Looking a little different at WWAY News

It's too early to say exactly what the change is, but there are definitely some changes on the anchor desk at WWAY TV.

The hapless humanoid Kaci Christian appears to have been demoted from her three-month or so reign as 6 & 11 co-anchor with the slightly hapless Steve Rondinaro. I'm not sure exactly what his title, "managing editor," means, beyond an ego boost and an excuse to pay a middle-aged white man more than anyone else, but I assume it allowed him to transfer the energy he generated grimacing at her absolute, appalling, lack of ability to relate - to him, the weather people, the camera, the viewers and her subject matter - into a decision to back her out of the main anchor gig.

The long-suffering Ann McAdams, the only member of the adult sector of the newsroom (not counting Chris Phillips, who they definitely need not to force out!) to remain since new management came in swinging the budget scythe last year, has been restored to the 6 & 11 anchor chair next to Steve. She isn't the best anchor the world ever saw, but she is head and shoulders above the imported botox bimbo - and she has one of the key ingredients of an audience-building cornerstone of the newsroom: she is local and she's not going anywhere.

If there has been any mention on the air (which I really wouldn't expect) I have missed it, but the new configuration began the first of this week, I think, and it's reflected on the newsteam page of the WWAYtv3.com website, where Ann's photo has moved up next to Steve's, bumping Kaci down to the second tier of images, and her title has changed from Anchor/Producer to Evening Anchor, formerly the province of Steve and Kaci only. Kaci retains that title right now, but that could change as quickly as Ann's did, the move taking place one day and the title change later.

You don't have to look far to see that continuity and the level of trust and familiarity that come only with years of exposure, combined with an unspoken assurance that she's not spending half her time looking for her next job, are the keys to building and keeping a loyal local news following. Charlie Gaddy at WRAL, Larry Stogner at WTVD, Ken Murphy and Frances Weller at WECT - there's nothing groundbreaking about the rewards of having an authoritative, "permanent" face on your anchor desk. Spread the radius farther, and everywhere you look, the leading news sets in most markets are led by someone with not just years of experience but years in that very chair.

It's a given in this size TV market that the reporters and probably the second-tier anchors will be transients, probably in their first or second jobs out of college and spending one contract term here working for their big break somewhere else, or showing us and themselves why they don't have what it takes to get any further. (Kim Lehman at WECT/WSFX is the best anchor in the market by far, in terms of talent and performance, but at this point I don't think anyone has the feeling she's staying around. If she is, Frances' replacement is in the house!)

The only way to get audience loyalty is by getting and keeping a copacetic anchor team - including the weather folks and, everywhere but WWAY right now, including sports. Get Ann some speech therapy or a dental appliance to lose the lisp, and assuming her doctor-husband is happy here, you've got your main standby. The jury's still out on Steve - if he can tone down his hokey 80s-style selling of every word a little bit, and increase the already hugely improved chemistry with Ann vs. the total lack with Kaci, and if he and the management are both committed to the long run, he may be a keeper too. There is a pretty clear lack of news judgment over there, significantly more effort spent promoting stories than ensuring the reporters have a grasp of the subject they are addressing, so perhaps he can exercise the "managing editor" part more, too.

It's not rocket science, y'all ....

Product placement works - on WWAY news

I truly do not look for reasons to pick on WWAY. But the news item I saw last night about the local BMW dealer earning a 2007 "Center of Excellence Award" - from BMW, not some objective outside party - is the single worst instance of pandering I've ever seen.

I can't provide a link to the story, as they had the good sense not to post it on the website. But here's what I recall: it was an actual reporter package, with a soundbite from someone from BMW who looked like a deer in headlights, probably startled to have TV coverage of such absolute non-news. It was as gushy as if someone from UNC Wilmington had won the freaking Nobel Prize - ONLY the top 10% of dealers each year attain this pinnacle of customer satisfaction blah blah .....

