Search this site

Bend over, Say AH!

Hello, I'm big health care.  You don't need reform.  You just need ME!

Click to open Michael Moore's PDF file on Health Care Statistics


And then call the office of Pat Roberts' (R-KS) and THANK him for accepting our bribes, er Campaign Contributions and voting for laws favoring us, the Drug Companies!  Our commercials on Kansas TV stations is payback for your vote.  But understand, it's not a BRIBE payback, it's just a token of our awesome appreciation.  We're buying commercials mentioning you favorably, using the profits we earned from overcharging Kansas people for their drugs!  No, its not quid pro quo, that would be like bribing a government official and we wouldn't ever do anything that's illegal!

GOP Founding Trickster Donald Segretti

Father of Republican Party dirty tricks   (RATFUCKING)

Donald Segretti, disbarred California lawyer who staged political dirty tricks on behalf of Richard Nixon, through CREEP (The Committee to Reelect the President, 1972)  He's today's GOP strategists' Patron Saint.








thosetees.com
(Jugs not included)

Hasn't anyone told the Republicans yet, they LOST the election last November? We ALREADY took our country back!!

or... "Has the 2012 presidential campaign started ALREADY?"


Bad McDonalds! Bad!

Alternet brings us 15 reasons not to eat at McDonalds.  Including Erectile Dysfunction!  OMG!

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story!


...ethical issues in local TV News              Radioman KC's BLOG

It's not easy making a half-researched daily story look like a comprehensive report but TV reporters manage to do it.   They have little time allotted for any story so that by the time they write the soft anchor introduction,  a paragraph setting the scene, run the short sound bites and the reporter stand-up, time's up.

"Our reporter David Jones has been on this important health story all day...here's his in-depth report about how it affects you...."  (In television, anything longer than a minute-thirty is "in-depth.")

Many stations run an obligatory health story each night because consultants told them that viewers are interested in health.   The easiest way to fill this time is to watch the press releases and find one eager doctor who brings along one patient and there you have the disease of the day.  When the reporter interviews their one doctor, they slyly write the copy to read plural, "doctors say...."


That is not sloppy writing.  It's deceptive--a practice you would not expect a news operation to tolerate, but they do.  The formula copy reads like, "This is little Billy Jones...he has (insert the obscure disease of the day) and doctors are trying a new procedure to help him."  Then comes the video of boy being treated in the doctor's office, a

quick sound bite of the doctor about his new procedure, followed by Billy''s mother telling how better he's doing.

The health reporter finishes her formula story with a hopeful summary of how optimistic "doctors" are for others like little Billy.  Pitching back to the studio desk, the anchors read a ten second transitional phrase while they smile and nod the hope and concern for others like Billy, and then pitch to commercial break which starts with tonight's winning lottery numbers.

 

What might be more useful to viewers would not be these easy little ads for the health industry but some comparative stories on fees and drug costs, HMO practices, defensive medicine, excessive testing, availability of care based on insurance coverage, nursing home conditions, and long emergency room waits.  These are major issues in America but the local providers may not be quite so inclined to hand the reporter that kind of fare in PR releases.   The fact is, health reporters have few unofficial medical sources in their contact file.   Like so many reporters, they only work with PR directors whose jobs it is to get their institutions positive, free press--and steer reporters away from controversy. 

Most reporters are not experts

Field reporters who cover health, city hall, and crime are the only ones who have more than a cursory understanding of their beats.  Education, industry, utilities, environment, and business are not well covered--especially in the suburbs--because general assignment reporters don't set foot in those places except when escorted by PR people for a feature story or by emergency services during a crisis. Reporters have little background and few unofficial sources to cover these important segments of our society.  There'll be very few stories on school lunches, test scores, dropouts, industry price fixing, wage rates, mortgage rates, credit card come-ons, or hundreds of other stories requiring some real research.   Reporters will cover the city hall political doings of the core city in their market but will not bore viewers with suburban issues unless controversies are first discovered by the newspaper which has the staff to keep tabs on them.

