Under The APS Investigation Atlanta Media Circus Tent

As I’ve died and gone to Atlanta media circus heaven lately it’s been hard to break away to play ringmaster by providing the necessary, critical blog posts. Facebooking and Twitter alone are about to do me in.

Honestly, I’ve been having too much fun sitting back with my peanuts and cotton candy watching from here in the cheap seats. But someone’s gotta play local TV news farm media critic in this town, other than @RichardsDoug; and there is, of course, no one better qualified to do so than me.

Thus, let me take a moment to pry open the laptop and reflect on just last night’s Atlanta local TV media hightlights and lowlights before I go back in for more. (Thank goodness for that new, 4-5pm block from Channel 2, eh?)

Last night WSB-TV, or WizBee or Death Star Two as it’s called in the biz around here, was on disjointed fire! When they open a 6pm with longtime, hysterical crime reporter Mark Winne (his Facebook fan page is here) rest assured we’re going to be served drama.

The local TV news station that can’t do ’em some news drama, in a city as ragingly dysfunctional as Atlanta, is just dead to me. Otherwise, why bother to exist? Anyway… getting to the point.

Winne led-off with pretty good shrieking over the hilariously mule-headed refusals by a few implicated (now kinda sorta fired) APS school administrators to… go down without a public fight. I think they were bellowing for a publicized *hearing*, whatever the heck that is. Good luck with that tall order.

The best part was a replay of Winne grilling, weeks ago, one of the most mule-headed APS admins fingered in the whole royal cheating mess, Tamara Cotman.

Low and behold, Cotman was, once again, right up in our living rooms. Still looking slouched down and bloated from all the investigatory stress and educator cake she’s been consuming over the years, defensive and sliding down a slippery conference room leather chair slope of no-where-else-to-go prayer.

Cotman was posed in the classic ATL local TV media perp tableau – lawyer on one side, Mark Winne leaning in with a question on the other. Talk about media places you never want to be seen in this town.

Bless her tired, stressed, cake-laden heart. I almost felt sorry for her, as, so far, Jesus has yet to come to her emotional or otherwise rescue. Maybe next year. Keep those prayers and cards and letter coming, Atlanta!

I Spy Scandals In ATL Media

There are two lovely, slaphappy, public office-related messes playing-out right now in Atlanta you won’t want to miss a moment of: the APS cheating scandal and Governor Deal’s trail of dubious dealings.

Thing is, the media attentions applied to both situations are so random and all-over-the-place it’s like Dick Cheney on a quail hunt; you never know where the shots are coming from, nor what they’re going to hit.

There is no clearinghouse of information, so you’re bound to miss something… if you’re not paying close attention.

Investigative journalism is an odd bird. Although news farms like to say they get their content from some pristine well of hard work, that’s not really the case.

Most get their news from the other news farm down the street. And most scandals erupt because people are gossipy tattletales and can’t keep a secret.

And sometimes people will even tell a journalist if they’re a hardcore whistleblower with stuff like paperwork to flaunt, and not just your common trash-talker over at Manuel’s.

But ultimately, it’s up to a near-solo, working journalist to keep the fires of an investigative situation burning… with loads of  seasoned skepticism and doubt mixed-in with better-than-yours sources.

Says longtime, Atlanta investigative reporter, Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered and the AJC :

The trick is to know your topic thoroughly, keep asking questions when things don’t add up, and sometimes even when they seem to. Focus on what people have done, not what they say they’ve done. And do not assume that the most likely explanation is correct, or at least 100% correct. There are nuances to everything.

Atlanta TV News Snowcoverage 2011

Never one to be left behind when it comes to self-promotion, WSB-TV goes for a high school yearbook approach. (See pic.) Oh please don’t let them slap that on a billboard!

I had to drag my friend/neighbor Jenna away from the TV news Snowpocalypse coverage so we could take the kids to our neighborhood Willy’s for tacos last night. I really needed to get out of the house, but I needed a Willy’s margarita even more. But I know it’s hard to tear yourself away even for cocktails, as local news has been some of the most compelling TV going this snowbound week of non-stop coverage.

There’s my fave, Mark Winne, who’s been pulled-off the crime beat to go chat-up DeKalb County snow plow drivers now stuck in drifts alongside the road. Drink when Winne blurts *crime doesn’t take a day off* because he will inevitably say that, for your entertainment purposes.

And there’s top shelf material, WSB-TV’s Richard Belcher, finally catching-up with someone possessing half-a-brain from GDOT (Georgia Department of Transportation). If anything needs a top-to-bottom media overhaul it’d be GDOT, eh?