OK, so there are about 350 BMW dealers in North America, which means that 35 of them won this award this year. In fact, a quick google finds that at least one other dealership in North Carolina won it this year - and they earned it in February, which I suspect would also be true of the local award. This award isn't for having the most kidney donors on staff. BMW says: "The Center of Excellence award is reserved for those dealers who excel in brand values and customer satisfaction while achieving key business objectives related to vehicle and parts sales. "

I wouldn't consider it worth a reporter package on the 6:00 news if they were named the very best BMW dealership in the country, but this is absolutely ridiculous. An internal company award is simply not real news, EVER and one announced four months ago isn't even slightly like news. If they want to buy commercial time and brag about it, that's fine, but it just doesn't get news coverage.

This was so transparently either a direct tie-in to an ad sale already made, or a big pitch to make one, that I almost lost my lunch. I suppose it's conceivable that an amateur news director might think it acceptable to call this news, but I simply can't believe the wall between ads and news has so completely crumbled.

'We Googled You'

RE: 'We Googled You,' Harvard Business Review Case and response from Danah Boyd

This is a very interesting case, because it bears out what I have been telling people much younger than I am for the past several years: the same wildly interconnected world of information that is making the second half of my own life so much more rewarding is making it no longer possible for those in succeeding generations to live down their youthful mistakes.

When I was 18, the drinking age, for beer at least, was 18. Of course, when I was 16 and 17, I drank beer along with my friends, who were also consuming other illicit substances. We didn't even have fake IDs, because we didn't have to worry much about getting carded - we'd either sneak in or go somewhere else.

In the next few years, I drove home many a night I shouldn't have, spent many a night where I shouldn't have, and generally had a real big time. I didn't get married until I was almost 30, didn't settle into my eventual career for a few more years, and never had children, so my misspent youth was a long one.

I won't say I never got caught doing anything bad, but at the time I got caught, the penalties were current, with only a couple of years of higher insurance premiums and the immediate embarrassment the worst of it. One friend, who had a major marijuana-dealing arrest that resulted in a short jail term and fairly long probation, went on to make lots of money in the fashion business. Another one nearly died of mortification when he was caught embezzling from his fraternal organization, lost his career and spent several months in jail, and today works just a few miles away in a very different field, and no one but his family knows about the crime.

Today, I am a staid, sedate, nigh-on-to prim, middle-aged, middle-class, middleweight lady with a nice professional job, who would be the perfect recruit for Al Qaeda: I am virtually invisible to everyone, and unless the authorities are patting down every single corpus that passes a particular point, I am virtually guaranteed to get by untouched if not entirely unnoticed.

A few old friends and I laugh uproariously when we get to recollecting our wild youths. But for those who have children themselves, the laughter often fades into nervous giggles, when we continue the conversation into the current impossibility of blotting out mistakes.

With the advent of both the internet - mainly the Googlable internet - and digital public records as well as news media, every little mistake has the potential to do what we used to joke about, go on your "permanent record," really. Every kid who gets into trouble for doing something stupid, whether it's buying beer with a fake ID or shoplifting, may pay for it for the rest of their lives. Today, not every little thing like that is recorded and searchable. But 10 years ago, who would have thought you could go to a website that would show you in seconds everything you wanted to know about every registered sex offender in the United States. In fact, some of the worst permanent-record smears young people are getting right now are on those rolls: in many places, a 16-year-old who has sex with someone a few months younger can end up there. I'm thinking that might be a real career-limiting move, before they even know what career they had in mind. Just ask Genarlow Wilson.

I don't know if it's a good thing to live down your past. Maybe if it's harder, people will learn when they're younger not to be so wild, but I'm not sure. I am sure that some people who are in their teens and early twenties right now will become the poster children for the new edition of the permanent record. You can see the draft version on their own places in cyberspace, where they brag about doing the things I mentioned above, with the difference being that the occasional nostalgic weekends my friends and I spend dredging the past out of our ever-dimming memories will be replaced by ever-bright and more or less incontrovertible digital proof, saved somewhere, by someone, maybe to appear when it's least helpful to the cause. I've been trying to warn the young people in my life, but they laugh. And their mothers giggle nervously while we're remembering our wild days.

