Face time: Wendy Saltzman, WGCL
By Russ Jamieson
Whew. That’ll teach me to doze off during CSI:NY.
I’ve lived in Atlanta forever. I’m an ex-WAGA reporter, ex-CNN freelance correspondent. I’ve learned to expect certain things from my local news.
I woke up from my nap to see WGCL’s 11pm newscast… which I probably hadn’t watched in years. It felt as if I’d awakened in a parallel universe.
Dagmar opened the show… lotsa rain. Weather. Then a live shot remote local story on its impact… then back to the set and I saw that Lou Dobbs was on the exit ramp… fine. Ok. Then I think they went to a break… and they came back with the Wendy Saltzman Show.
Wendy Saltzman B-Block: They take their truck (laden with 3 hidden cameras) to 10 local auto shops/oil change businesses. Funny business ensues. Wendy harasses various owners, mechanics… asking the “Tough Questions.” They have their own mechanic expert… and he says most of the stuff done was either done badly or needlessly. Five stations ripped them off… 5 stations did ok. Decent story, but low hanging “investigative” fruit.
They go to the break…
Old-school rock: Saltzman in Springtime
Wendy Saltzman C-Block: Wendy again… and they are throwin’ around the “Tough Questions” shtick in all the lead-ins (tiresome). Wendy finds the Fulton Co. School board has been paying a lot more than the general public on a multi-million dollar contract for all sorts of stuff…paper, crayons, printers. The funny stuff here was Wendy chasing down the boardmembers and them dodging her. Amusing… Ok, semi-amusing.
Afterward it dawned on me… hadn’t I seen this before? Turns out I’d read about it on this very site… in June! WGCL had foisted on its viewers a five-month-old investigation. At least the episode of CSI:NY wasn’t a re-run.
Wendy Saltzman D-Block: Wendy…. Again?? Where is everybody?? This time (more Tough Questions… even more tiresome) Grady Hospital has bad and broken down ambulances. Ok, serious stuff… life and death… maybe. But this is less of a story and more of a pitch for folo-up stories. More to come.
Then it’s the End of The Show!!
Letterman!!
I checked back on my Tivo… from 11:13 ’till 11:33 it was All Wendy… All the Time? Did a bomb go off in the newsroom?? I know they are outsourcing Sports… but none… no Sports, nothing… no other reporters.
Bamm… Letterman.
It was the strangest newscast I have seen since I left Topeka, Kansas (1980).
Adding to the intrigue… I’d known WXIA had been experimenting with reformatting its 11pm news, devoting the back-half of a newscast to one concept. Interesting… WXIA had one of those newscasts last night at 11. Like WGCL, WXIA had devoted the last 15 or 20 minutes to one concept. WXIA had been promoting it since late last week.
Coincidence? I’d say WGCL is counterprogramming WXIA. If I worked at WXIA, I think I’d be flattered. If I worked at WGCL, I might ask: If my name isn’t Wendy Saltzman (or Dagmar), can I still get on TV, please… with a fresher story produced sometime since Independence Day?
Jamieson is honcho / founder at Broadcast Solutions.
Interviewing Tharon Johnson, Reed's campaign manager
Election night is a noble pursuit for local TV news. It’s about the delivery of timely information to that desirable part of the audience that actually pays attention to issues. There’s drama and intrigue. It’s a night to deliver breaking news which doesn’t involve a police investigation.
Below are 10 random observations about election night, which transpired last Tuesday in Atlanta and a handful of other cities / states around the USA.
Along with Kym France Wilson, Devin Miller, Bill Jones and John Samuels, I worked Kasim Reed’s election night party at the downtown Hyatt Regency. I also brought a camcorder. The result is below.
1. Though required to arrive at your candidate’s election night party in time for a 6pm live shot, there’s almost nothing truly relevant to report at that hour. The campaign is over. The results haven’t come in yet. It’s no-man’s-land, information-wise. You’re there to set the stage and ensure the viewer that — you’re there.
2. Since meaningful results rarely come in prior to 9pm, election night is mostly about standing around. You make smalltalk with politicos and other media. You read a book. You watch people drink.
3. If the candidate actually shows up prior to 9pm, nothing good can come of it. There’s nothing they can say that’s new — unless they’re conceding or claiming victory based on exit polls, which doesn’t happen.
