Courtesy Amanda Emily via Lenslinger
A common myth got shattered last week when the entity known as the Local News Service lost one of its three subscribing Atlanta TV stations. The myth is this: That the “news media” is a conspiratorial, monolithic entity that works in lockstep to feed garbage and liberalism to the masses. The truth is much, much messier.
In Atlanta, there is very little about the news media that is in lockstep. Sure, they show up at the same stories. They often make similar judgments, the sort that deliver stories like the Cobb County cheerleader thief as the lead for newscasts from Atlanta to Timbuktu. But they are also independent and competitive.
Their independence is what keeps WSB from participating in newly-formed pool arrangements like LNS and the helicopter sharing arrangement between WAGA and WXIA. And surprisingly dissimilar news judgment forced WGCL from the LNS last week.
LNS was formed as a cost-effective way to cover stories considered no-brainers: Press conferences, low-priority but essential ceremonies and events, the occasional meeting and such. One photographer covered this stuff and sent it to all three LNS member stations.
Now there are only two: WAGA and WXIA.
WGCL got out after a series of questionable LNS assignments: It shot press conferences WGCL didn’t want to use. It shot a promotional event for a grocery store. It shot AFLAC night at a Braves game. And LNS is apparently slow to respond to breaking news, probably because the TV stations are playing chicken with one another to see who knows about what breaking news, and how soon.
News directors are the most competitive individuals among the hundreds of people employed by Atlanta’s four TV newsrooms. The news directors at WAGA, WXIA and WGCL agreed to LNS as an experiment. WGCL’s news director, a driven Philly guy named Steve Schwaid, was apparently unwilling to experiment for very long.
WGCL also declined to participate in the helicopter-sharing arrangement with WAGA and WXIA. Economic pressures will probably compel a re-examination of that position. The question will be: Will WSB consider teaming up with WGCL, or will WGCL join the WAGA/WXIA alliance? It’s a question for another day.
As we’ve said before: LNS makes sense given contracting TV revenues. So does the helicopter-sharing agreement. But it’s kinda comforting to see that it isn’t too easy. Wouldn’t want anybody to think that “the media” is anything other than a collection of independent entities making independent judgments, all in the pursuit of better stories and a bigger audience.
No, we watched none of the local TV coverage of the Michael Jackson story. It poses the classic local news dilemma: The essence of the story is across the continent, at the Staples Center in LA. But you’ve got umpteen hours of local news time to kill. Love him or not, everybody’s talking about MJ.
Odds are, you’ll find yourself in a bar watching folks watching the MJ rites on TV. Or talking to somebody who Twittered that he saw MJ on tour three times in Atlanta — “go find that guy!” Maybe you’re staking out Jermaine Dupree’s Atlanta studio. Maybe Da Brat is out of jail and you’re trying to get her reaction.
Or, you’re just on the street, talking about “local reaction.” Maybe we’ll watch some local coverage and see how far off-base we are. But in the meantime, be glad you aren’t this guy:
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was no more visible piece of equipment in Atlanta TV news than the Bell Jet Ranger helicopter employed by WXIA. Dubbed “Skycam,” the blue and white helicopter floated among the tops of Atlanta skyscrapers every weeknight whether it needed to or not. Its affable, swashbuckling pilot-reporter, Bruce Erion, was one of the most familiar on-camera faces in town.
Our recollection is that WXIA was the first TV station in Atlanta to use a helicopter bearing its logo. Skycam is still in business as a promotional entity. But WXIA is no longer using its own helicopter.
WXIA has reached an agreement to use WAGA’s helicopter for aerial footage, live and otherwise. WAGA’s assignment desk continues to control the helicopter. But whenever the aircraft goes up, WAGA must notify WXIA. Likewise, WXIA is now obligated to call WAGA when WXIA hears about breaking news that may require aerial coverage.
Each station has forty hours of “shared” time on the aircraft per month, according to a memo obtained by LAF. Each station also has ten hours to use exclusively. WXIA will still hail its aerial footage as that of “11 Alive Skycam,” as will WAGA “SkyFox Five.”
WGCL is not part of this arrangement (nor is WSB). We understand that WGCL was included in talks to share helicopter resources, but declined to participate in the final arrangement.
