Secret Squirrel
“This is the guy you want people to take a good, close look at.” WSB’s Mark Winne, interviewing Snellville police chief Roy Whitehead.
“The guy” is suspected of killing a young mother in a Target parking lot. He’s wearing a wig and a fake moustache. The surveillance video is almost impossibly pixelated; the disguise likewise makes his ID highly unlikely. (Later in the piece, Winne carefully acknowledged that “the guy” could be a woman.)
Do you know this man?
That said, the absurdity of the disguise and the horror of the killing — an apparently premeditated hit in broad daylight in a public place — made this story pretty interesting (and a nice 6pm lead for WSB).
Our only complaint is Winne’s insistence on calling the gunman / hit man / cold-blooded killer a “shooter.” A lemon drop is a shooter. This guy is a murderer. Winne also allowed the police chief to tell most of the story. We approve of the technique, but it regrettably minimizes the staccato Winne voice track style.
Drama points: √ (out of five) Absurdity points: √√√√ (out of five)
what more absurd is how winner called his story exclusive – yet Fox and CBS Atlanta also had the stories in their 6 pm shows.
Whinnie the Whinner was Wrong
Not true. Mr. Winne said his station was “first” to view the surveillance tape.
huh?
The tape was released the same day to Fox, WSB and WGCL…
in fact, Mark tried to keep Fox and WGCL from running it
he had a big old exclusive banner over the video…
I stand corrected. Though Winne never called it an exclusive, Monica Pearson said WSB was “first” with the tape, and an “exclusive” banner followed.
If everybody had the tape, then WSB told a big ol’ fib by using the “exclusive” banner.
Which was a common complaint when I worked at one of WSB’s competitors….
At the end of a long day, “the staccato Winne voice track style” greets me as I walk in the door and get “Coverage You Can Count On”. Exclusive or not, Winne is to the crime beat like Joe Friday is to Dragnet.
I remember when each station got their own weather radar in the mid 1970’s. Yeah, they all got the very first one in town.
“Our only complaint is Winne’s insistence on calling the gunman / hit man / cold-blooded killer a “shooter.” A lemon drop is a shooter. This guy is a murderer.”
I thought you weren’t a “Murderer” until convicted. Until then a killer, or after a suspect is named, a “suspected killer/murderer”… you can’t be a murderer until you’re convicted IMHO.
Murderer (Mur”der*er\), n. 1. A person who, in possession of his reason, unlawfully kills a human being with premeditated malice.
– Webster’s Revised Unabridged
A specific, named person is not (in this country) a murderer until convicted in a criminal court, but there is no such qualifier when referring to an abstract person. Despite lack of a conviction, there is no doubt Nicole Simpson was murdered and therefore there is no doubt an unpunished murderer.
You can’t be murderer until you’re convicted, but that doesn’t mean there is no murderer,
IMHOATAFJ.Winnie is not a cop nor a resident of the “hood”. His and too many other Atlanta reporters’ use of street vernacular such as “shooter”, “perp”, “something going down”, etc. is trite and way overdone. If some cops feel they sound more authoritative or clinical(and they don’t) by communicating awkwardly, “dead” instead of “deceased”, “ejected from the vehicle” instead of “thrown from the car” that’s one thing. When Winnie and his colleagues do it they simply sound silly.
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