There's just no time to get all the facts

Moreover, since most TV stories are prepared in half a day, reporters just write around missing elements they can't confirm;  they do this by further generalizing their copy so they won't be wrong.  It would seem an incomplete story is not as faulty as a story with factual errors.  So, they just get rid of the facts they can't verify.   TV does not hold stories until they're ready.  They must run in any case--like undercooked fast food.

Get fuzzy on the time when it's not on your side


"When" has traditionally been one of the Five W's (who, what, where, when and why.)  TV people predictably big deal the "when" if it just happened.  But if didn't happen within the hour, they go fuzzy on that important element, or else they'll just mislead you so you won't think you're getting 'old news.'

Tonight, tonight, tonight. The rule for 10pm is to make stories sound fresh for ten.  If an accident happened at 4pm, many stations will simply fabricate "Police investigators tonight are trying to find out why a young girl was run down."  They don't check to see if the traffic investigators went home at 5pm like most people do.  They just stick 'tonight' in there--in almost every story. The word "yesterday" doesn't exist in TV journalism.  Producers simply remove the time reference altogether so stories won't sound old.  You might actually hear a producer write, "A 40 year old man is dead tonight after an early morning murder...."   The entire reason why some stations go to such lengths is to give you the impression you're getting something different tonight than you saw at six--so you'll watch both newscasts.  Note that newspapers don't play those kinds of games with facts.

Conflict draws interest... make some, if there isn't any

But, but, but.  In an interview setting, TV people will always search for two people with differing views whom they can juxtapose--point and counter-point.  Facts just aren't enough anymore.  So look for disagreement because everybody loves to watch an argument.  Now if you get two differing views, just run them both.  It's far too much trouble to go research who's telling the truth so they'll just run both sound bites and leave it at that.  Their response to this laziness is, "let the viewer decide" (based on their 90 second treatment of the issue.).   For some reason, TV people like the word 'but.'  They should donate a dollar to charity every time they use it to create controversy when there isn't any in a story.  If there are no conflicting interviews, producers will make up conflict using the "but" word with some syntax like, "Most people think (their streets are safe)...but (we found some crime to show you) that's not true...."

Weather Wars

TV stations pay the consultants to tell News Directors that weather affects everybody.  So TV people, figuring "more must be better" have engaged in an expensive and highly promotable battle of weather casters and their toys.  In many TV markets, stations compete to see who can have the most certified meteorologists and who has the most different kinds of graphic displays--high tech toys to convince us they're better forecasters and we're somehow safer because of it.  When one station gets a new toy, the others order it within days.   When the weather kicks up even a little, they show you every one of them and night after night try to explain how the weather works.  People watch with fascination--and of course, that's the idea.   The animation systems still don't prevent bad forecasting, it would seem, but they sure look impressive when a storm has arrived overhead.  Since the stations have spent a ton of money on weather casters and their toys, they parade them out--not just once--but twice or three times each newscast.  Viewers tuning in primarily for the weather report don't get it all once anymore.  They have to sit through the whole show (and all the commercials) as the weather facts are rationed out a tidbit at a time with little 'guest appearances' by the weather personality.  This is an unabashed ratings ploy and stations are perfectly willing to sacrifice precious news time to drag out the presentation of what most viewers tune in for.

Chicken Little is a weather anchor!  When it snows a couple inches or rains a half inch, the whole news team hurries out to get the visuals of the mid afternoon storm before it disappears. The anchors get all excited and the seasonal storm is made out as if the sky had fallen and the city was paralyzed.   The anchors will sternly warn people not to go out unless they really have to.  It's the fear emotion news people love to create.  Of course that leaves the shopping malls and restaurants in the city empty except for the employees who experienced a few minutes delay getting to work.   (Now  KMBC TV actually has a buxom weathercaster named "Little."  Erin Little.  But  TV insiders make the most fun of TV5's Katie Horner even though she is very talented, poised, and conscientious.  The blogger cheap shots are that she tends to ramble on and on and unnecessarily scare viewers--like Chicken Little.