It’s worth noting that WGCL has also withdrawn from the LNS, which pools video resources for common events like news conferences.
The helicopter pool makes obvious sense. Not only is it wasteful to see four aircraft hovering over an accident scene, but it’s also scary. Never mind that Atlanta news pilots are typically very experienced and fully communicative with one another in such circumstances. The fact is, they’re under a lot of pressure to get a better camera angle than their competitors. The 2007 crash of a news helicopter in Phoenix during a routine police chase was an industry eye-opener (be forewarned: the link is chilling, disturbing, awful).
Unfortunately, WAGA’s and WXIA’s cost savings will probably go directly to the corporate bottom lines of Fox and Gannett. Neither newsroom is likely to benefit.
It’s a remarkable turning point for WXIA. At one time, its best promotional tool was its helicopter. WXIA frequently sent Skycam to schools. The aircraft would dramatically land on the playground. The kids would run out. Erion would do a show-and-tell. A photog would shoot it, then send the video back to Atlanta for the show close, with smiling children waving at the camera.
While en route, Erion would front live shots airborne from the pilot’s seat. A photog would strap on a safety harness, then stand out on the skid of the aircraft with a camera on his shoulder, a thousand feet above the city.
The kids in the footage below are probably in their late twenties now, and dealing with budget cuts in their own workplaces. Gannett had money to burn back in 1986, the heyday of Skycam.
Certain Speculation
By CB Hackworth
newsmanatl [at] gmail [dot] com
Kyle Wingfield, AJC
First, credit where it is due:
Notwithstanding some insulting theatrics surrounding the selection of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s newest columnist, Kyle Wingfield has quickly proven himself to be a good hire.
He is calm and rational… a good, clear writer who makes compelling arguments… and he focuses on the subject at hand rather than his own ego.
So, now that the AJC finally has a decent conservative commentator, I have a small but seemingly reasonable request:
Can we please have at least one decent liberal commentator, too?
The contrast between Wingfield’s editorial and Cynthia Tucker’s, almost side-by-side on the same page of Sunday’s AJC, is startling and disconcerting. It’s not the difference between conservative and liberal; it’s the difference between normal and crazy.
In “No Time for Race Cowards,” Wingfield lays the groundwork for an almost-convincing argument that the Voting Rights Act may have outlived its usefulness. I happen to disagree with him on that topic. However, he makes the other side sound like it is at least the product of a reasonable, thinking, and even decent person.
Cynthia Tucker, AJC
On the other hand, in “No Reason to Fear Detainees,” Tucker equates detainees at Guantanamo Bay with the waves of immigrants who once were welcomed to America by the Statue of Liberty, and she goes on to rant and rave (literally) over the fact that they have been refused entry, and apparently citizenship, to the United States.
Tucker acknowledges “65 percent of Americans oppose closing Guantanamo; 74 percent oppose moving any detainees to a prison in their state,” but simply dismisses all those people as being wrong. That’s fascinating, because whenever the numbers work to her advantage — for instance, in an Obama popularity poll — she’s the first to cite percentages as irrefutable proof of the position she is advocating.
The column also acknowledges Harry Reid, the ultra liberal Senate majority leader, is among the “not in my backyard” Americans who oppose giving former Gitmo detainees sanctuary in the continental U.S. — and, again, she flat out says she is right and he is wrong. When you are so liberal you are at odds with Harry Reid, something bad is wrong with you.
Tucker’s rhetoric is so high pitched and hysterical, it almost leaves you wondering if she’s been bitten recently by a wild squirrel without going in for a series of rabies shots.
Sean Penn probably loves columns like that, but for anyone who considers themselves liberal but not to the point of joining the Symbionese Liberation Army, Cynthia Tucker does not speak for us.
Compare the last paragraph of her column with the last paragraph of Wingfield’s.
Tucker: “Close Gitmo. Close it now.”
(Uh… or what? You’ll kill a hostage?)
Wingfield: “Eric Holder may be right that we are too cowardly, or maybe just too immature, to have such a serious discussion. I, for one, hope he’s wrong.”
Meglomania versus modesty.
One comes across as outraged that she is only writing about public policy rather than setting it herself. The other one seems humbly attempting to educate his readers without pretending to have all the answers or claiming to be smarter than those actually in charge.
