Pilot Error

Today's piece over at the Daily Banter takes a look at KTVU's massive screw-up and the station's reaction to it. Bottom line: It's not doing enough to make amends to the audience.

Here's the opening shot:

"As much as I want to let this story go, I can't. I just can't. I still find myself shaking my head on occasion at the sheer impossible absurdity of it, suddenly stopping whatever it is I'm doing to say out loud to nobody, "How in the hell could they have let that happen?" I sometimes wonder if I'm actually more incensed than KTVU News Director Lee Rosenthal is that his news department somehow -- for reasons no one with a brain let alone a working knowledge of a broadcast newsroom will ever fully comprehend -- allowed four obviously phony, racially insulting Asian pun names to go out over the air last Friday. Word has it Rosenthal's a good guy, but dear God, this mistake is so painfully embarrassing -- it's so far beyond anything in recent memory in terms of the systemic breakdown it exposed -- that I'm not sure he shouldn't do the honorable thing and throw himself on a nearby sword just as a matter of principle. I'm the most cynical guy in the world when it comes to an opinion of local news. With a few notable exceptions, I think it's crap, an often ineptly executed long con run by media company hustlers desperate for ratings dollars and shilled by shitty consultants who get paid a fortune to make every station in America look exactly alike. I long ago gave up expecting local news to be smart or to create anything resembling journalism. But this -- this gargantuan fuck-up confounds even my lowly expectations."

Read the Rest Here

It should be noted that someone made a really good point after the column, in the comment section, that my opinion doesn't seem to take into account cutbacks that have basically stripped most local newsrooms clean of personnel. In other words, yes, it's entirely possible that rather than going through a lot of hands and being subjected to the kinds of checks and balances an item would've been just a few short years ago, a story truly can be put on air without any real oversight these days. I've worked in a local newsroom since the 2008 crash, what led media companies to cut back on staffing for practical purposes and eventually gave them an excuse to keep cutting just to be bottom-line-hungry assholes. I know it's rough out there; it's a far cry from they way things were when I started my own local news career 22 years ago. But KTVU is still almost a top-five market station owned by Cox Media, so I have to imagine it's got at least a modicum of staffing. If it turns out, however, that the Asiana pilots' names screw-up really is due to personnel having been stripped to the bone -- with whoever's left now doing the jobs of the people eliminated and focused mainly on just getting the damn show on the air -- then I hope this is a lesson to those media companies pursuing profits above all else. It won't be a lesson, because most really don't give a crap, but a man can dream.

Assistant To the Assistant Quote of the Day

"Don’t piss off your mother-in-law is the moral of the story."

-- (Now former) WCBS anchor Rob Morrison, who was arrested over the weekend and charged with trying to strangle his wife, CBS Moneywatch anchor Ashley Morrison

Really? That's the moral of the story? Not, "don't try to choke out your wife?"

Morrison, who lives outside New York City, says he called his mother-in-law, who lives in Indiana, to ask for help in supposedly ending a fight between him and his wife. She thoughtlessly repaid his act of charity, I guess, by calling the cops, who quickly arrived to find Ashley Morrison with fresh red marks in the shape of hands around her neck and Rob Morrison looking like he'd just face-planted into the sidewalk. While in police custody, Rob reportedly said that he'd kill his wife as soon as he was free.

In case you haven't guessed, issues between the Morrisons go back years and feature plenty of drunken drama and accusations of infidelity on the part of Rob Morrison, who's kind of a legendary horn-dog.

Rob's now resigned from WCBS, although he probably would've been fired because -- conveniently for the HR department -- he lied about why he called in sick the day after his arrest. Ashley, meanwhile, is wisely being quiet.

So there you have it once again: either TV news is, as I've said many times, a business that attracts damaged, amoral shitheads like bugs to black-light or Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are actually assassins who use their roles as high-profile news anchors as cover and this was just a result of finding out they had been ordered to kill each other.

Update: You know how crazed Chris Brown fans always come out of the woodwork to defend him with 140-character nightmares of grammar on Twitter every time anyone says anything bad about him (like say, pointing out that he's an abusive, arrogant, comically self-pitying little cunt who deserves to have someone beat his ass into the ground)? Well, it looks like Team Moreezy is now in full effect. This is, I swear, one of the greatest internet comments I've ever read because it inadvertently says so much more about the personal history and state-of-mind of the commenter than it does about Rob Morrison or how the guy feels about him. From Mediabistro this morning comes someone who calls himself "Rob Morrisons Advocate." Gentlemen... behold:

A few areas of consideration and recommendatrions for Rob and Ashley Morrison:

1. Never, ever, ever, allow your in-law parents to live in or stay in the house. The facts are that parents of the female, inherently hate the male, because they know well that the male is having sex with thier daughter.

2. Never, ever, ever, move or reside in Darien, Connecticut. The Police Department is corrupt. They exagerate and sensationalizes the facts to the press/media. For example, (and admittedly, not the best comparison) if you were going 30 mph in a 20 mph, the Darien Police (specifically Captain Frederick Komm) will report to the media that you were doing 60 mph in that 20 mph. Darien Police love this stuff and will turn out in droves to a call like this.

3. How about the following defenses:
- Rough drunken sex? (Oh those big jugs swinging in my face, what I wouldn't do).
- She was depressed and wanted to commit suicide and Rob came to her rescue, only to be assaulted by her?
- They were both drunk, were dancing and fell and got scraped up? (Happens all the time).
- It was not her who assaulted him at all. It happened somehow else?