4. Democrats have more fun at election night parties than Republicans. They just do.
5. Mary Norwood’s election night party was at the Varsity, a giant hot dog stand. I kinda get the symbolism, but I’m pretty sure I’d rather kill an evening at a hotel ballroom.
6. Kasim Reed’s press guy vowed that Reed would be on the podium, making a speech at exactly 11:01. Or, at least that’s what I thought he said. Reed didn’t hit the podium until 11:25, however. This all but scotched Reed’s face time on the local news that night.
7. WSB’s Alan Hand wasn’t actually snoozing during the evening. He and Lori Geary humped into the lobby to shoot a quick chat with Reed as he arrived at the hotel. See #3 above.
8. I got my best updated election returns via Twitter, #chrissweigart, #11alive. Just sayin.’
9. The only election night I can vividly remember was in 1986. I was covering Sen. Mack Mattingly’s party. Mattingly lost a whisker-thin vote to Wyche Fowler, but wouldn’t concede. I ended up staying at Mattingly’s hotel HQ through noon the next day, when he finally threw in the towel. As a guy in my 20s, I could barely handle it then. I can’t imagine trying it now.
10. We hear WGCL didn’t do an election live shot during its 11pm newscast until 11:25pm, apparently by design.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan
An Army Major identified by police as Nidal Malik Hasan goes on a killing rampage in Ft. Hood Texas, and the media calls him a “shooter.” A student at Virginia Tech massacres his fellow students, and the press calls him the “Virginia Tech shooter.” Brian Nichols murders a judge and a court reporter in cold blood, then kills two more people as he escapes the Fulton County Courthouse and flees to Gwinnett County. Nichols becomes “the Fulton County Courthouse Shooter.”
How did mass murderers become “shooters”? How did guys who left behind more carnage than the likes of Ted Bundy, Richard Speck and Charlie Starkweather get saddled with “shooter,” a handle that is easily confused with a shot of liquor during happy hour?
Charlie Starkweather
It’s sloppy, lazy, inexact and limp to call a guy like Nichols a “shooter.” A “shooter” can be a guy in the back yard with a .22 rifle, shooting cans off a fence post. Nichols is a “killer.” He’s a “gunman.” He’s a “murderer.” He’s even a “mass murderer,” a term no longer used because it’s so chilling, and would describe too many homicidal hotheads in the late 20th / early 21st century.
It’s reasonable to take “mass murderer” off the table, then, if only to avoid the possible cheapening of the term, the same way “brutal” and “bizarre” are cheapened by overuse on TV.
Big Al
But to replace it with “shooter” is to whitewash the meaning from an act that shouldn’t be sugarcoated. Alexander Hamilton was a “shooter,” maybe — a guy pointing his gun semi-upward during a competitive blood sport. Aaron Burr was the gunman who declined to point his weapon upward.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly killed twelve people and injured 31 in a rampage at Ft. Hood. Police say he’s a killer. If a jury convicts him, he’s a murderer.
If you can use a term that more accurately describes the lethal nature of the crime eg. “killer,” why would anybody call Hasan, Nichols et al a “shooter”?
(And it has nothing to do with legal hairsplitting; “police say the gunman walked from room to room” works just as easily as when substituting the less descriptive word.)
Pet peeve? Yes.
It’s time to bury “shooter.” Unless it’s happy hour.
“Here. Let me clip this mic on you.”
There’s no getting around it. One cannot gather news unless one records audio. Operating in a world that lacks boom-mic toting audio techs, the local TV news goon typically has two options: Hold the unwieldy, flag-draped stick microphone under the chin of your interview subject; or clip the discreet lavaliere mic to her garment.
From the standpoint of the visual aesthetic, the latter is almost always the preferred method. It also has the greatest potential for personal embarrassment.
Is that a mugger? IRS agent? Perv? Or TV reporter?
“Let me clip this mic on you” is the easy part. As those words are uttered, the TV goon is making an immediate assessment of the couture of the interview subject.
The woman above is Lisa Borders, Atlanta’s City Council President and candidate for Mayor in today’s election. Not only does Borders have the best haircut of the six candidates, but she’s also a very smartly dressed woman. Such well-dressed women are often the most difficult to rig with a lav.
There are three components to the procedure.
Clip the mic to the garment. Though you can’t see it in the photo, the mic is clipped to Borders’ left lapel. When evaluating the subject’s couture, the TV goon almost always looks first for a jacket. Jackets make life much easier than, say, a mere T-shirt or, God forbid, a form-fitting garment constructed of mesh or lace. There needs to be a place to apply the clip.