I do not care whether or not the AJC continues to employ Tucker or her even-more-fanatical colleague Jay Bookman, although they both make the paper look ridiculous. Let them write what they want until they collapse or until the economy collapses, whichever comes first.
Those of us who consider ourselves Democrats but not crazy would really appreciate having a “voice of reason” who can articulate a liberal position as well as Wingfield can articulate a conservative position.
CB Hackworth has won a bunch of awards as a TV and print guy, including a Southeastern Regional Emmy last month. We think Hackworth would be a great regular contributor to LAF. Show him some love, please. And if you don’t agree with him, the tough-love is OK too.
Think it’s easy to be a news or sports anchor? Think it’s just a matter of applying makeup, sitting in a chair and reading a teleprompter? Think again. Odds are, you’ve seen this bit of Indiana-based sportscasting. Stephen Colbert has referenced it at least twice, Will Smith once at the Oscars.
But if you’re a distracted news gathering grunt, careening from a gas leak in Snellville to a “mysterious package” in Carrollton to a court hearing that started an hour ago in Newnan, you may have overlooked this classic Youtube video. Happy holiday.
If you aren’t clicking on Viewfinder Blues most days, you’re missing the most amusing TV news blog in the business. We’ve written before about our man-crush on Stewart Pittman (though we’ve never actually met). He’s a guy who slogs through a day shooting news at WGHP in High Point NC. Then he goes home, puts the kids to bed and (presumably) fills a tumbler with dark liquor and starts to write. It’s doubtful any of the paid writers at WGHP have much more than a fraction of this guy’s writing talent.
He’s got a great eye for the small issues that surround the local TV news business. Pittman apparently makes liberal use of a still camera he carries on shoots. The results turn up frequently on Viewfinder Blues. This piece from June is a good example. Pittman probably banged it out in ten minutes. It’s brilliant. This is but an excerpt.
You can tell A LOT [about] a photog by watching them white-balance. Take this cat. When he stumbled in late to a press conference in motion, a PR chick sidled up and jammed a program in his hand. He never looked at it; just stuck [it] in front of the lens and calibrated his colors. That the speaker he was about to shoot was standing under a spotlight thirty feet away didn’t seem to bother him. I like that; if only because it drives the production types crazy.
You owe it to yourself to read the entire post, especially if you’ve ever asked or been asked “got something white?” prior to a shoot. Me, I’d hike up my dress shirt to show off the nearly-white t-shirt rippling over the beer-fed abdominal sixer. It always worked well enough for TV news.
Scanning the list of winners from Saturday’s Southeastern Emmy awards, a few things stand out.
A TV station in Columbia SC beat WSB and WAGA in the Investigative Reporting category. WLTX produced a report in May 2008 about South Carolina prison inmates stealing the identities of Citibank card holders. The inmates sold the information from inside the prison to co-conspirators, who used the info to charge purchases to the unsuspecting card holders. WLTX’s best material came from an inmate who was part of the ring, who said of the victims: “They’re well off. They won’t miss it, after all they don’t even have to pay for it, because once they contest the purchase, they won’t be penalized for it.”
WAGA general assignment reporter Julia Harding won two Emmys. With insufficient seniority to kick her nights-and-weekends schedule, Harding won for a special report on the inability of Atlanta police to curb the smash-n-grab “blue jean bandit” crimes. Harding also won for her coverage of the March 2008 tornado in Cabbagetown.
Dagmar Midcap won WGCL’s only Emmy, for a piece called Hurricane Hunters. Midcap’s win helps cement her spot as WGCL’s franchise face. Who says your main weathercaster has to be a meteorologist?
It’s better to win an Emmy than not. But ultimately, the Emmys don’t mean much. Ask Tony Thomas, the WAGA reporter who won three of them last year, then was asked to take a pay cut (he quit instead). Thomas won another Emmy this year for his coverage of the downtown tornado.
Meanwhile — in a perfect world, Saturday’s Emmy banquet would have included several acceptance speeches like this one from Seattle.
