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Truck Hijack/Chase

N

nuzguy

The prolonged live coverage of a truck chase through Collin, Dallas, and Tarrant counties Sunday produced some commendable and interesting coverage from Channel 8. The pilot of Telecopter 8 provided key coverage, both video and verbal, as he interacted well with studio and field reporters.

The story in its first three hours required the crew to be sharp and keep it moving. The chase part of the event ended about 8:20 PM Sunday a half hour or so after police shot up the truck's engine. The hostage taker then retreated to the truck's sleeper compartment with the woman driver as hostage.

Be interesting to hear what others observed on coverage of the long-running incident from channels 4, 5, and 11. For its part, Channel 8 did a nice job.
 
They did a pretty good job in the air and on the ground,which makes what i am about to say hard. Friday night there was a story about $3000.00 being stolen from the Tax acessor's office in Hurst. It was reported that the safeguards were in place. The problem with the story. Someone thought it would be cute to put the theme of "Mission and Impossible"
underneath during the report. It was a serious story NOT a feature! Poor Marty Haag's spirit! The next night its time for another round of wrong storys racked up with non corresponding intros. Not to mention the graphics had their usual mispellings and over the wrong story. Troy is only doing the 6p weather now.so thankfully the "team weather" is gone.
 
Yep, watched it all. nothing else on. :( channel 8 got an exclusive with interneiw with the high jacker.. They got the lady driver and her dog out and tear gassed the tractor. Sure it will be on National tomorrow. Longest chase on TV ever, so far..

Bet channel 8 gets some sort of award for their coverage. Channel 5 as usual sucked during the whole thing. out of since, out of date, just talking heads... jeeze..
 
Regarding klif's post, really sounds as if 8 royally booted it on the robbery story. That kind of story is hard news, not some made-for-the-news dramatic portrayal.

The chase coverage may well put 8 in line for some sort of award from somewhere. The coverage was a tough run--three hours plus continuous, no breaks--and the information flow was excellent. Anchor Brad Hawkins periodically reviewed how it all began and did well with segues from one reporter to another. There was **no** useless prattle such as "the truck is contining to roll down the highway." Every observation moved the story along and adequately communicated the drama of the event without the coverage itself being overly dramatic. Telecopter 8 and its capable pilot along with Rebecca Lopez, et al acted, reacted, and interacted admirably. It was what "team coverage" is all about. Seems that the most amazing part of the events was how long the truck rolled on its rims and wheels after the tires had been punctured and then shredded.

Sad about the obviously bad production choice on the Friday night robbery. Seems when Channel 8 shines it's the brightest, and when it sinks it goes right to the bottom. But the hijack/chase was a definite high poiint.
 
Where I have been down on Channel 8 lately, I have to say they did a very good job with their coverage. I have always been a BIG fan of Roger Smith's work and Brad Hawkins held up well during their hours of coverage. I kept expecting someone would join him at the desk like the other channels were doing, but he proved he could hang in there for long hours.
 
It looks like some of the stations were getting on the fringe of their signals. I wonder how far out they can be? Also when ch 4's copter had to refuel, I noticed they were sharing ch 5's copter shots. Ch 5's image was staying clean, while 4's was having a hard time. Later the reverse is true. So is it as simple as each station getting permission from the other to share microwaves?

It also looks like ch 11's optical stabilizer needs some work. They were having a hard time keeping the truck in frame.
 
Did WFAA not record Rebecca's interview with the hijacker? I caught the 10 p.m. news on the Web (out of town) and all she did was rehash what he had said. Not nearly as dramatic as hearing the guy's actual voice. Maybe it was a police stipulation or something?
 
I got the impression that they called her on her cell phone and that she was at home--or at least not at work. So there wouldn't have been time.

Plus she'd had to explain to the guy that they were recording the call for broadcast (FCC stuff)... which would risk having him hang up immediately.
 
