find the name of this topic to be insulting to broadcasters who may be smarter than you think, FredLeonard. I'm sure the reporter had planned on asking better questions (or "follow-up questions") after asking her subject about her feelings. She was just trying to do her job (which may or not have been assigned to her).

Since when are "feelings" news?

I know they're all over the broadcasts we call "news", but are they news?

The reporter could have gotten new information worthy of a news report if the subject had not attacked her. The station probably would have not broadcast her interview anyway since not all interviews conducted by news reporters are meant to be broadcast or published (depending on the subjects and the news gatherers' approaches to news).

Then why did she lead with the vapid "feelings" question and, as it turned out, throw away her chance to ask more substantive questions in order to ask a question no one cares about and isn't newsworthy anyway?

 

[LKellerIII]

I'm not a big fan of the sub-channels I've seen so far, and I realize that news operations need to change sets from time to time...so I have no problem with that. And maybe because I live in a big media market (Bay Area), there are no "air heads" that I am aware of. All the "Barbie" and "Ken" looking reporters around here appear to be as smart as the less attractive ones.

In fact, there have been more than a few Bay Area TV reporters who I can say after seeing them a few times - "He/she will either be going to LA, New York, or the networks soon." I'm usually right - the latest one being Cecelia Vega, an absolutely brilliant local reporter, who started out at the SF Chronicle, was "discovered" by KGO-TV (she's articulate, poised on camera, and very attractive), and has now been snapped up by ABC.

Having said all that - I am not a fan of in-your-face journalism, either. I was a victim of such a report - over 30 years ago - a local reporter who carefully edited a 3 or 4 minute interview I did with him down to a 20 second sound bite that made me look like a stupid a-hole on the 6:00 News. He also went on to a network career - Bob Jimenez, retired from NBC.

 

[Mark Giardina]

What if the airheads (or insert your own term here) are in station management?

From personal experience I've dealt with more 'airheads', or as I call them incompetents, in management then I ever did with staff or competitors.

There is truth to the saying that $&!^ floats to the top.

 

[KERCAlum]

C'mon. These people are Ken or Barbie with a mic to hold. We've all seen the kind of questions they ask. Number one is: How did you feel when _________? They don't do actual reporting. They go out with a van and stand someplace where something did happen, will happen or could happen and work off wire copy or a press release. It's all a show.

This woman's kid was shot. She has no information pertinent to the incident itself. She wasn't there. She's not a cop. Barbie was supposed to get this woman, who can not possibly be in good shape, to cry on camera.

If you don't think that's how it works, you have not been watching local TV news at all.

I was assigned a few stories like that back in the day, and I absolutely refused to approach a relative of someone who had recently lost their life in a violent manner. Gun shot, car wreck, stabbing, didn't matter. Those folks need their time to grieve before someone sticks a camera and a mic in their face. I got yelled at several times, but I responded by asking what possible reason could there be for doing such a thing except for ratings? I was a reporter, and my job was to uncover the facts of a story. A grieving relative can do nothing to provide such facts. Ultimately, I won the argument ... and then I got out of TV news. I am not the kind of insensitive, intrusive, factually-challenged person most reporters are today.

 

[SixtiesGuy]

C'mon. These people are Ken or Barbie with a mic to hold. We've all seen the kind of questions they ask. Number one is: How did you feel when _________? They don't do actual reporting. They go out with a van and stand someplace where something did happen, will happen or could happen and work off wire copy or a press release. It's all a show.

This woman's kid was shot. She has no information pertinent to the incident itself. She wasn't there. She's not a cop. Barbie was supposed to get this woman, who can not possibly be in good shape, to cry on camera.

Correctamundo.

 

[michael hagerty]

Fred, you're the first person on this board that I can recall who has suggested that the proper way to handle anything is with a double felony, which is what Mom is charged with.

Under Rhode Island law, that could be 40 years in prison. Given that she chose to wear a T-shirt reading "My attitude is your problem" when she turned herself into police and made her first court appearance, I'm betting she won't be charming many judges or jurors into leniency.

 

[michael hagerty]

I was assigned a few stories like that back in the day, and I absolutely refused to approach a relative of someone who had recently lost their life in a violent manner. Gun shot, car wreck, stabbing, didn't matter. Those folks need their time to grieve before someone sticks a camera and a mic in their face. I got yelled at several times, but I responded by asking what possible reason could there be for doing such a thing except for ratings? I was a reporter, and my job was to uncover the facts of a story. A grieving relative can do nothing to provide such facts.

Fought that battle many times in 30 years of TV news, Dan. Had the same approach as you.

Facts that matter here: Daughter is not dead, but was treated and released for a flesh wound the same night. Reporter's "how do you feel" (when you can find the raw video) was the opening to a sentence that ended with "about hearing they've caught the guy who shot your daughter?".

That's very different from "how do you feel about your daughter being shot?"

I don't know a reporter whose first instinct when a suspect is captured isn't to see if the victim or the victim's family has a reaction to the news.

All the Mom had to do was say "No thank you, please leave." She didn't do that. She threw a rock at the cameraman, brought out a baseball bat and sicced two pitbulls on an unarmed woman who was on a public sidewalk.

She deserves the book that is likely to be thrown at her.

 

[FredLeonard]

All "how do you feel" questions are inane, stupid and offensive. If a reporter's "first instinct" is to ask such questions, the state of journalism in this country is truly pathetic.

This woman was minding her own business. She has the right to be left alone. We've heard too many stories lately of people being hounded by middle of the night phone calls or having their lawns trampled by TV crews for days on end. It's time for people to stand up to these abuses.

This is not news reporting. Time to watch "All The President's Men" again. Notice that nobody is asked how they feel.

 

[michael hagerty]

This woman was minding her own business. She has the right to be left alone. We've heard too many stories lately of people being hounded by middle of the night phone calls or having their lawns trampled by TV crews for days on end. It's time for people to stand up to these abuses.

Broad daylight. Public sidewalk. No one awakened, no lawn trampled.

You're defending felonious assault against two people who are also citizens of Providence who were within their rights to be where they were and doing what they were doing. The response you defend is against the law. Had the reporter tripped or been knocked down trying to get away, the two pit bulls likely would have gone for her throat. Would you be saying she deserved that?

 

[johnnya2k6]

And a few months ago, this happened to an Atlanta TV reporter.

 

[michael hagerty]

And a few months ago, this happened to an Atlanta TV reporter.

Now, that reporter was wrong. He needed to let the guy go in the building. There was no invitation and the suggestion that the man was holding the door open for him was BS. A bit of research turns up the fact that neither the reporter nor the station pressed charges. That's almost certainly because the ND, GM and lawyers watched the tape and knew their guy was out of line.