Getting back to the Harvard Business Review case: I don't care whether Hathaway Jones hires Mimi Brewster or not. I don't much care about any of the people in that world, and my main question about the case as presented is this: Why doesn't anyone think it's wrong that Fred Westen is recruiting his prep-school buddy's daughter? If he would broaden his universe of candidate-seeking, maybe she wouldn't be the only one to choose from. But what do I know? I'm just a middle-aged, middle-class middleweight lady who'd be called matronly if you didn't know I don't have children .... and there's a good reason you don't know my real name!

Tougher penalties for killing police animals approved

Sometimes legislative remedies are overreactions, but sometimes they're not. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this one, but I think my desire to protect the dogs outweighs any thought that this might be overkill. Anyone who intentionally kills a police dog, first of all, is probably a pretty bad character to begin with and second, is just about as likely to kill a police officer as well.

The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. - Someone who willfully kills a K-9, seeing-eye dog or other law enforcement or assistance animal would be guilty of a felony and could serve prison time under a bill given final legislative approval Monday night. .... The bill was filed by Sen. A.B. Swindell, D-Nash, after last year's death of Danny, a K-9 police dog in Rocky Mount. The dog was shot and killed while chasing a suspect wanted on gun and cocaine possession charges.

This story certainly tips me in the direction of book-throwing - for a K9 officer to kill his own dog because he didn't perform up to par in a competition is on the same level as killing a child.

Miami-Dade police sergeant charged in death of K-9

11-year-old hunter bags 'monster pig' in Alabama / 'Monster Pig' was really farm-raised 'Fred'

I'm not sure what I can add to these two news stories. With the parts I have boldfaced as commentary, they are pretty self-explanatory.

Although I would like to add the dictionary definition of "feral," from Merriam-Webster Online:

a not domesticated or cultivated : WILD
b:having escaped from domestication and become wild

Poor Fred definitely doesn't meet either of those definitions, and for the wildlife officials to say otherwise is just wrong.

And to expand on the commentary indicated by the boldface, how can anyone call shooting any animal with a handgun hunting, especially the part about finishing it off point-blank? It would seem to me that if you can get close enough to shoot a pig with a handgun, he's clearly not wild. But it seems that there is a new sport of handgun hunting I haven't heard about. If you scroll to the end of this item, you will see that it's even more fun than that, another preteen boy killed one with a knife .... I'm sorry, but this is the end of civilization as I knew it.

While some may debate the morality of meat-eating, as long as we're doing it, there's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned hog-killing on a farm to understand where meat really comes from. But to make a sport of it out in the swamps and glorify the manliness and excitement of stabbing an animal to death just disgusts me.

UPDATE: I feel even less sorry for the "hunter" and his family - apparently in an effort to profit from their unsportsmanlike slaughter of handfed Fred, they faked the photos on the website they quickly put up - the photos which then were used by the media across the country.

From the Wilmington Star News:

Montgomery, Ala. | An 11-year-old Alabama boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail.
.....
Regardless of the comparison, Jamison is reveling in the attention over his pig, which has a Web site put up by his father - www.monsterpig.com - that is generating Internet buzz.
"It feels really good," Jamison, of Pickensville, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."
.....
He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot. Through it all there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation of doing.

"I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited," said Jamison, who just finished the sixth grade on the honor roll at Christian Heritage Academy, a small, private school.

This story really grossed me out to begin with, but it got worse in the next news cycle.

From ESPN:
'Monster Pig' was really farm-raised 'Fred'
Not-so-wild pig sold to Lost Creek Plantation four days before it was hunted down
FRUITHURST, Ala. — The huge hog that became known as "Monster Pig'' after being hunted and killed by an 11-year-old boy had another name: Fred.

The not-so-wild pig had been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the Lost Creek Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a 150-acre fenced area, the animal's former owner said.

Phil Blissitt told The Anniston Star in a story Friday that he bought the 6-week-old pig in December 2004 as a Christmas gift for his wife, Rhonda, and that they sold it after deciding to get rid of all the pigs at their farm.

