“He’s agreed to talk to Mark Winne and nobody else.” Those spirit-draining words came from Lt. Sean Smith, the new temporary PIO for the Gwinnett County Sheriff. We were at the Gwinnett County jail, which was holding inmate Victor Hill. Hill, a former sheriff, had been arrested following a public corruption indictment. Every local media [...]
Archive for the ‘WSB’ Category
19 Jul
The commentariat
The best and worst thing about blogs is the “comments” section. This blog has had 3967 comments (not including a couple dozen I’ve deleted), and I’ve read every word of each of them. Blog commentary can be illuminating. Because the comment-makers can stay anonymous, they can also be horrifying, ugly, personal and hateful. The [...]
20 Jun
Burn unit
Earlier this year, members of WAGA’s I-Team made a video for a non-profit organization to be played at a banquet. The video was a public service project. The I-Team’s editor burned the video onto a DVD using a new DVD burner. When they took the DVD to the banquet early, the house machine couldn’t play [...]
16 May
Amateur hour
Most politicians, and their staffs, have sense enough to avoid the hamhanded treatment Gov. Nathan Deal gave WAGA Friday. It inevitably hurts the politician, not the news organization. It happened to Deal Friday. Deal’s communications director Brian Robinson ordered state troopers to banish WAGA from a high-profile news conference. A day earlier,WAGA’s Dale Russell reported [...]
27 Mar
Battle rattle
Sometimes, it pays to be the old guy. There are a lot of things I could write about the cop-killer / hostage standoff / media intervention Friday night. I’ll mostly stick to the competitive aspect. First, the thumbnail: A guy inexplicably shoots and injures an Athens / Clarke County police officer Tuesday, then shoots another [...]
14 Feb
Photo withheld
This post has been updated and corrected to reflect the fact that WSB-TV also blurred the photo of Antonio Cardenas-Rico. I covered the stabbing deaths of two children Thursday, and immediately faced one of those journalistic conundrums. Perplexing as that was, it was compounded by the fact that my competitors handled it completely differently than [...]
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, [...]
13 Aug
Trampling the flag
Update: This is video of WXIA’s coverage. The flag topples at 1:52. Runoff night got really weird at the Nathan Deal celebratory party Tuesday. It was a low moment for Atlanta TV news. Deal was unexpectedly eking out a victory for the Republican nomination for Governor. He ascended to the podium to address his supporters. [...]
14 Jun
Fined by OSHA
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined WSB $5000 for safety violations surrounding its live truck accident in November. The accident took place when a WSB crew exited the parking lot of the Fulton County jail with its microwave mast raised. The mast came into contact with some 115,000 volt transmission lines above Rice [...]
21 May
Winne watch 5.13.10
“…Before one of three robbers posing as police gunned down Donnie Glass, one of them stole his big platinum ring with diamonds. And now (the detective) hopes a description of the fake cops rings true with someone who calls in a tip.” WSB’s Mark Winne, in a piece about the unsolved murder of a man [...]
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