dumb reporter anecdotes

It's not nice to laugh at others' idiocy, but it sure is funny.

Back when I worked at the Podunk Daily Herald, I sat next to a really dumb news reporter. He was funny as hell because he had gone to Kansas and he thought that his B.A. from KU somehow erased his stupidity.

So one day I'm plowing through track agate and I hear him doing a telephone interview.
"Yes, General, I see."
"So General, what do you think of......"
"One more question, General...."
and finally,
"Thanks very much for your time, General. Have a good day."

We didn't talk to military officers all that often, so I was curious as to who he had interviewed.

irish: Say, if you don't mind my asking, who were you just talking to?
KU grad: The State Attorney General.

Anyone else have an amusing tale of journalistic buffoonery?

 

There's quite a few of these in the stupid questions asked thread (which I'm sure you're aware of), but one that always struck me as funny...

Weird, very edgy reporter was sitting at his desk. My sister, the publisher's secretary at the time, was at the back door and dumped out an enormous cup of ice near the entrance. When she came in, she jokingly said to the reporter, "Hey, there's hail outside. Check it out."

Reporter literally stood up on top of two desks in his rush outside, where he promptly leapt into his car and moved it under an awning.

 

I once worked with a guy who wrote 40 inches on an Indiana State softball game. I don't know that that's really dumb, but we had to cut it down to 8 inches b/c that was the size hole we had left by the time he finally finished. The page with the 15-inch hole we'd told him to write for had an earlier deadline and was already gone.

 

that made me laugh out loud. that's really funny to think of general alberto gonzalez

 

R U ready?

 

I was covering the NCAAs a few years back where they make you identify yourself before you ask a question.

The guy raises his hand, gets the mic...

"Coach, Jack Michaels, Maryland Gazette, can you talk about what your seniors have meant to this team?"

The coach answers.

The PR flak comes for the mic. The reporter asks if he can ask a follow-up.

"Coach, Jack Michaels, Maryland Gazette can you comment on Player X of your opponent?"

PR guy returns and the guy asks if he can ask one of the players a question. At this point, half the room have their heads buried in their hands... The guy still hasn't given up the mic...

"Player X, Jack Michaels, Maryland Gazette, can you comment on..."

As soon as he identified himself for a third time in about 90 seconds, I think you could hear every other writer in the room sigh in disgust...

 

Two words for anyone in the Midwest: Bill Halls.

Nice guy, but when your nickname is "cement" you know there's going to be something goin gon./

 

Sportschick, are you from Indiana? I am an Indiana State grad so I found this to be really funny and wondered if it ran in the Terre Haute rag.

 

I'm sorta, kinda, in a round-about way from Indiana, and yes, that story did run in the Trib-Star, and remains a source of humor for a couple of us who once worked there.

 

Got two of 'em...

1) After a high school baseball game, I was standing in the infield with a sports writer for the major metro. We're chatting while waiting for the teams to break their postgame huddle, and he asks me "How come they only played seven innings?"

2) At the Podunk Press, we have an old guy who's been there for probably 30-plus years and is always good for a funny story now and then. One time, he calls up a guy on the phone and says "Hey Bill, this is Crusty McCrust from the Podunk Press...Hold on, let me grab a pencil so I know who I'm talking to."

 

Not a dumb reporter anecdote, but it happened today when I was in the ad wing: One of the reps, a guy who we call Dwight (yep, he has the glasses and German heritage) started doing push ups right there in the office. I sat down on his back.