Whatever the female subject is wearing, the TV goon almost always finds himself positioning his awkward, sweaty hands on or near her upper torso. “Sorry. I do this all the time,” he might find himself saying, trying to maintain an air of straight-faced professionalism. Most women react with passive bemusement, closely watching where the stranger’s hands are headed.
Hide the wire. The tiny mic is attached to a wire. The wire either attaches to the camera, or to a small, boxy wireless transmitter. The wire should be invisible. On Borders, it was easily placed inside the jacket. Again, the TV goon must ensure such placement by opening the jacket and gently running the wire within. Awkward.
However, the wire sometimes has to go inside the woman’s only outergarment. You hand her the mic and wire, then ask her to extend it inside the waist opening of the garment, then out her collar. I always casually turn my back for a few seconds while she fishes the gizmo through the inside of a shirt or blouse.
(L) Mic and transmitter, (R) receiver
Secure the transmitter. The boxy transmitter, attached to the mic via the wire, has to go somewhere. Sometimes, if the wire is long enough, the TV goon can hold the transmitter. More often, however, the transmitter has to be attached to the interview subject, out of sight of the camera.
Most transmitters have clips that can be put on belts. Sometimes, the transmitters slip easily into the pants pockets of the subject. Neither option worked with Borders. Our transmitter lacked a clip, and it was too bulky to fit into her pants pockets (a conclusion I drew from the earlier couture assessment).
But Borders was carrying a purse. “How ’bout I just put this in your purse?” Borders agreed, opened it and I slipped the transmitter onto the top of whatever was inside.
Following this ritual, the TV goon must shake off the awkwardness and conduct the interview. Sometimes, the interview is contentious. Frequently, the interview subject has gone through the same thing herself many, many times. She knows the drill. Occasionally, she can even manipulate the gear herself. But it’s almost always quicker to assist.
Rookie interviewees are tougher. You have to talk them through it. “You need to run this wire inside your blouse somehow, ma’am. Then I’m going to clip this to your collar…” Many laugh giddily at the unexpected placement of gear and hands. A rare few will feel a bit threatened by it.
Then afterward, the process is reversed. The TV goon reaches toward the interviewee and liberates her from the transmitter, wire and microphone. Tear-down is (almost) always much quicker than the setup. By then, the awkwardness is an accepted part of the encounter.
“I’m a professional. I do this all the time.”
Photo credit / blame: Liz Flowers, press secretary to Lisa Borders. Story on WXIA is here.
Rallying: Hannity in California
Many pixels have been spilled (as well as a few quarts of ink) about the Obama administration aggressively snubbing Fox News. Most commentators have chosen to use Nixonian analogies, typically concluding that presidencies rarely win in such conflicts. This may be Obama’s fate as well. I’m not smart enough to know.
But I think the analogy is the wrong one to use. Obama’s people argue that Fox is the “research arm or communications arm of the Republican Party.” To me, that’s not a problem. The media is supposed to research what’s wrong with government. If Fox unearths legitimate issues that undermine the administration’s agenda, so be it.
Likewise, if Fox approaches news from a conservative viewpoint, so be it. From the dawn of the Republic, newspapers have been rooted in political viewpoints. There’s no reason why Fox or MSNBC should be any different.
But for some reason, I never hear this argument: Fox is a political organization in and of itself. Fox crosses the line when it organizes and promotes issue-related rallies, like the Tea Parties or Sean Hannity’s water rally in California (wherein he decried what he claimed were environmentalists choosing endangered species over people).
Once a media organization becomes a political organization, then it loses its credibility. You can’t do both. You can’t actively rally folks to a viewpoint, then expect the other side (or anybody else, except for your amen chorus in the audience) to take you seriously as a news organization.
Jon Stewart also overlooks this argument. But he makes some other good points, bolstered by Fox’s own spin.
With Mike Daly in New Orleans, Sept. 2005
When I worked at WAGA, folks loved to roll down their windows at stoplights when pulled up alongside marked “Fox 5 News” vehicles and holler passionate words of support for the Fox News Channel. I always absorbed them with a friendly nod and a fake smile. Sometimes I threw in a “hell yeah” for comic effect.
One time, a photog and I happened to drive by a small lefty-type protest at Ponce de Leon Ave. and North Highland. One of the protesters scrunched up his face and spat on the windshield. The loogie landed squarely in the drivers side. It was a nice hit on a moving target.
