Local and federal courts are re-writing standard charges to juries to prevent jurors from using popular internet sites during trials. A Fulton County rape trial recently ended in mistrial because a juror researched the case on Google. I successfully pitched a story on it. We went to the Fulton County Courthouse to interview a judge [...]
Archive for April, 2010
26 Apr
Relics
I’m a relic, and it would be easy to bemoan my ancient status. The biggest problem with relics is that they / we remember the news business as it once was: An industry rolling in cash, that employed gazillions of people in reasonably well-paying and somewhat-secure jobs. Our employers spent ridiculous money to cover news [...]
22 Apr
Pipe down
Item: ABC 33/40 Birmingham weekend anchor Roy Hobbs was arrested by Birmingham police over the weekend. Hobbs is a former WAGA evening anchor. Police say Hobbs had a crack pipe in the car. Below are Roy Hobbs’ Top Ten Reasons he managed to get himself arrested in Birmingham with a crack pipe. 10. To effectively [...]
20 Apr
White elephant
The shiny new television station installed this year at the University of Georgia has been a spectacular commercial failure. The Red and Black reports that WNEG, which moved its operations from Toccoa to a new studio at the Grady College of Journalism, may have to pull the plug on all its operations by September. From [...]
19 Apr
Trailblazer
Aubrey Morris did a lot of good things during his thirty-plus career as news director at WSB radio. But when a reader urged me to commemorate his passing last week at age 88, he recounted a story that any modern-day local-news broadcast type will recognize. This passage comes from Gene Asher’s book, Legends: Georgians who [...]
16 Apr
Alley Pat
This media reach-around may set a personal record: I’m blogging about a TV story about a film about an Atlanta radio personality. The film is called Alley Pat: The Music is Recorded. The filmmaker is Tom Roche, a Crawford Communications postproduction wizard. The TV story aired on WXIA Wednesday. The story is about Alley Pat, [...]
13 Apr
Grateful dedicated
Count me among the considerable number of TV professionals who never once set foot in the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, which began this week in Las Vegas. Its presence always brings to mind a story, though, from April 1990. One year — only one, apparently — the NAB decided to meet [...]
12 Apr
Plus ca change…
Photo from Feeding the News Beast. The news business may evolve, but certain truths remain constant. A TV newscast must have stories that are timely, relevant and interesting. Important stories are a plus. When news is done well, it helps viewers. It doesn’t help them pay their bills, necessarily, or win grievances with their landlords. [...]
9 Apr
Adaptable, adept
Richard Crabbe is not my favorite photographer at WXIA. I don’t have a favorite photographer. To make such a choice would be akin to selecting a favorite parent or a favorite offspring. It wouldn’t be cool. But Richard Crabbe is worth singling out, and not just because of the grim timing that happened to put [...]
7 Apr
Late late late show
Item: WAGA recently started a new 4:30am newscast, around the same time the station laid off production workers. The new newscast is a great idea. Here’s why. 10. Ten and a half hours of local news each weekday is insufficient, obviously. 9. At eleven hours of local news per day, you’re only one hour away [...]
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