Last month, the national Society of Professional Journalists announced its Mark of Excellence Awards for collegiate journalists. Based at (but not affiliated with) the University of Georgia, the Red and Black won awards for General News Reporting and Editorial Cartoonist. What follows is a Q&A with the cartoonist, Bill Richards. Richards has a family tie [...]
Archive for May, 2009
26 May
Heads rolling
There’s a sense of tumult at WGCL now. We can’t condemn the thinking behind it. Although the station’s 11pm news no longer falls into the asterisk category ratings-wise, its daytime newscasts are still a tough sell. WGCL’s news director, Philly-native Steve Schwaid, has built the station into a competitive news organization. But the viewers haven’t [...]
25 May
Lone wolf
The name is weak, but here’s a thumbs up to “the local news service,” the video pool arrangement anounced last week among three of the four Atlanta TV stations. Given numerous unpleasant alternative, LNS is a clearheaded and sensible effort to streamline costs and rein in the unwieldy beast that often rears its head in [...]
20 May
Actual, non-factual
There he goes again. Justin Farmer is blowing the whistle on wasteful government spending. Just like last time, the story is designed to make the viewer angry at the stupidity of government. When Farmer clobbered UGA for sending some of its professors overseas for “academic enrichment,” UGA challenged Farmer’s methodology. This time, his methodology is [...]
19 May
Right story, wrong question
Note: This was originally written last week as part of the post that became “Bigmouth Strikes Again.” It originally praised WGCL’s Wendy Saltzman for her work on the take-home vehicles story, while quibbling with another piece she produced on Congressional travel. We edited the post after we figured out that WXIA had also produced the [...]
14 May
Bigmouth strikes again
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). Sometime over the winter, it appears Saltzman began work on a story [...]
13 May
The next generation
News directors wishing for a sneak peak at the next wave of resume tapes may now visit a site that shows samples from latest crop of TV news aspirants from the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism. The site belongs to Dan Keever, ex-WAGA photog of 33 years, NATAS Silver Circle guy and Grady [...]
12 May
The Emmy doesn’t go to….
Emmy nominations are almost always fun. There are a couple of exceptions. One: When the “academy” fails to recognize your award-worthy work. Two: When your work gets nominated, but lo and behold, your name somehow fails to get on the entry form. For example, Manuel Bojorquez of WSB apparently did a pretty outstanding job of [...]
11 May
The big guy
Jim Axel, a voice from TV’s ‘era of quality,’ fighting cancer By Kristi E. Swartz The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Jim Axel spent 34 years sporting a red tie and delivering the news on WAGA-TV. Then he retired and moved to Venice, Fla., in 1998 after his wife, Millie, said she liked the area so much during [...]
7 May
Tornado v. tv crew
This is a nine-minute, lightly-edited raw-tape soap opera. From KMBC Kansas City, via b-roll.net, courtesy Lenslinger. Click here to read photographer John Woods’ first-person description. more about “untitled“, posted with vodpod
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