Mark Bradley, AJC
Most of us had no idea that one of Atlanta’s most thoughtful and prolific AJC sports columnists wasn’t on speaking terms with one of Atlanta’s most dynamic athletes. Yet it seems that for most of his career as an Atlanta Brave, John Smoltz refused to speak with Mark Bradley (and Bradley reciprocated). Why? Because Bradley wrote a column critical of him in 1997. From Bradley’s AJC blog:
I… simply stopped going near him. And you know who found it all hilarious? [Tom] Glavine, who dubbed me, “Smoltzie’s favorite journalist.” (Have I mentioned that Glavine is my all-time favorite Brave?)
Never mind that I’d written 10 gushing Smoltz columns over the previous decade. Those were eradicated by my one egregious sin. Since he didn’t want to talk with me, I mostly stopped writing about him. When he did something great, I’d say he did something great — fair’s fair — but I kept my distance.
We wouldn’t even say hello when we passed in the hall.
The post is an eye-opening look into the world of sportswriting, which isn’t nearly as cushy a gig as it seems. The relationships are complicated. Sports isn’t rocket science. Yet the athletes are often rock-stars with high school educations, covered by journalists who have to maintain balance in order to keep their jobs.
Frequently, TV stations will sic their news staffs on athletes when athletes find themselves unfavorably in the news. This allows the sports folk to play “good cop” and preserve their relationships with athletes while the news guy swoops in to play “bad cop.”
Bradley’s column also sheds light on the personality of Smoltz, a revered athlete who has an irrationally prickly side. It takes a special breed to hold a twelve-year grudge against a guy who, ultimately, feeds into the hero-worship of professional athletes. Smoltz disingenuously griped that the Braves forced him to sign with Boston. In fact, the Braves offered Smoltz a contract contingent on his ability to actually pitch in a baseball game with his surgically-repaired shoulder. Smoltz will make his first start for the Red Sox tonight.
Not that John Smoltz is a bad guy. He’s been a great pitcher. But it sounds like Bradley knew Smoltz much better than the city that still wants to worship him.
Update: Smoltz had a rough debut, losing to the Nationals. He got hit hardest in the first inning, but struck out the final three batters he faced. Here’s his line:
============IP H R ER BB K HR HBP SEASON ERA
Smoltz(L, 0-1) 5.0 7 5 5 1 5 0 1 9.00
The staff at WXIA learned Tuesday that they’re only days away from getting new across-the-board pay cuts. The pay cuts will apply to staff in all of Gannett’s 23 broadcasting properties. Employees making more than $30,000 per year will get pay cuts of up to six percent. Gannett broadcast president Dave Lougee sent a memo to employees outlining the cuts and the reasoning behind them, a copy of which was obtained by the Gannett Blog.
- While many are cautiously optimistic that the worst of this economic downturn will soon be over, the broadcast industry continues to feel the effects. The decline in the auto industry alone – once about 30 percent of our division’s ad business – is a major challenge for us. And that’s just one example of the changes we are seeing. I believe it’s clear there will be a permanent reset of the American economy on the other side of the economic storm. On top of that, our industry has been impacted by the revolution in the way people consume media and the way advertisers try to reach them.
The entire memo is here.
This, of course, is in addition to one-week unpaid furloughs that employees already took in both the first and second quarters of 2009. It appears the pay cuts are in lieu of additional furloughs — at least for now. Contract employees are being told they are technically exempt from the pay cut. They were told the same thing about the furloughs, but most took them anyway.
The pay cuts take effect July 1. “Here’s a week to plan for your pay cut.” Thanks, Dave.
This is a queer time to be in the business of broadcasting. It remains the only mainstream, traditional media source still beloved by consumers of news. Yet its business model is unsteady and its long-term outlook is distressingly unclear.
The repercussions aren’t limited to WXIA. WAGA has been demanding pay cuts from its on-air employees this year. The cuts have typically come when the employee (or agent) shows up to talk about contract renewal. Or, when an annual 30-day window opens in a multi-year contract. We’ve heard of cuts at WAGA ranging from 10 to 30 percent, and we haven’t asked around that much.
Unlike Gannett, WAGA has largely declined to give employees details about salary cuts, other than to say “you’re next.” When Gannett announced its furloughs in great detail, a certain esprit de corps emerged, with under-contract talent taking furloughs that they technically didn’t have to take. (It was more than that, of course. Their willingness to play ball took away a bit of ammo the company might have used against them when their contracts expired.)