Unfortunately, TV people sensationalize the news as well.  To keep viewers from switching them off, TV people hype everything to build whatever emotional impact can be written into it.  To keep viewers, they portray the exception as the rule--the streets are dangerous, the schools are in chaos, government workers are all corrupt, and there's nothing on the Internet but sex.

No story?  Well write it as best you can--use your best shots.

What can be more disappointing to a reporter to find out that a story doesn't turn out as big as it sounded during the morning editorial meeting?  Yet reporters don't tell a producer, who's depending on his story, "uh, the story just wasn't there." The reporter writes the non-story anyway and if he has to embellish it a little to make it sound more interesting, he does by using stronger words.  If his house fire caused little damage, he'll write it like it was "a bitter battle for firemen who fought both the fire and the the cold weather."
When reporters or producers view the video brought back from an event, they'll build a story around the visuals and the interviews caught on tape.  No matter how insignificant was a tiff caught on tape between two people, the words of conflict will become the centerpiece of the story--for their entertainment value.

A small protest of a dozen people will be carefully edited with close-ups to look bigger than it really is.  A two thirds empty meeting room will be edited to look like the two dozen people present were a capacity crowd. Understand that video-editors will illustrate their stories with the most interesting shots which were on the videotape. Their task is not necessarily to portray the scene accurately.

 

In our exclusive investigation...

  Usually timed to air during ratings sweeps, many stations do some in-depth work from time to time.  If not really indepth, its made to look indepth.  Some stations even have highly promoted "I-teams" whose reporter(s) are not assigned daily stories but are assigned to either solid topics or sensation.  Other reporters work on these sweeps stories in addition to their daily story.

 Some will employ hidden cameras for their stunt value to do easy formula stories like taping public works employees wasting time on the job or prostitutes working that street everybody knows about.   Now, there's no question that sometimes that's the only way to get story.  In other cases, it's just theatrics.  The real test of an investigation's value depends completely on the topic and how it's handled.  And whether it's new ground or rehash of well known community problems --which isn't news at all.  An investigation can be very good or just made to appear like good journalism when it really isn't.   Sadly the good investigations with lasting impact are rare and viewers are blessed in those cities where solid--and frequent-- journalism is a commitment.
Not often will you see a pocketbook story where some public scrutiny would do wonders--like pricing comparisons at banks, drug and food stores, utilities, funeral homes, or hospitals.   Instead, I-teams tend to go after miscreant individuals or sex offenders rather than community institutions or big companies (which advertise but won't cooperate.)  These kinds of paper trail issues are the most important because they are costly to everyone.  Unfortunately, they don't lend themselves to television.   They're hard to uncover, harder to illustrate, and impossible to explain in two minutes.  Stations simply have not made the committment to do a magazine length 60-Minutes local news program.
Every once in a while, TV reporters get a tip that turns out to be news that the paper hasn't discovered yet. TV people will lead with anything they actually enterprise because they are very proud of themselves on these occasions. They get all excited and remind you " As we first told you in our EXCLUSIVE story at six..."  It may seem pathetic, or cute like a child finding a dollar, but if the originated story really is important (and not just exclusive), it will make the paper.   In either case, the other TV stations will ignore the competitor's "exclusive."  TV stations have no problem stealing from the newspaper, but they have too much pride to "react" to a broadcast competitor.

The world is their stage--and pushy is their rule

TV reporters think the media industry has special access-- like a utility.  Declaring the public's right to know, they behave as if people should talk to them, willing or not  about their troubles for the nightly news.   That's why they don't usually take "no" for an answer to a story they've been sent out to cover.  And ambushing an unwilling target is perfectly acceptable, especially on public property.  They get just a little bit like the paparazzi.
There was a case in Kansas City a decade ago when an elderly man was accused of being a Nazi prison camp guard.  When the wire story broke that he'd been accused and might be deported, TV reporters showed up in front of his house.  Understandably, he refused to talk to them.  It was to federal officials he would have to plead his innocence, if he was.  The reporters, cameramen, and circus wagon news cars camped out on public property outside his house, creating quite a spectacle in his quiet neighborhood.