Sleepless in KC, March 28 2003
He didn’t know that WAGA’s Fox 5 News occasionally uses Fox News Channel as a resource (and vice versa), but otherwise has very little to do them. In 2007, a few weeks before I left WAGA, I did a live shot on Shepard Smith’s afternoon newscast. In 2003, I did a live shot from Fox’s bureau in Kuwait City. (It’s worth noting that as the US/Coalition was invading Iraq, Fox’s staff in Kuwait City showed no behind-the-scenes hint of ideology. They seemed only interested in covering the story and doing it safely, like any other TV network.)
As of 2007, nobody from Roger Ailes’ office had ever tried to put a political spin on WAGA’s news coverage, to my knowledge. I suspect WAGA is still a very, very distant blip on Ailes’ radar. Most folks don’t know that WAGA also had a resources-sharing relationship with CNN until recently.
So the loogie gesture was a bit misplaced. But I respected the protester’s power to spit accurately. And I understood his confusion.
This week, WGCL announced a partnership with WQXI / 790 “The Zone” to provide sports coverage for the television station. WGCL news director Steve Schwaid answered some e-mailed questions about it below. First, this excerpt from a WGCL news release:
“This is a successful partnership for Atlanta sports fans and WGCL-TV,” said Kirk Black, Senior Vice President and General Manager of WGCL-TV. “The experience and personality of Atlanta’s premiere sports talk radio station will add valuable resources to CBS Atlanta News.”
“For the last 13 years, 790 The Zone has been the brand for sports in Atlanta and we could not be more excited about this partnership with CBS Atlanta and their core sports properties including the NFL, S.E.C Football, March Madness and the Masters. This dynamic alliance will only stengthen our ability to connect to the Atlanta sports fan”, said Andrew Saltzman, President of Sports Radio 790 The Zone.
“This new relationship will make CBS Atlanta and Sports Radio 790 “The Zone” Atlanta’s best source for sports information,” said Steve Schwaid, News Director of WGCL-TV. “It will allow CBS Atlanta to answer our viewers’ Tough Questions and deliver on our promise of providing the very latest news and information every night.”
In an e-mail to LAF, Schwaid adds the following:
We have NOT gotten rid of our sports department. We still have people who will shoot sports and we still have our sports producer who produces our specials, weekly shows and sports programming.
I started looking at this option months ago. It’s an issue of resources. If I can give viewers a strong sports source, take the resources I put into sports and repurpose them for our news gathering then it’s truly a win-win. Personally this was hard because I really like working with Mark [Harmon] and Gil [Tyree] and have great respect for them. But we’ve seen a decreased appetite for local sports. In fact, [that's] the reason stations place sports where they do in their newscasts, [which] is after the click.
Much like ABC got rid of their sports department and now buys services from ESPN, this allows us to take a sports organization that reports on sports 24/7/365 and now have them as a resource for us. In effect we now have more folks working on sports than any TV station in the market.
And this realignment of resources means we’re adding jobs: two reporters, two photogs, one producer, one assignment editor.
Unlike stations that have to cut people or furlough people, Meredith has given us the ok to shift the resources so we can focus on our mission: Tonight’s Top Stories, Tomorrow Morning’s Forecast in the First 5 minutes and pursuing the Tough Questions.
Speaking of questions:
LAF: How many WGCL sports employees were released? Any thoughts about their departure?
Steve Schwaid: Mark and Gil will be leaving us. Personally this was a tough decision because I have enjoyed working with them and truly respect them.
LAF: Does WGCL lose any significant identity by parting with them?
SS: Sorry to say no. Unfortunately TV stations are really not defined by their sports folks, no matter what we like to think. Every bit of research shows that local sports coverage is NOT a high priority to local viewers. ESPN, Fox Sports, the web and mobile have radically changed how people get their sports info. The majority of weekday newscasts are nothing more than locker-room sound bites or highlights – the same stuff you will see on ESPN, but with much more context and analysis.
LAF: Does this signal a diminished commitment to sports on the part of WGCL?
SS: I think this shows actually a larger commitment. We have the resources of the entire Sports Zone, 790 Team. The station lives and breathes sports. And they have been part of our Saturday Sports Line shows for years and also part of our Friday SEC show.
LAF: Does this market (or local news generally) demand local sports like it once did?
SS: Unfortunately not. There are so many places for sports fans to get their info in real time. Why wait till 11 pm for the scores when I can get it right now on the web, on sports channels and my iPhone.
