WDEL's Amy Cherry rewrites history of Martin Luther King murder

[650AM]

In a story that ran all Monday afternoon, and again this morning on WDEL, reporter Amy Cherry stated that Martin Luther King was murdered at a collective bargaining rally in Memphis! You don't say, Amy!?!?

Well, MLK may have been in town for a rally, but all of the history I know about his murder is that it took place on a motel balcony. This new revelation could totally re-write the history books.

The bottom line is.... how could this be written and allowed to go on the air...... Not just through PM drive one day.... but through AM drive the next day?

Amazing! ???

 

[jhguthlac]

Dr. King was in Memphis to support striking santitation workers. He was to have appeared at a rally for the workers. That she tried to tie his death to what was going on in Wisconsin is deplorable, but she is young and does not know better yet.

 

[DX]

Let's be clear: One or more of the speakers at the event drew the analogy and Ms. Cherry reported it. From what I understand, one of the speakers also failed to differentiate between the sanitation workers' rally which brought MLK to Memphis, and the Lorraine Motel balcony where he was slain.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

DX, if what you said is correct, then Ms. Cherry should have noted that in her report that some of the speakers mistakenly said blah blah, but I too heard the reports on WDEL by Amy, and frankly I didn't get the impression she knew the difference either. When I worked for WILM we would have not simply stated an erroneous fact, just because the speaker at the event said it, without offering the correct info, afterward, or something in that report. I'd have to agree, that was sloppy reporting on Ms. Cherry's part.

By the way, speaking a faux pax on WDEL, this past Sunday morning while getting ready for church, the board op, at 7am giving the legal id, mistakenly said WRTI and then quickly said WDEL, and then repeated WDEL in the next five or six sentences he said to kind of plant it in his mind. There probably weren't many folks listening at that hour, but still....those things do happen from time to time.

 

[jhguthlac]

The WRTI/WDEL goof reminds me of my return to mornings on WNRK. I had left there in 1993 and shortly after went to WDEL part time. After two years there, I ran into Al Cap (cannot remember the full spelling!) literally in the middle of Main Street in Newark, while I was in town to cover the Christina School Board meeting. His morning news person had walked off her job that morning, during her shift. Al asked if I could do the morning news and I started 2 days later. That’s when the pool started on when I would slip and say the wrong call letters. I did rather well. I made it a week before I gave the wrong frequency at the top of the hour ID! “…CNN News is next on 1150, er, 1260 WNRK Newark. It’s 8 o’clock!” About 30 seconds later, Al, the dj and the Sales Mgr were in the news room laughing at me!

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Dr. King was in Memphis to support striking santitation workers. He was to have appeared at a rally for the workers. That she tried to tie his death to what was going on in Wisconsin is deplorable, but she is young and does not know better yet.

I didn't hear her report so I cannot comment on whether it was deplorable or not.

Is comparing the purpose of Dr. King's trip to Memphis to current events in Wisconsin an act that is deplorable, or is it a valid journalistic commentary topic? If someone older.... someone old enough to have reported on the Memphis Event made such a comparison, would you accept such an observation as acceptable journalism?

 

[650AM]

Wow! It took more than a month to spark conversation on this.

I don't specifically recall that Cherry attempted to tie the King thing to Wisconsin, but would not be shocked. I note a definite liberal slant in her approach, especially in her coverage of Christine O'Donnell last year and the recent Delaware "civil unions" legislation issue. She did a report indicating that "a poll shows Delaware residents favor civil unions," but did not disclose that the pole was run by a group with a vested interest in passing the legislation. Other reports, however, did reveal the source of the poll. Again.... station oversight at issue.

My point is, would not even a recent college graduate of age 23-25 know that Rev. King was killed on a motel balcony? On top of that, is not her reporting edited by an "elder" WDEL staffer who would have known better? It just makes her sound stupid and brings into question the station's news standards. "Oh, its already recorded..... let it run," was likely the approach even if someone HAD noticed the gaffe. Did on-air staffers notice it when they played it repeatedly that day?

And Cherry really needs to lose the deadpan ending to all of her reports... "WDELLLLLLLLL." Her female cohort, LeAnn Matlach, has her own quarks that the station does not seem to be interested in changing. Her reports are like a horse shooting out of the starting gate! A shotgun blast monotone. She must really have to gasp for air when done. Matlach has Cherry's same monotone WDELLLLLL ending also.

 

[DX]

At the risk of protracting this discussion:

(1). I seriously doubt most folks in their twenties - apart from a poly sci or history major who had studied the decade of the 1960's - would have necessarily caught the MLK assassination switch.

(2). Loudell, or someone else, should've caught the mistake. But of course, anchors / board ops are doing many other things while stuff is airing. This is especially so if the report is inserted during an airshift.

(3). The source of the poll alluded to by 650 AM was mentioned in some of the intros.

(4). Ms. Cherry has won a number of reporting awards, most recently, for reporting on the church sex abuse scandal. (Of course, obviously, that doesn't mitigate an error in other reporting.)

(5). Is 650 AM not betraying his own conservative bias? I don't think I've ever seen him complain on this board over the years about someone exhibiting rightwing bias.

(6). As far as voices, get over it. This has been a perpetual canard on this board, I suspect, from people who originally came out of jock, rather than news, backgrounds. While voice quality is obviously important (you don't want someone who sounds like running one's nails against a chalkboard!), anyone's who has had to hire radio reporters these days surely puts greater emphasis on the ability to report, write, edit audio and perhaps video, than on just voice. Someone who can cover a legislative session, court hearing, school board meeting, etc. That college stations these days do so little radio news doesn't help!

(7). The overriding salient point is this: WDEL now completely commands the news image in Delaware among broadcast media, with the demise of cable channel 2, WHYY TV 12, & WILM. And that's projected over an array of platforms (on-air, internet video, podcasts, and blogs). Not that you shouldn't aim to do your best, even if you're a near-monopoly.