TV reports...

When the local TV sports guy finishes his piece with "we're awaiting further details on this report."

Is that the same as saying "after I read my newspaper in the morning, I'll pass along more on this?"

 

If they do read the paper, it's my experience they call the people who wrote the story and try to get info on their sources. It's also my experience they're told to take a long walk off a short pier.

 

Or you can do what the stations here do - just go with the story and forget about crediting where they found it from (AP, local papers).

 

Or if they're the reporter from the Big State Daily, they flat out tell you that they just look at the FB of your site and another competitor for their ideas now since they closed their bureaus.

 

TV reporters in this town are generally lazy....and if they get something wrong, oh well, it floats out over the airwaves and is gone in a nonasecond.

Flipped channels Sunday night to hear the TV sports anchor tell me that the Bulls led the Heat at halftime, 49-47 (nope it was 48-48).

Then the anchor tells me that the Cubs and Giants were rained out for the second day in a row (Saturday's game was rain-shortened but an official game).

Had to change channels before they told me Tiger Woods still was in the hunt for the win at the TPC. What a mope.

 

Yup, because print journalism NEVER gets it wrong.

Being a former TV sports guy that also did radio and has mixed in newsprint for the last decade, that's a low blow. Everyone makes mistakes...heck, we had a score wrong in our cap score today. It got fixed, but that's because we can.
Hell, you have a 'delete' button in front of you while you type. Can't do that with your voice.

Vice versa, I've watched our news desk watch the 6 p.m. news, hear about something we don't have and start pounding out info to get on our website. It happens the other way just as much...

 

That would be a fail. Been on both sides of the print/electronic divide in a mid-sized market with four TV outlets. Combined, they would average one item a week that our paper didn't have (and actually cared about).

Without the newspaper and our website, three of the four TV sports anchors would have less to say than Marcel Marceau during a nap.

 

In my experience, most TV reporters, especially sports, are relatively lazy when it comes for looking for story ideas or news breaks.

Even look at ESPN, SportsCenter or BottomLine usually says "Yahoo! Sports reports ... " or whatever other outlet when it comes to breaking news. Generally when ESPN claims to scoop a story, it's when a reporter / analyst who has a background with a pro team does it. Adam Schefter broke the McPower Trip being fired story, and he used to work for the Post.