Close your eyes and listen, as the reporter tags his story: “We were told the suspect, through the sheriff, declined to be interviewed by us.” The passive tense, the fractured syntax, and the sheer audacity that any freshly-arrested suspect would consider being “interviewed by us” signals the presence of one man: WSB’s Mark Winne. This particular bit of copy aired Thursday at 11pm.
Winne breaks news for WSB. He has great sources in hard-to-reach places. He’s got a secret-squirrel quality about him in the field. It suits him well and keeps his competitors guessing. He also writes, shall we say, very dense copy. One WSB reporter loves to recount the story of a producer, tasked to re-write a Winne story, viewed the story three times. Afterward, she announced that she had no idea what the story was about. If there are copy editors at WSB, they need to be on their guard around Mr. Winne.
But when Winne shows up in the a-block of WSB’s news, the bossfolk at competing TV stations turn down the audio of their own newscasts and watch Winne. Frequently– they’ll shake their heads afterward and say “huh?” But often enough, they’ll send their own staff out to chase a Winne scoop.
Posted by RonBurgundy on March 22, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Winne is a fabulous news reporter with absolutely no writing skills whatsoever. What’s nice is that when he beats you on a story, all you have to do is present it the next day in a way people at home can understand, and it’s like he never beat you.
I can’t understand why WSB doesn’t send him to writing school. Maybe they have. Maybe it’s hopeless.
Posted by rptrcub on March 24, 2008 at 7:49 am
He’s good at digging stuff up; I just find his tone of delivery irritating. I suffer through it to get the story.
Posted by backtoyoujon on March 24, 2008 at 11:46 am
Posted by SpaceyG on March 26, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Winne is a gen-u-ine crime reporter of the best old-school fashion. Ever since AJC management drove Kathy Scruggs to an early death, he’s all we’ve got in this town. Other than The Wire.
Posted by liveapartmentfire on March 26, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I still miss Kathy Scruggs. She was right about the Richard Jewell story– she just happened to talk to sources who had the wrong suspect. There oughtta be a Kathy Scruggs Award for crime reporting.
Posted by Winne Watch 9.19.08 « live apartment fire on September 23, 2008 at 7:54 am
[...] WSB’s Mark Winne, Friday at 6pm, on an unsolved murder in [...]
Posted by Cameras in our heads « live apartment fire on June 2, 2009 at 2:55 am
[...] time-killing line reminds us of a line from a similar Mark Winne package that has stuck in our heads for years: “There were handcuffs. Lots of [...]