"I just wanted the truth to be told. That wasn't a wild pig,'' Rhonda Blissitt said.

Mike Stone said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday that he had been under the impression that the hog was wild, not farm-raised.

Stone said state wildlife officials told him that it is not unusual for hunting preserves to buy farm-raised hogs and that the hogs are considered feral once they are released.

Stone said he and his son met Blissitt on Friday morning to get more details about the hog. Blissitt said that he had about 15 hogs and decided to sell them for slaughter, but that no one would buy that particular animal because it was too big for slaughter or breeding, Stone said.

Blissitt said that the pig had become a nuisance and that visitors were often frightened by it, Stone said. "He was nice enough to tell my son that the pig was too big and needed killing,'' Stone said. "He shook Jamison's hand and said he did not kill the family pet.'' The Blissitts said they didn't know the hog that was hunted was Fred until they were contacted by a game warden for the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. The agency determined that no laws were violated in the hunt.

Test Post from the Goat

OK Bella.I guess I'm on here!

Maybe we will have a dialog here ...

I am both flattered and touched that the denizens of my former hangout at the Star News forums miss me and want to come here to continue the conversation. I am not terribly fond of the idea of opening this to comments, but have decided to do it in the most restrictive way, to members of the blog only.

That means you have to send me an email, at bellsouth net, removing all the spaces of course, and I will then send you an invitation to become a member. You will get an invitation email with a link in it, and it seems to be pretty self-explanatory from there.

I just played around with it a little bit and it seems kind of annoying - you have to set up a Google account in order to accept the invitation to participate in the blog. It walks you through the process so it's not too much trouble, but some people do object to some of Google's privacy-invading policies.

Anyway, we'll see if anyone wants to be a guinea pig.

More fun with WWAY news

I really haven't been that critical of technical performance in the writing of regular people on blogs and forums, but because I've been such a stickler on facts and so forth, I got the Comma Doctor name I so enjoy. And I figured I need to live up to it a little bit.

I linked to this bio of news director Jack Pagano at WWAY in an earlier post about the stellar new anchor team he's put in place. Normally, I try to give a little quarter to the occasional typo, etc., but not when the guilty party is a news director, especially one in the process of pumping himself up so large. So here are my edits and comments - comments in [brackets] and edits in boldface or strikethrough.

Two things, to be clear: I have no connection to WWAY or Mr. Pagano, have never had any contact with him whatsoever. And these are only CORRECTIONS of what is actually WRONG with this bio - not even gonna try to critique the content and presentation beyond one or two minor moves of text.

Jack Pagano, WWAY-TV3 News Director

Jack comes to Wilmington after spending the past two and a half years in Iraq and Washington D.C., Jack worked as a government contractor, Ssenior Sstrategist/Eexecutive Pproducer (Gov’t Contractor)--
developing and producing high level information operations products in the Middle East.
He also trained Iraqi’s Iraqis [plurals don't need an apostrophe] in the art of producing television in a challenging and agile [don't think environments do a lot of jumping around - and not really sure what would be the correct word choice as I can't even discern what concept he intends to convey] environment. One of his highlights in Iraq--directing and producing, [delete comma here] “Baghdad My Love” [add comma here] a compelling and behavioral [what the hell does that mean?] music video that’s motivating and inspiring Middle East audiences.[to do what? kill more Americans?]

Jack has more than 28 years of civilian and military and documentary broadcasting experience. He has produced high level video work for Fformer Secretary of State GENen. Colin Powell,[delete comma here] and Oliver North,[add comma here] and for President’s [plurals still don't need an apostrophe] Bush and Clinton. Jack is a retired Army Llieutenant Ccolonel with extensive hands-on overseas experience, called back to active duty experience in: [absolutely no need for a colon here] Operation Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Jack’s commercial broadcasting experience includes stints as a Pentagon Ccorrespondent and Pproducer for FOX News, Eexecutive Pproducer at KDFW in Dallas, Texas, and Ppreproduction Pproducer/Ssupervisor at WSVN in Miami, Florida.