  Since he wouldn't talk, they set about interviewing his neighbors to find out what kind of person he was. (Reporters don't see anything wrong with a public trial, free of confusing elements of due process and defense.)  Very mistaken in judgment, this agitated elderly man brandished a gun and fired it into the air--trying to get them to go away.  Indignant, they called police on the angry old guy--a man they agitated in the first place by deciding he had no privacy before his hearing.  He tried to get police to go away too.

  Of course, police never run from a fight so, predictably, he was shot by police right there with the cameras rolling.  That night, all the stations ran the video of the crazed Nazi getting shot by police.  For good measure, they ran file video of concentration camps and interviews with local Holocaust victims who recapped history but admitted they'd never seen the guy before.  He was critically and irreversibly wounded.  On the local public television roundtable of reporters a week later, the reporters present were quick to exonerate themselves and glossed over the real issue of their own involvement in how the shooting unfolded.

Ambush journalism--great visuals if not justice.  When a person or a small company is accused of anything that might be a sensational story, reporters focus on the accusation--not the details. (In a television newscast, there isn't enough time for details.)   They camp out at their homes or businesses to get video, cajoling family and neighbors to profile suspects before trial, or enticing customers to complain.  If targets try to avoid being forced to give a street corner response, they might be stalked on their way to the grocery store.  If they're photographed trying to avoid the camera, they'll just look on TV like they're running from the truth when they're really just trying to get away from TV people who too often are only after a picture or quick response, not a lengthy explanation.

One reason why reporters stand around  watching each other is that they're under incredible pressure not to be beaten by competitors.  Reporters gather at a scene like pack dogs waiting for something newsworthy to happen--for an interview victim to happen by.  Everybody has to get a piece of that because after the stories are all written, their news directors will watch all the stories on each station and compare them to the final product appearing on his own.  If another station has a better story, he'll interrogate his own reporter on why that happened.  Most likely, at the Nazi suspect's scene, nobody wanted to leave first lest somebody else might get a scoop.  Reporters are aware they come across a bit like a group of buzzards sometimes, but that image isn't nearly as fearful as getting a good chewing from the boss.

Defacto presumption of guilt

When someone is arrested, that fact is reportable.  What reporters don't have time for is to assess the facts other than the arrest and what police are willing to volunteer about the crime during the first few hours.  Often the facts haven't even been fully assessed yet.  After all, both prosecutors and defense lawyers take weeks to assemble the facts and days to present them in trial.  Reporters just don't have that kind of time.  At best, they have hours.  They can't wait for the facts or attempt fairness.  The newscast airs on time.

Usually, news people have access to the police's side of an arrest but most often the accused is in jail and not easily available to interview.    At news time, stations will air what they have, and simply not mention what they don't.  If they make a presumption that police won't arrest an innocent party, then they disregard a basic element held dear in our society, the presumption of innocence.   It's an ethical issue as to whether to note explicitly in their copy that they don't have the accused's side of his arrest, much like in other situations a story will acknowlege they tried but an accused was unavailable for comment, or did not return calls.  In arrest stories, the issue of fairness is rarely considered.  Reporters virtually never try to contact the accused nor force law enforcement to routinely make them quickly accessible at the jail.  Put another way, the accused won't get an opportunity to say to the reporter before airtime he didn't do it.  He has to wait for trial and endure the pre-trial publicity linking his arrest to the crime.

In cases where no one has yet been arrested, news people overhear APB's on the police scanners.  Most of the time, stations know they should not report what they overhear--because they don't want to upset the police and sometimes an APB isn't always an accurate indication who the prime suspect is.  These rules tend to go out the window, however, when a crime is especially heinous.  News competition takes over and reporters become more zealous to report every detail available, even if unconfirmed.  It is precisely at this time when the "publics right to know" takes precedence over doing no harm to the innocent--or presumed innocent.  It is at this point that reporters are tempted to disregard ethical issues in favor of getting the story.  The media as a whole then takes on a bit of a 'mob mentality' which unfortunately, is not often resisted.  This is risky business.  The more serious the crime, the more guarded officials are about what they give out to the press.  Lawmen get downright ambiguous and secretive when working an unsolved crime and that means frantic reporters are at greater risk to misunderstand-- and mis-report -- the facts as they understand them.

