It's interesting to hear/see (mostly hear) breaking news outside your window and then see how the local TV stations react to it. Yesterday's shooting at the corner of Fourth Ave. and E St. in downtown San Diego--literally spitting distance from my window, if the wind is with me--became last night's lead story on all the stations. You can read my original post here.
When it comes to airtime, San Diego TV news has shrunk in the past few years. Only NBC 7/39 is on the air at 4:30-5:00pm these weekdays. Channel 10 is partying with Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Channel 8 is whooping it up Oprah-style. KUSI (sorry...make that K-YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-SI) doesn't have one of it's 10,000 daily news shows with blond female anchors and their aging male counterparts (seriously...that station's news shows looks like a trophy wife reunion) on until 6:00pm. So NBC 7/39 was the only station on the air live with the breaking news story of the homeless man shot downtown after brandishing a steak knife that he stole from a local restaurant.
The station is also the only one located in downtown San Diego. In fact, they're located just a block away from the shooting. (They too are within spitting distance, and trust me: news reporters can spit. I knew this guy in Pittsburgh who carried a styrofoam cup around to always spit his chaw out. But I digress.) Within 2 minutes of the shooting a helicopter was overhead. I'm not sure if it was police or a news organization. Within 8 minutes of the shooting, NBC 7/39 had a "reporter" on the scene with a cellphone.
And that was their fatal mistake. Because the person on the phone was clearly not a reporter, she was an assignment editor. And she had to only utter ONE word on live TV to make that distinction perfectly clear. Don't get me wrong: When I worked in TV news, I loved the assignment editors. (One in particular, and she taught me a valuable life lesson: you get just as many flies with honey as you do with shit. That's why she was so good at what she did.)
So there's the very professional and well-spoken Catherine Garcia throwing to the assignment editor on the phone. And what comes back--to everyone's surprise, I'm guessing, especially Catherine Garcia--is this sing-songy "HELLLLLLLLLLL-O!" We're then treated to a Valley Girl rendition of a crime scene with "a guy" laying in the street, and the "guy" might be homeless and the "guy" might be dead.
Needless to say, the report was cut short. NBC 7/39 went to commercial break, reported on a few more stories, then threw back to the live shooting scene and the voice on the other end of the phone was that of a much more authoritative male, using official news-type words like "allegedly," "assailant," and "steak-knife." Cooler heads evidently prevailed.
So, kudos to NBC 7/39 for reacting so quickly to local breaking news, especially when it's right around the corner from them. Oh, and next time? Don't react so quickly. Or at least don't send the assignment editor. I'm hoping that the producer who yelled "YOU! Grab a cellphone and get over there NOW!" is still sitting in a corner in a well-deserved time-out. Because breaking news is so much better when it's reported by someone who doesn't break it even more.
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