LAF: Is there anything counterintuitive about using radio guys to produce TV sports?
SS: I would say it’s innovative, especially since they program for sports 24/7/365.
LAF: How will this “dynamic alliance” work on a day-to-day basis? If you get a sports scoop, do you simply call those guys and tell them to cover it for you? Or do they tell you what’s getting covered?
SS: We’ve worked with 790 for years. Nick has done stories for us, he appears weekly in our sports line and dawg shows and he has also filled in for Mark and Gil during vacations. I think it will be seamless to the viewer.
Honestly, I will lay odds that the sports radio guys break more stories than any of the TV sports guys in the market. They’re at more games, more events, more stories and have more contacts – they talk sports on the radio for hours and hours a day instead of the two or three minutes TV stations do on a daily basis.
LAF: Is there another major market TV station in America that’s using a sports radio station to handle its TV sports?
SS: I believe Kansas City. But more importantly there are more and more stations dropping or cutting back sports.
I find “the Real Housewives of Atlanta” to be mostly annoying. Yet when the missus puts it on TV, it becomes a distraction because the locale is so familiar. Just as I’m averting my eyes from the irritating dialogue and the concocted plot lines, I’ll spot a landmark. As I’m rolling my eyes at the catty drama, I’ll see a face I know from the news business. When I learn that “celebrity stylist” Dwight Eubanks, one of the only appealing characters on the show, lives in a modest house near mine, I’m somewhat intrigued.
Among other TV viewers, the show is wildly popular. With that background, here’s reason number one to love the Atlanta media.
The "housewife": Kandi Burruss
When I covered a V103 mayoral debate Tuesday, I noted the presence of Kandi Burruss in the audience. She’s a “Housewife.” She was also engaged to a man who was killed in a bar fight a few weeks ago. The man had appeared in the show. It was a big story locally because of the TV show. Burruss, best I could recall, had never spoken to the media about the killing.
“Oh, swell,” I’m thinking. The mayoral debate hadn’t begun. Yet I’m picturing the assembled TV folk bum-rushing Burruss for the “get” that has mostly eluded us since the killing. Because I was the first TV reporter to show up, I saw Burruss take a seat in the “celeb” section of the debate audience. Maybe my competitors wouldn’t notice her, I was hoping. I wanted to cover the debate, not Burruss.
But they noticed. Burruss was called upon to ask a question during the debate. Yet when it ended two hours later, the TV folk rushed the stage to question the candidates and not Burruss.
This was a beautiful thing. Best I can tell, no TV reporters colluded to ignore Burruss afterward. We just did it — probably because we like covering politics and hardly anybody liked covering the Burruss murder story.
The frontrunner: Mary Norwood
Reason two: During the debate, a questioner asked the candidates about whether they’d ever paid for an endorsement. All six candidates answered “no,” including frontrunner Mary Norwood. Days earlier, Norwood had been endorsed by career pol “Able” Mabel Thomas. When asked if she’d been paid or hired by the Norwood campaign, Thomas dodged the question. So talk of Thomas’s endorsement, and the Norwood campaign’s alleged willingness to pay for it, has been a minor campaign issue.
Following that question, the debate took a break (for weather, traffic and commercials, presumably. It aired live on V103 during morning drive).
During the break, a man wearing a Lisa Borders shirt stood and began shouting at the stage. The room was already noisy, so it was less disruptive than it sounds; but he was persistent, finger-pointing and accusatory. He was calling BS on Norwood’s answer to the “paid endorsement” question. Norwood and the other candidates ignored the man, spending the commercial break onstage checking their Blackberrys and such.
Two police officers entered the room. The first pointed to the man and waved him toward the exit. The man immediately started walking as directed. A second officer approached him and escorted him. The man continued his loud chatter, but cooperated fully with the cops.
The TV cameras ignored it. This, too, was a beautiful thing.
Debate hecklers have a long and glorious history of becoming the “lead” of a debate story. It happened frequently during the 2008 presidential election. I always found it annoying. Why give an attention-seeking gadfly the spotlight for being a jerk? It was a pleasure to pretend this incident never happened.
The blogger with Alan Hand, WSB
Reason number three: WSB photog Alan Hand, who has been covering the Mayor’s race for WSB. He hypothesizes that my presence at WXIA foretells a Shuleresque employment tour through Atlanta TV shops. He offered a try-it-on-for-size prop. I accepted only for self-amusement. Hand is a great American. But I sneer at his employer, because I’m competitive like that.