The case of the Olympic bombing in Atlanta is a prime and well publicized example of journalistic excess and disregard for the presumption of innocence.  An innocent man's name, Richard Jewell, was reported all over the country as the prime suspect.  The damage was done and lawsuits later followed.  It was an embarrassment for the nation's media--and that issue was only discussed on talk shows, not on local news.

Sadly, police and prosecutors are often too quick to use journalists' competitive zeal for their own pre-trial purposes.  Yes, prosecutors hell-bent on winning cases are not above using the media to advance their political positions and cases--which was certainly the case during the 2007 case of .  While reporters might find that kind of manipulation to rush to judgment distasteful after the fact, it's very difficult for them to take a principled stand as an important story unfolds.  Their story airs tonight.  Their competitors might not wait and the News Director will be watching every detail.  This is one of the major ethical issues that affects the electronic media, and one which needs the direct intervention of thoughtful news directors before copy is broadcast.   The celebrated Sam Sheppard case, in the fifties, introduced the issues of "Fair Trial-Free Press" but many news directors aren't even aware of the ethical issues raised by that case or others after it.

 

Are reporters observers or participants in events?


It is this former reporter's view that the media in general, and television in particular, needs to take into serious account their own role in how events unfold because of their presence.  As any political watcher knows, the media is not a bystander in local and national issues.  The media, by its power of influence over public opinion, is a player in events and issues.  TV crews are not invisible observers.  Policy makers and citizens alike take positions and actions because of the media.  This fact is an uncomfortable one for reporters and their managers.  Unfortunately, the media tends not to acknowledge, much less report, its own involvement and that is a serious journalistic omission in their daily coverage.  (See Wikipedia's article on Advocacy Journalism.)

The public interest - versus doing no harm

There's a tendency to be single-minded about the notion that the public has a right to know everything.  Suffering from that notion sometimes is good taste, rights of individuals to due process, and the respect for privacy --especially the privacy of ordinary people.  Too often, the media seems willing to sacrifice individual reputations for this greater good of the 'publics right to know'.  Sometimes the media disguises it's motivation to just get a good story with the excuse it's acting in the publics right.  That might be defensible, but it's not always honest.  And once in awhile, news outlets lose expensive lawsuits over carelessness.
Seasoned politicians know when they're being tricked and trapped and they are usually able to escape unfair questions.  However, most ordinary citizens, especially youngsters in a situation like Columbine, have no idea what the ramifications to them personally will be when they openly answer reporter questions to be edited and widely broadcast.  Reporters have been known to take advantage of that naivety. Perhaps TV reporters should read them a form of the "Miranda Warning", telling the uninitiated that they talk at their own personal risk--that they may be shunned by friends or even fired by their bosses if they misspeak before a video camera.  When those things happen, the media is not an objective observer, but a participant affecting outcomes.  The medical profession, media and international agreements have dealt with issues of privacy and some of these may be a surprise to readers.
Reporters and video editors have total control when they sit down at their keyboards.  Most often supervisors do not preview stories before broadcast.  In fact, more often than not, the stories are finished just moments before broadcast time.  There are some ethical aspects of 'doing no harm to the innocent' as they hastily write or photo-edit their stories.  Presumably many do this but the hurt caused by a TV often isn't a priority.
There has to be a time when the reporter will say "This is a great sound bite...sensational as hell.  But this kid who innocently gave it to me is going to suffer big time if I put it in my story...so I won't."
Hiding behind the "public right to know", or "we didn't have time to edit" are not excuses for failing to consider the ethical issue of doing no harm.  In fact people get fired for talking to reporters, kids get bullied and shunned and some people have even committed suicide over the bright light of humiliation--whether deserved or not.

Next Page

Click here to comment on this essay on Rman's blog comment page

Subpages (1): TV News doesn't bite the hands that feed them