“Surely you’ve got better stories to cover than this.” Thus spake a voice from an intercom at a locked doorway guarding the offices of Northside United Methodist Church. That suggestion had followed a “we have no comment” and a polite yet firm admonishment that we leave the church property immediately. I wanted to debate the [...]
Archive for December, 2009
29 Dec
10 Atlanta media moments, 2009
In no particular order… 10. WGCL’s drumbeat of “tough questions” over the Atlanta Water Department’s bizarro billing, and WGCL’s rise as an enterprising / investigative news organization. 9. The AJC’s contraction, redesign and announced relocation to Dunwoody. 8. Layoffs and pay cuts at WAGA and WXIA; furloughs at Gannett; and the combining of photog and [...]
24 Dec
Tagged
Here’s a not-so-heartwarming story for the holidays. Dan Reilly and I were driving up I-85 Wednesday. We’re en route to Lawrenceville. We’re doing a story on a trial balloon floated by Butch Conway, the High Sheriff of Gwinnett County: Because he can’t get funding for deputies to staff housing units in his new jail wing, [...]
22 Dec
Franklin gothic
The news media got it right when they described as “bizarre” Mayor Shirley Franklin’s last / don’t-presume-this-is-my-last news conference December 17. WGCL has posted the unedited news conference. Followers of Franklin, and those intrigued by the give-and-take between a skilled politician and the media will be amused to watch it. Most of the reporting on [...]
20 Dec
Defending “amateur journalism”
Erick Erickson is a Macon man who administers a popular and rather authoritative political blog called Peach Pundit. If you’re into Georgia politics, it’s a must-read. Erickson is also a Republican political operative (he supports Karen Handel for Governor). As he emphatically told the AJC in a feature story last Sunday, he is not a [...]
17 Dec
Applying Murphy’s law
A reporter at WXIA raised a question that I’d asked myself while driving home Monday night. “You went into — the lobby? Camera rolling? Did you — ?” Did I call the WXIA lawyer first? Actually, no. It went like this: We were at a DeKalb County day care center. The administrator had been indicted [...]
14 Dec
The best local news promo ever
This is a bit of a no-brainer. Local news promos tend to have a one-note sense of urgency that reflects the thinking which drives the business nowadays: Find out how this hidden killer may target your children — tomorrow at six!” The promo is accompanied by a grave soundtrack, or the rat-a-tat rhythm mimicking the [...]
10 Dec
Roof access
It was a last-minute mini-brainstorm, which took place at a traffic light during the morning commute. It went something like this: Eight days after the runoff, Kasim Reed may finally become the undisputed mayor-elect today. We should hang out with him. Reed had scheduled an 11am news conference to announce his new interim police chief. [...]
7 Dec
Election method
Election night is always a little misleading. During the evening, the public watches and listens to broadcast media to see who is “leading” in the vote. If a candidate is “leading,” it implies that there is an ongoing competition. But there isn’t. Once the polls close, no candidate is “leading.” One of them has already [...]
3 Dec
Sick
You’re now seeing insane jealousy, the greenest, ugliest and sickest sort imaginable. There was no chance in hell Susan Richardson would talk to any reporter. As a political wife recently divorced from one of Georgia’s most media-unfriendly politicians, Mrs. Richardson should have retained her ex-husband’s stonewalling nature. Her ex-, only weeks earlier, had publicly revealed [...]
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