The reporter accompanying him was horrified that Hand’s antics might result in a mention of her name in this blog.
Almost. But not quite.
Bonus: Click here for one reason to love the Sacramento media, a KXTV reporter named Dave Marquis, and a photog named Damian Espinoza. (It’s embeddable, but for some reason it wouldn’t wait for the reader to click “play.” Thanks to PK for pointing this out).
LAF w/ Mrs. LAF, 10.24.09
At a party last weekend, I met a young lawyer who works as a public defender in metro Atlanta. Politely, she asked if I had an occupation. I gave her the shorthand: “Local TV news guy.” (She was dressed as a zombie; I was dressed as the Ghost of Americana. You kinda had to be there…)
“Oh, like you’re on TV or something?” Yeah, something like that.
“I don’t think I’ve ever watched the local news in Atlanta.”
I’m gonna stick my neck out — again — and say with certainty that everybody working in Atlanta TV news has had this conversation with numbing regularity. In my case, the “I don’t watch TV news” conversations far exceed the frequency of the opposite “omigosh I watch Brenda / Monica / Amanda / Stephany every night!” conversations.
The “I don’t watch local news” conversations typically include a short critique of what they see as a nightly drumbeat of murder and mayhem. There’s a bit of an elitist quality to the critiques. The conversant is frequently educated and somewhat sophisticated. Like the lawyer at the party, these folks are well-informed. But they sidestep the local stories that aren’t relevant to them, and ignore the broadcasts that traffic in them.
Stories, such as — oh, say — the coverage of the guy who caused the grisly traffic accident on the Stone Mountain Freeway, who turned himself in and uttered an apology at the jail. In a post on this site last week, I suggested that it would be reasonable for local TV to find something else to cover instead of that story.
This caused a bit of an uproar in my little corner of the blogosphere, particularly among people who apparently work in local TV news.
Based on the numerous comments that were very critical of that post, I would conclude that local TV news has almost zero chance of convincing that lawyer that their product is worth sampling.
The sad thing is this: Atlanta TV news actually produces plenty of quality material. But because local newscasts devote so many resources — and so much A-block time — to the mayhem (and the follow-ups to mayhem), many desirable viewers choose not to wade through that stuff in the hope that something worthwhile will follow.
The audience for local TV news is shrinking. Do we try to expand it? Do we try to find a niche that goes outside the murder-and-mayhem formula? Or do we assume that the remaining audience watches for the tried-and-true formula, and climb all over each other to fight for the bleary eyeballs who haven’t abandoned us yet?
Thankfully, I lack the smarts, talent and chutzpah it takes to run a major market TV newsroom. Because if I did, I think I’d be contorting myself to try to produce a product that would get the young zombie lawyer to watch — and re-thinking the stuff that has driven her away. And apparently my tradition-minded troops would be very, very annoyed.
Thanks to “longgone” for asking the essential question in a “sport of TV news” comment.
Thanks to all the other commenters for the abuse.
Thanks to the late Screamin’ Jay Hawkins just for being who he was.
Tuesday, Atlanta TV crews gathered at the DeKalb County jail to witness a man submitting himself for arrest for causing a fatal accident. The accident, days earlier, was horrific. It killed three people and injured six more in a van pool during rush hour on the Stone Mountain freeway. The TV crews had been waiting for this moment since Monday night.
The reason is obvious to those who adhere to traditional local news sensibilities. This was a one-time chance to photograph a guy who was behind a breaking news story that had led several newscasts. But the likelihood was this: The guy would scamper from his car to the jail intake, with cameras giving chase, mic-wielding reporters firing questions as he clammed up on the advice of his attorney.
WXIA absented itself from this scrum, as it frequently does. I come before you to defend and, yes, praise this practice by my employer.
TV news is competitive on two levels. TV stations compete for viewers. TV reporters, assignment desks and crews compete for scoops. Sometimes they compete to tell the best stories. But the competition is fiercest to attain elements of coverage. Who has the interview with the victim’s family? Who has the photo of the dead guy? Who has the “get”– the elusive interview, typically with a tragic figure.
Some of this certainly represents the best of journalism. Jackie Kennedy never talked to reporters about JFK’s killing. The mothers of the Columbine killers have never have never answered questions from the press. Those are story elements that any newsroom would want.
