Once upon a time, politicians and their handlers jumped at the chance for an opportunity to appear in a TV story. Nowadays, there’s frequently an undercurrent of suspicion and hostility that seems disproportionate to the potential risk. This year, I found this to be especially the case with two members of Congress: Rep. John Barrow [...]
Archive for October, 2010
25 Oct
Subject: Physical appeal
Thanks, Bud V., whose note Mrs. LAF found in a box this month. Yes, I would like to respond. Dear zxtime@aol.com: Thanks for writing. Sorry I’m nearly sixteen years late. I am in receipt of your critique regarding my “presumed afro” and its impact on your viewer reception. At the time you wrote this note [...]
21 Oct
How dare he
Political campaigns aren’t held to any standard of truthfulness, except by other political campaigns or the news media. Likewise, news organizations have no law or regulatory panel that scrutinizes and enforces veracity. In that sense, they have a lot in common. But campaigns and news organizations have very different, market-driven standards of truth. One could [...]
18 Oct
Upstairs / downstairs
I’d expected a crowd. Instead, when we arrived at the Richard B. Russell Federal Courthouse for the probation revocation hearing of the rapper known as T.I., there were four people waiting. WXIA photog Dan Reilly and I got there about 75 minutes ahead of the scheduled 2pm hearing. Truth is, I kinda figured [...]
11 Oct
Collusion
“We’re not interested.” The speaker was a plus-sized 40-ish woman wearing a baseball cap. She was with a group of her relatives, standing alongside a road that had been closed by fire personnel in rural Gilmer County. Three hours earlier, a house had a exploded, taking the life of one of their relatives. The woman [...]
5 Oct
Goofus and Gallant
Marc Pickard retired from WXIA in September. It was bittersweet for all of us. Pickard is a gifted storyteller, and a guy who probably never had an undignified moment in his entire career. Even when he covered breaking news, Pickard was at his best. His retirement process paralleled my own departure from WAGA in 2007, [...]
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