Then there’s Hullinger over at WXIA chasing GDOT’s Vance Smith all the way down to the Gold Dome basement. Snort! And Wizbee’s (what industry insiders call WSB-TV) pol-gal Lori Geary talking poll results from pollster Matt Towery about who out there stuck inside (with a land line) thinks GDOT is doing a heck of a job, Brownie. (Only the old folk, of course).

Local TV news in Atlanta during this wild winter storm of January ’11 is a wacky ride of knowledgeable, experienced reporting combined with can’t-go-wrong images that even an ancient, union cameraman can halfheartedly point and shoot in a general direction and still get great snow-covered video.

Like the Catholic Church’s ad campaign to get folk back despite a pedophilia problem, now’s the time to come home to local TV news. It may not get this good until the next big *snow event*…. what Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed calls this icy mess we hope will melt away by King Day.

Media Matters Regarding ATL and Snow

Atlanta bloggers (me and Charlie of Peach Pundit) analyze Atlanta Snowpocalypse on 11Alive/WXIA. January 12, 2011. And boy was it an adventure! Driving to the station and back. Not a whole lot of adventure in this *debate* though. Maybe some other time.

Local TV News Directors Speak to the Atlanta Press Club

Local TV News Directors Ellen Crooke, WXIA; Budd McEntee, WAGA; Marian Pittman, WSB and Steve Schwaid, WGCL spoke at an Atlanta Press Club Newsmaker Luncheon on June 9, 2009.

“There Was No Crime Scene Tape Involved.”

Ellen Crooke, news director of NBC affiliate WXIA, discusses local news coverage at an Atlanta Press Club event.

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Atlanta Gas Availability Info – Use Twitter

Best place for real-time gas availability updates in the metro Atlanta area remains Twitter. You can subscribe to the #atlgas hash tag for your news reader, and keep a real-time availability update right on your desktop or cell. Couldn’t be easier.

Too bad ATL MSM are too arrogantly ignorant about social media and crowd sourcing apps and tools to be able to inform their audience and readership about such kinds of consumer-friendly tips and tricks. Wasn’t like they hadn’t been warned. Pity.

While WXIA has cleaned-up it’s map act of gas availability some (all pins are now a neutral blue), it’s still cumbersome. Other TV stations and media are still linking only to that bulky gas price site, the one that gives no information about gas availability.

WABE informed their listenership today about the gas price site with some bizarrely lame aside of “if you are able to get online.” Like they have a listenership of only the elderly and severely disabled? Maybe they do… come to think about it.

But fer chrissake WABE, this is a gas shortage in a major metropolitan area, not a freakin’ natural disaster in Haiti! Who among the WABE listenership does not have “online availability” in some capacity? Other than some Luddite-weirdo types who might adore 6 hours of classical music a day, but I’m starting to diverge…

And this is what passes for “continuous coverage of the gas crisis” at Channel 46. No shit. Jeez Atlanta media… this is like handing out media maxi-pads when the sleek OBs are right on the other shelf.

Sunday 9/27 12:18pm UPDATE: AJC now sending all their (claimed) ga-zillions of eyeballs off the Cox Media Plantation (see title/link “Real Time: Where To Find Gas”) and over to Twitter Farm to give their “audience” what they want right now: those priceless real time gas availability updates. LMAO and cue the Peter, Paul and Mary.

CRASS APPEAL FOR YOUR EYEBALLS!!! Now that I’ve got ’em here… please take a moment and click-on a cool video promo for the upcoming Oct. 4th 688/Metroplex reunion show. It’ll make you happy, I promise.

HERE’S AN AD:

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Contact WaySouth Media, Inc.: gdaughters at waysouthmedia dot com.

We’ll set you up online-right at WaySouth Media!

Lack of Social Media Awareness and Tools Has Local TV News Failing Consumers In A Crisis

A complete failure to keep up with technological advances and the needs of the citizenry via social media tools and citizen journalism applications is making Atlanta TV stations look like media dino imbeciles… at a time when they could be serving the community in a real-time way.

Bless their heart, WXIA is trying to let people know, via a map on TV and on their website, WHERE available gas is in the city, but when I checked it, the citizens’ posts located under the map appear to have been last updated yesterday. And not everyone looking at the site might not know to click-on the green or red arrows to see when info at that particular arrow/place was last updated.

Besides, when you do click on a green arrow for a particular station, you see that it/the info was, in some cases, last updated 20 hours ago! Or was presented/updated to show NO gas about 2-hours ago, yet the arrow remains green in color. (For “Go” presumably.) But hey, bad information is better than NO information? In this particular case, I think not.