It is the oddest, sloppiest and most schizoid TV news franchise in town. WGCL foists its “restaurant report card” on viewers once a week, and the results are almost always at once horrifying and laughable.
The franchise promises the best and worst of Atlanta restaurants. We don’t know how Adam Murphy selects the best. Last week he chose Straits, a restaurant owned by the hip-hop star / actor known as Ludacris. Each piece begins with Murphy as TV performer, doing his best on-camera Glenn Burns / Guy Smiley impersonation.
Murphy: You’ll never believe who’s on the program! Check this out. Grammy award winning artist Chris “Ludacris” Bridges!”
Bridges: Hey. What’s going on, my man?
Murphy: What’s up my man? How ya doing?
Bridges: Doing a little supervising around here, making sure everything is clean around here. That’s the most important thing….
Murphy: Who’s this over here?
Bridges: This is my business partner, the infamous Mr. Chris Yo.
Murphy: Yo.
It’s all very amiable until Murphy abruptly sheds his “just hangin’ out with my man Ludacris” demeanor and starts busting chops.
“I want you guys to leave,” begins the section with Murphy confronting a restauranteur who scored poorly in a Health Department inspection. “It didn’t take us long to get thrown out of this Gwinnett County restaurant,” Murphy assures us. The restaurant flunked because an inspector saw an employee slicing bagels barehanded, and “an employee opened a package with their teeth,” among other affronts to good health, sanitation and grammar.
“Can we ask you about the violations?” Murphy says to the restauranteur. “No,” he answers, repeating his admonition to the camera crew to scram. Murphy walks the legal line deftly. Once he’s ordered to leave the private property, he must. But he doesn’t have to turn off the camera, and he can still ask questions as he’s moving toward the door.
It’s classic TV investigative reporting, confronting wrongdoers unwilling to be questioned. But then it hits you: Murphy is confronting small business owners about sloppy work in their restaurants, a one-time lousy score in a county inspection. We cringe as we watch.
Two weeks earlier, Murphy and photog entered an O’Charley’s during lunchtime. The manager politely and repeatedly asked Murphy to return at 2pm, after the lunch rush was over. “We’d be more than happy to take a few minutes with you,” says the surprisingly even-tempered restaurant manager. Murphy would have none of it.
“I don’t want to interrupt our guests’ lunch. We’re trying to take care of them and run our business,” the manager protests, the mic stuck under his chin in the restaurant lobby. The encounter makes Murphy look foolish.
WGCL posted the entire confrontation on its website. It only makes Murphy look worse. The restaurant manager politely asks Murphy to return six times. “Everything possible we corrected yesterday before 5 o’clock in the afternoon,” the store manager tells Murphy at the top of the confrontation. Murphy used very little of the restaurant manager’s cool-headed defense, and he apparently never accepted his offer to return at 2pm.
This kind of thing makes everybody in TV news look bad. If it packed a punch, it would give a black eye to the concept of investigative reporting. But this is so silly, it’s more like a bitch-slap.
And then– Murphy closes on-camera with the same cheery “hey, look at all this great food at this great restaurant” hucksterism that that opened the piece. It’s just weird as hell.
We gotta admit, though: Whenever WGCL delivers a “restaurant report card,” we watch. Why? Because we know we’re about to see some of the squirreliest, dopiest stuff in all of local TV news.
Posted by Ima Believer on June 23, 2008 at 10:15 am
Thanks for the publicity Doug!
Posted by North Gwinnett on June 23, 2008 at 11:30 am
Adam got to hang with Luda?? I am very jealous!
You are absolutely right – it is quite insane to see. Just the facts Adam – just the facts!
Posted by Edward on June 23, 2008 at 12:15 pm
After watching the aforementioned piece and a few others, about the only thing I can say is that the segment doesn’t really belong on a newscast. It is more suited for something like “Extra” or “Inside Edition”.
Posted by Early Sports on June 23, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Adam, your the best. Talk to me!
Posted by craptastic on June 23, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Um. Adam’s throwing the “A” for A-Town with Luda. I don’t know who I’m more embarrassed for.
Posted by Deke on June 23, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Adam Murphy is about as gangsta as Cher. That photo is priceless.
Posted by Wrangler of Found Light on June 23, 2008 at 8:57 pm
“We gotta admit, though: Whenever WGCL delivers a “restaurant report card,” we watch.”
YOU WATCH? At the end of the day, when it comes to a feature franchise, that’s ALL that matters.
This is a well done franchise, perfect for their 4 o’clock show, that people watch EVERY WEEK! Week in, and week out… month after month… YOU watch!
So while your sideline, out of the business, observation is pointless and misguided, please keep watching…
Posted by SSG Daly on June 24, 2008 at 6:45 am
It’s not pointless, it keeps me entertained when I can actually get time to look at the internet anymore.
Posted by RonBurgundy on June 24, 2008 at 10:04 am
Thank you for seeing this schlock for what it is. It’s campy and awkward… and it ain’t news.
I have to wonder… if a roach skitters across the restaurant that Ludicris owns, is Adam going back to stick a microphone in HIS face????
I didn’t think so.
Posted by lk on June 24, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I was actually in the same journalism school with him…go figure…
Posted by business c. on June 24, 2008 at 4:05 pm
For the record, I’d kiiiiiinda do Murphy if he’d lay off the Sephora jams. I know news guys wear makeup but gah!
Also, I really want to do a Ludacris/”Southern Hospitality” joke right now but I’ll refrain.
Posted by rptrcub on June 26, 2008 at 11:06 am
@Wrangler of Found Light: If you can’t handle the snark, get out of the kitchen.
Posted by bigear on June 27, 2008 at 10:35 pm
His segment reminds me of my days in Houston. Marvin Zindler’s SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINE. Loved the hooky graphics though. I miss Zingler. He knew how to do those pieces!
Posted by sayejibley on August 20, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I hate this segment because outtakes from it are all that ever make it to GCL’s gorilla ball reel. The are awkward, not funny, and borderline racist with all of the Asian-owned restaurants that are targeted. There is so much from WGCL to choose from for Gorilla Ball! Why do they only pick this?
Posted by Water, water everywhere « live apartment fire on February 4, 2009 at 2:53 pm
[...] of applause for Adam Murphy. The WGCL reporter has taken more than his share of abuse on this site for the still-unfortunate Restaurant Report Card. But maybe that franchise, and Murphy’s [...]
Posted by Low-hanging fruit « live apartment fire on March 20, 2009 at 2:45 pm
[...] reporter wraps it into a by-the-numbers TV package (culled from the Restaurant Report Card handbook of investigative journalism), then directs the viewer to the station website, and calls it a news [...]
Posted by Bigmouth strikes again « live apartment fire on May 15, 2009 at 10:45 am
[...] Wendy Saltzman has been a busy woman. Like most reporters in understaffed shops, she’s probably overworked. And she solely bears the on-air burden of giving WGCL badly needed credibility in classic, research-based investigative reporting (as distinguished from, say, consumer reporting or bare-hands-on-food-in-restaurants exposés). [...]