4. Rob, don't ever appologize to the Darien Police. We know that Journalists work hand in hand with the Police every day, because the media needs the Police to cooperate with them for content. While I applaud you for giving these cops a piece of your mind, when they were arresting you and literally and knowingly ruining your life, as the $h!T was about to hit the proverbial fan. I am disappointed that you appologized to them. Darien Police are liars, underhanded, break the laws themselves, deny residents of thier Constitutional Rights and participate in a "Good Ol' Boys mentality in this town. They dig people into a deeper hole than they may already be in. Retract your appology to the Darien Police, because they are nothing more than a bunch of immoral scum, who passed thier Police exam and commute in from thier home town of Bridgeport every day, to arrest people whom have worked hard to move to a prestigious community, by studying in school, getting good marks, and being a success for thier employers whom inturn reward the shareholders. And here we have a bunch of low life men and women, whom hide behind the guise of a badge and uniform aka the Darien Police, ruining successful peoples lives.

5. Now the person who you can genuinely thank for all of this is your dear Mother-In-Law, MARTHA RISK. She knew that by calling 911, that she would ruin, destroy and obliterate your fine reputation as a journalist. She knew or had to have known that her actions would have ended up splattering your face across the internet, newspapers, radio and TV, etc. forever engrained on the internet, and awarding you, your "MASTER STATUS" in life. MARTHA RISK branded Rob MORRISON a Drunk, Psycopath, wife beater, Felon, and Strangler.

6. Now I will tell you that most healthy relationships consist of some fighting. I am not condining what may have happened in your situation, however, the fact is that we are human and it happens from time to time. My father used to call me and my brothers and sisters down to the living room from time to time, for a slam, just to keep us in shape, as he put it. Around the time that the Women's Liberation Movement was born in the 1960's from second wave feminists, society began condeming domestic abuse in the household. Today, domestic abuse is regarded up there with petaphiles,

7. So the worst part of this is that Mama, Martha Risk, stuck her nose where it did not belong and got you busted, in retaliation for what she believes that you have done to her dare, precious, blond daughter in the past. Well you know what??? PEW and PEE on Martha Risk.
8. Incidentally, why does Mary Calvi, the former NEWS Who? Anchor have this giddy eat 5h!T grin on her face over the last couple of days. I can't stand that Mary Calvi. Way over rated.

9. Now lets talk about Ms. Ashley Morrison? Why wasn't she arrested and thrown into the POKEY of humiation at the Darien PD. With all of the blood and scratches that you had on your face, she certainly should have been arrested and tarred and feathered in the media too. WHY? Because the Darien Police (Chief Duane Lovello), have a highly unusual style of running a police department. It would not surprize me if your dear mother in-law MARTHA RISK was not calling from another state, when she called in her complaint. Because the Darien Police, do these things and give the weight and the benefit of the doubt to the skirt.

10. My suggestion to you is to get out of DARIEN! ! ! You will be watched and harassed by the Police there. They are not your equals or your friends, remember they are a bunch of Misfits from Bridgeport, who passed the police exam and now carry a badge and can't wait to bust guys our age, to earn thier stripes.

Incidentally, what normal guy does not like looking at PORN? What normal guy does not like getting drunk? You see this is the propoganda that the Darien Police Department and its Spokesperson, Captain Frederick Komm feed to the media. This is another reason why I don't like them, because they are so PERFECT.

Good Luck!

If this guy isn't Morrison's attorney by tomorrow morning, I have no faith left in the universe.

Graphic Enhancement

This is easily my favorite thing of the day.

When ABC 7 News in Denver ran a story yesterday about the now inescapable David Petraeus sex scandal, it used an image of Petraeus's book that had been, shall we say, somewhat photoshopped. While the real name of the book of course is All In, which in and of itself is fucking hilarious -- as Jim Norton says, the equivalent of calling it Balls Deep -- the title on the photoshopped cover 7 News showed was All Up in My Snatch.

The station admitted to the mistake and is now effusively apologizing, claiming that one of its graphics people simply grabbed a Google Image Search picture off the internet without really looking at it. The folks at Americablog, among others, are skeptical of this excuse, saying that they tried several times to get the image in question to come up quickly during a search but couldn't.

You know, I worked in local news for a long time and if there's one thing I learned it's to never underestimate the ability of the first-job-out-of-college kids to fuck something up in ways you never even thought possible.



I rest my case.

Picture of the Day

I can't think of a worse way to go.

(via Simon Owens)

Quote of the Day

"If you don't live in Los Angeles then you are really missing out on KTLA news. Imagine that a group of people all moved to Hollywood to be actors and actresses then decided to fall back on their Communications degrees 6 years later and accept jobs at the local news station. Can you imagine what that would be like? Okay, that's every other news station in Los Angeles. KTLA is worse.

This is the group of anchors that are still auditioning for Allstate commercials on the side. They are not giving up on their dreams and that 6:00 AM news program is their potential ticket to fame. Unfortunately, somebody assigned them a story about Shake Weights."

-- The Tosh.0 Blog

It's a juvenile joke that's been done to death by now, but there are admittedly a couple of pretty amusing moments in this, my favorite being the poor reporter's plea to "God, go to the clip -- please."



As for the quote itself, I hate to get hyper-local but if you've ever gotten the chance to watch the KTLA morning show you know that that's the most dead-on description of it pretty much ever.