But at WAGA, it’s unclear which categories of staffers are being selected to take cuts and management won’t say publicly. This makes no sense, of course. An employee-by-employee approach gives the staff a sense that management is huddling in dark rooms with calculators, making salary “corrections” designed to undo cost-of-living or merit raises earned over years of faithful service. That’s much different than taking a pay cut for the team.
This is the kind of stuff that affects not just employees, but their families. Spouses demand answers and a sense of fairness, a sense that’s nonexistent when this kind of life-blood information is kept under wraps. It’s part of the solution at Gannett. It’s part of the problem at WAGA.
Chris Shaw, WAGA
Here’s what the DVR turned up while watching WAGA’s 10pm news Saturday.
Embattled sergeant. Chris Shaw produced a story about the homecoming of a soldier who lost three limbs in a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq. Interesting enough. But Shaw’s purpose was to tell a detailed story about a controversy surrounding two homes, funded by charitable outfits, to accommodate Sgt. David Battle. One home was in Maryland, another in Fayetteville. Turns out, one charity accused Battle’s wife of fraudulently applying for and receiving one of the homes.
The story became a bit convoluted. It would have been easier to understand with clearer material about the accusation. Shaw used the best video at the top of the piece — but it only muddled the story about the charity controversy. At the end of the piece, the anchors completely overlooked the controversy, and talked about how swell it was that Battle got such a nice homecoming.
Producing the story on the day Battle returned home also seemed a bit — rude? Ahh, what do we know? Grade: B (grade changed upon further review– see comments).
Shootings and a killin’. Back-to-back anchor v/o’s of crime scenes involving garden variety shootings. Great crime scene tape footage. The cliche never gets old.
Traffic jam / no traffic jam. This was a v/o about traffic stacked up on I-85 due to an accident. Yet a close examination of the live DOT camera showed traffic moving normally. They either got the story wrong or showed the wrong camera. No explanation was offered.
Darrell Carver, WAGA
Georgia Theatre fire. Darrell Carver produced a serviceable piece about the aftermath of the landmark Athens fire. Can’t say we learned much we didn’t already know. It included the puzzling line that the “fire gutted the theater for most of Friday.” The photographer inexplicably decided to keep Carver’s face out of focus during a standup. Grade: C
Iran Protests. WAGA decided to wait until 10:07pm to show the story that was the talk of the world Saturday. The technique was good enough: Get Julia Harding to fold the crazy internet video from Tehran into a local package showing protests at CNN center. Although the local protests were lame, the Iran story should have been the lead. Grade: D for misjudging the importance of the Iran story.
Fugitive Cop. Portia Bruner’s piece on the whereabouts of a wanted-for-murder DeKalb cop was the most interesting local story in the show. She showed surveillance video that appeared to show Derrick Yancey boarding a Greyhound bus after skipping bond in DeKalb. She also talked with Yancey’s attorney. The story was well-enough told but poorly edited, probably because it was very last-minute. Grade: B
Peachtree Road Race. Sports anchor Karen Graham delivered a fun-to-watch piece on folks training for the July 4 race. It was light, breezy and well-done. Grade: B
Portia Bruner, WAGA
America’s Most Wanted offered its star correspondent, ex-WAGA reporter Angeline Hartmann, for a live shot from AMW’s phone bank. AMW had done a piece on Yancey. We’ll forgive Hartmann for saying “phones were ringing off the hook, literally” just because she’s a) so adorable and b) because she appeared to instantly realize she’d committed the gaffe (unlike most of her audience). One can imagine phones falling from their hooks as Hartmann vigorously smacked herself in the forehead after the shot ended.
DUI Checkpoint. Julia Harding pulled the unenviable double-duty of producing the Iran protest story, then running out to Union City to do a by-the-numbers DUI checkpoint piece. The highlight was her live shot tag, when she reported the arrest of a woman who had displaced her child from a car seat in order to make room for the product of a beer run. Grade: B-
Overall: The local crime-scene stuff was minimal but played too highly. The Iran miscue was very, very puzzling. The station should have kept Harding on the day’s most important story and skipped the empty and predictable police / media crackdown in Union City.
The show was well paced and easy enough to watch, as local newscasts go. Graham and meteorologist Joanne Feldman are two significant reasons for that. Grade: B-