But mostly, they are fragmentary and forgettable. Yet they are the essence of the scorecards kept in the sport of breaking news.
Are there more than a handful of people in the TV audience chomping at the bit to hear the words of a guy who caused a traffic accident? Or to watch him get chased into the jail by TV cameras?
The answer, clearly, is no. The exception is among folks in the TV audience who’ve watched coverage of buildup to the moment: “Jack is at the jail, where the suspect is expected to turn himself in. Jack?” “That’s right Jill. He’s not here yet….”
It then becomes more sport than story. The competitive feedback loop requires each station to be there, because the other stations will be there. It’s like the arms race. Your finger is on the button because you’re afraid of the other guy, afraid he’ll get something you won’t.
The sport, then, becomes the adrenaline-rush moments for the crews on scene, and their cheerleaders / tormentors managing their respective newsrooms. The competitors are on the field. They stake out favorable position. They devise some small-scale strategy. And the play begins.
The object of your story becomes a part of the game. In this case, the suspect showed up in time for the noon news, and was clearly unnerved. Is he scared shitless because he’s checking into the jail? Or is it because he’s surrounded by TV cameras? Regardless, it gives the story a jolt of emotion, always a welcome element.
In this case, he stopped and chatted briefly. He expressed remorse. He got peppered with tough questions, mostly sidestepped by his lawyer. It lasted only a few seconds. They moved on.
As such, it’s about the competition, not the storytelling. The elements are gathered. The story is a by-the-numbers bore, told a thousand times on local TV news with interchangable names and circumstances that vary too little to distinguish them.
WXIA’s desk knows about these scrums. WXIA simply chooses to skip them. The station knows it may miss the accident-causer’s on-camera utterances before entering jail, and has made a decision that it would rather devote its resources t0 cover something else. (In this case, the suspect’s attorney called a news conference after he bonded out of jail. I believe WXIA attended.)
One may quibble with whatever the “something else” is. WXIA’s bosslady would probably be among the first to say that the station has many hurdles to overcome before it can become competitive with WSB and WAGA, ratings-wise.
WXIA seems to be seeking an audience that views news as something useful and even helpful, rather than merely another episode in a nightly, local reality show that has little bearing on the lives of real people. Like the premise or not, getting video of the guy who caused a fatal traffic accident helps nobody. As information goes, it isn’t significant enough to lodge into the consciousness of the viewer for longer than an eyeblink.
But happily for the crews on scene, and their producers looking for something “hard” for their A-blocks, the guy talked a little bit. They could fold in file video of the accident. There was a story. But was it better than the other stuff that those crews could have been doing instead?
It was an easy, safe lead story for the newscasts that begin at noon, four, five and 6pm. And it fills the traditional expectations that TV news personnel have for themselves and their nightly product.
For WAGA’s coverage at 5pm, click here.
For WSB’s coverage at 5pm, click here.
For WGCL’s coverage at noon, click here.
Cartoon by Bill Richards, the Red and Black 10.22.09
In November 1981, six-year-old John Anthony Gillis had begun to play instruments (he later became known as Jack White of the White Stripes). Barack Obama was midway into his undergraduate degree at Columbia. Valerie Bertinelli was on the cover of People. Ronald Reagan was on the cover of Time. Michael Jackson was on the cover of Jet.
And a handsome young bloke named Jeff Jeffares was on the cover of the WAGAzine. Jeffares left WAGA five years later. He still lurks around Atlanta media. He’s currently producing video podcasts for the PAGE Foundation. He’s directing shows for Tyler Perry, troubleshooting graphics for TomorrowVision Media and shooting and directing with Broadcast Solutions.
The WAGAzine dates back to a time when corporations used reams of paper to communicate with employees, cramming their mailboxes full of must-see memos and trivialities. Through the mid-1990s, WAGA actually had a print shop in its basement, run by the always cheery, apron-clad Herb Adams.
Jeffares e-mailed these images, which he apparently dug out of a closet a few days ago. The second one is the more amusing of the two, photo and content-wise.
- News anchor Jacque Maddox is photographed with actor Telly Savalas, but not named.
- Leroy Powell, Don Smith and George Gentry actually produced a local programming special.
- WAGA had a senior citizens day. To depict it, Ken Cook is photographed with an Ice Follies skater. Mr. Cook has always been a smooth performer.
Jeffares reports that Barbara Benoit left television shortly after her hiring at WAGA to pursue a career in the financial industry, and still lives in metro Atlanta.