In 2005, Jack was a coordinating producer and videographer for Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson's 2-hour ABC TV special, "TOUR OF DUTY," that aired around the world in 2005. During that special[add comma here] Jack Pagano he shot and edited a music video that aired worldwide. The ABC primetime show aired May 23 and July 4, 2005 around the globe.

Pagano's began his broadcasting career began as an page at NBC Page in New York. He holds a B.A. degree in Communication from Seton Hall University.

He continues to seek out work that will inspire, educate, and empower audiences everywhere. Pagano is an award-winning producer,[delete comma here] who creates impassioned productions.

Jack’s vision and goal at WWAY-TV3:
Develop and produce stories and newscasts that educate, inform, motivate, empower, entertain and inspire. It’s all about "people" and the way they live and work in Wilmington. Make a difference every[add space here]day...

Scholarship contest teaches self-confidence

Star News

This is an exceptionally amateurish story. It builds expectation for some kind of revelation about our semi-Iranian neighbor, which never comes.

And why, pray tell, is the spotlight of a story about a scholarship contest on a non-winning competitor? I didn't call her a loser, because I am indeed impressed with her effort and do not wish to denigrate her accomplishment. But just because she's a cute blonde (actually, I'm not sure the photo accompanying the story online is her: the caption says "An aerial view looking North along Wrightsville Beach in 2005. " !!!) and apparently the writer thought her story was the most interesting doesn't mean she deserves the focus of the story. That should have been squarely on the WINNING competitors. Do a feature on her some other time, if you wish, but the story about the contest should be about the contest, I believe, and not give such short shrift to the actual winners.

Personally, I think the winning speech, while it may have been entertaining, sounds awfully fluffy to win a soberly named "Oratorical Contest." If they used an applause meter to pick the winners, that might make sense. It makes me wonder whether there is some back story to the judging process, like who is related to whom, and whether the "mission" orientation of the boy winner's speech contributed to his victory, that bears reporting on.

Finally, please get this reporter a dictionary and take away her thesaurus. The "patron" of an endeavor, when it means sponsor, remains the patron regardless of gender. Mrs. Williamson is NOT the "matron" of the event. If the writer, or editor, can't handle that conflict, then use sponsor or benefactor or supporter or namesake or donor. Matron is simply wrong. And while it was very big of you to actually mention who won, "discreetly ecstatic smile flitted" is about the stupidest description of a facial expression I've ever read outside of cheap romance fiction. It goes way beyond feature writing into the realm of treacle - use the dictionary on that one, too, while you're at it.

Personality features are nice, but fraught with the danger of showing inappropriate personal preferences on the part of the writer. This story succumbed to that danger.

A Reprieve for the Paddlewheel in Wilmington

Star News Forums

RE: A reprieve for the paddlewheel - editorial

See my post on the related news article here.

I'm disappointed that this editorial merely adds to the hot air about this issue. The museum "may want to use the paddlewheel in a fundraising campaign" is the best you can come up with?

Why don't you suggest that Mr. Merritt pull out his checkbook and keep the promise he made to throw in a big chunk of money to keep the boat here? You seem to be congratulating him for pulling personal political strings in pursuit of something personally important to him - isn't that the same as earmarks and pork and all the other political sins so often decried in these pages? Now that he got his way, there is no suggestion that he indeed bears responsibility for the expense.

To suggest as you do that the museum rethink all of its financial priorities and base a facility expansion on this boat is a real slap in the face to the people who run it. Are you laboring under the assumption that they have no strategic plans, that they have never considered what among their missions is important, and how much they could afford to achieve which of them?

I have no affiliation with the museum, in fact have barely set foot in it, but I've never heard anything to indicate that they are either clueless or profligate - rather that they do the best they can with very limited funding.

Americans often misuse the word "romantic" when what is being discussed is actually maudlin sentimentality. You have done precisely that here - if the romance with this boat were genuine, you and Mr. Merritt would have more to offer in terms of actual, financial support instead of this phony gushy love, like a baby-daddy who thinks he's doing his job when he brings a rose on Mother's Day but never sent a single support check.