I'm rather surprised by all this praise for the Channel 8 coverage. As I recall, while the truck was rolling through the Lancaster area (or shortly before that), the channel 8 commentators reported that the truck driver was laughing and speculated that she must be collaborating with the kidnapper. That speculation was completely out of line and completely inappropriate.
 
Maybe so, maybe not. You are referring to one moment in more than three hours of coverage that came off extremely well. The acceptability of the incident to which you refer is indeed debatable, but "all this praise" of Channel 8's coverage of the incident is wholly warranted. Not a local station or network exists where in such protracted coverage there hasn't been one instance or more where something which shouldn't have been said, actually was. It's simply a bad generalization to try and knock down an overall excellent job of reporting by generalizing from a lone incident such as you have cited.
 
nuzguy said:
Maybe so, maybe not. You are referring to one moment in more than three hours of coverage that came off extremely well. The acceptability of the incident to which you refer is indeed debatable, but "all this praise" of Channel 8's coverage of the incident is wholly warranted. Not a local station or network exists where in such protracted coverage there hasn't been one instance or more where something which shouldn't have been said, actually was. It's simply a bad generalization to try and knock down an overall excellent job of reporting by generalizing from a lone incident such as you have cited.
Click to expand...

It wasn't a lone incident. The WFAA journalists covering the chase repeated this assertion several times over a space 10-15 minutes. I will admit that I started channel flipping sometime after that, but I never heard a retraction of the collaboration statements nor an apology to the truck driver for accusing her of collaborating with the hijacker/kidnapper. If they did apologize later on, then I applaud them for their honesty. They never presented any credible evidence or proof that the truck driver was a collaborator.

In any case, those statements against the truck driver were speculation that assaulted her character, and worse yet, made to thousands of people watching on TV. You can spin it anyway you want. It was irresponsible behavior on the part of WFAA journalists to make such statements. "Professional" journalists should know better. Next to killing or torturing someone, falsely accusing them is about the worst thing you can do to someone.
 
A great deal is open for discussion and nothing is served by the two of us volleying back and forth here on the board as to the appropriate nature of the comments in question. Whether we agree isn't the point, in the first place. Perhaps you should state your case to Channel 8. The folks there will be glad to hear from you, since their reasoning would be that you couldn't complain if you didn't see at least some of their coverage. The station's objective is to garner viewers, not necessarily develop a following of people who agree with everything Channel 8 does.

And that, Regis, is my final answer.
 
Personally, I like the occasional chase to get the blood pumping, but this one was just plain pointless. Puttering along at 10 MPH, while all the slack jaws along 20 got on the overpasses and shoulders to root this moron on.
 
nuzguy said:
A great deal is open for discussion and nothing is served by the two of us volleying back and forth here on the board as to the appropriate nature of the comments in question. [...] The station's objective is to garner viewers, not necessarily develop a following of people who agree with everything Channel 8 does.
Click to expand...

Actually it makes me very sad that there is even a discussion about the appropriateness of TV news commentators making serious accusations, to the general public, against a person, when such accusations have no basis in fact. No wonder we live in a litigous society.

As for contacting channel 8, it's not worth my time. Their actions speak for them. If it's good TV, then apparently they believe it's ok to go ahead and accuse a kidnapping victim of being a collaborator instead of a victim. As you said, their coverage of the event was "excellent", and I'm sure they got good ratings, so their goals were accomplished.
 
No doubt a majority of the people will agree with you that the station's goals indeed were achieved. Your observations regarding the litigous times in which we live are indeed accurate and, further, it is sad that so many seem to live to hire a lawyer and "file suit."

Finally, regarding your questioning whether the "collaborator" comments should have been made about the driver, it would be interesting to know if any similar internal conversations along those lines were initiated at Channel 8. Your observation may be shared by some at WFAA, even.
 
The sad part,Kathy Clements -Hill,and Dave Muscari would give yo ua nice response,but would stand by the observsation comments. They never admit they goof.
 
Actually it's just Kathy Clements since the Hill was dropped when she scared away her husband- I mean when her husband left her- I mean when they got divorced. ;D
 
same difference TXNews ;)
 
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