Monday, December 24, 2007

There’s Someone at the Door

Paul Giacobbe

There are few issues as troubling as those which arise when a reporter, seeking an interview, appears unannounced at the home of a news subject.  In a previous blog posting there was a discussion about the ethical and sensitivity problems that are associated with visits to the homes of crime or accident victims, or their families.

Recently, a viewer complained that an NBC10 reporter, seeking an interview, went to the home of fired state EMA director Robert Warren on the night Mr. Warren was terminated from his job as a result of the problems following the midday snowstorm and resulting traffic gridlock.

“I feel the reporter going to his home was outrageous,” the viewer wrote. “Mr. Warren was then a private citizen who must have been very embarrassed by his very public firing.  This must have been a difficult, unfortunate day for him and his family and I feel the journalist was way out of line intruding on them at their home.“

Television is a visual medium.  To reporters, that’s both an advantage and a burden. Telling a news consumer what an interviewee said is OK, but letting them see and hear for themselves is at the heart of what television news does.  A television reporter can’t do that with a phone call; he has to be there, cameraman and microphone in tow.

I’m generally uncomfortable with video that shows a reporter walking unannounced to the porch of a news subject’s home, camera rolling, and asking the unsuspecting person who opens the door for an interview.  In many cases, especially when the news subject or a family member refuses the interview, the video serves no other purpose than to show that the reporter was there.  It is, essentially, marketing; it conveys no useful information.

But, as lawyers sometimes say, “Bad cases make bad law.”  For those who favor the position that it is wrong for a reporter to show up unannounced at the home of a news subject, as did the NBC10 reporter who sought to interview the fired EMT director, the Warren example is a “bad case.”

Warren was a public employee, and relatively highly paid.  He had consented to an extensive radio interview the day he was fired.  He was fired under circumstances that many people, including Mr. Warren himself, may have felt were unfair.  It was not unreasonable that a prudent reporter (or news director) would want not only to ask Mr. Warren some questions, but provide Mr. Warren the opportunity to tell his story.  A newspaper reporter can do that with a phone call; a television reporter needs the pictures.

Additionally, although it happened after the viewer wrote in defense of Mr. Warren’s privacy, Warren gave a lengthy interview to a newspaper reporter.  Had the NBC10 reporter not gone to Mr. Warren’s home, that reporter would have wondered whether he missed the opportunity for that interview.

Cameras-rolling “ambush interviews,” which sometimes include jamming a microphone under the face of an unsuspecting news subject who opens up the door, are not an appropriate newsgathering technique.  But that wasn’t the case here, and Mr. Warren’s voluntary radio and (subsequent) newspaper statements, suggest that appearing at his home and requesting an interview was simply good reporting.

NBC10 provides the space for this blog, but the opinions are mine alone – Paul Giacobbe.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I Know It When I Hear It

by Paul Giacobbe

Tom, a RISD student who admits a bias when it comes to stories about art, emailed that he thought that this week’s story about the sound installation of bird noises at the Kent County Courthouse helped reinforce a stereotype that art, especially abstract or installation art, “is either for a narrow audience or a waste of public funds.”

The story, by I-Team reporter Jim Taricani, said that the state had paid $106,000 for the installation of a sound system that replayed bird sounds,  recorded by a California artist at the Norman Bird Sanctuary, along the walkway between the courthouse and an adjacent parking garage.

“I just felt like this story helped perpetuate the idea of ‘we don’t get it, so it must be a waste’ in regard to the art,“  Tom wrote.  .  .  “I just feel that not understanding something (especially something of incredible subjective determination) is not an adequate reason for a sweeping condemnation or critique.”

Taricani, who admitted to a little tongue-in-cheek aspect to the report, said the story arose from more than one courthouse employee who complained about the sound.  He said he never criticized either the art or the artist, but instead raised the question about the cost of the project. 

Tom agreed the $100,000 cost was a valid issue, and would have preferred the money to be spent on the work of local artists But he said he was concerned that “modern art is discredited on the basis that it looks like something anybody can do,” and, as a result, “it’s not worth spending money on.”

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Gridlock . . . or 30 Rock

by Paul Giacobbe

The heck with hundreds of Providence schoolchildren stranded on buses, the interminable commutes and interstates-as-parking-lots, to some viewers the preemption of seven minutes of 30 Rock was Thursday night’s most significant crisis.

A 30 Rock fan was upset that NBC10 had robbed him “of a half hour of joy” because he was unable to watch 30 Rock in its entirety, and also because the storm announcements which ran on-screen throughout the evening shrunk the 30 Rock viewing area.

“I consider TV news to be obnoxious and simple but this is not typically a problem for me because I’m not required to watch it,” the 30 Rock fan wrote, but by keeping storm announcements on the screen “you required me to watch it, which was quite frustrating.”

I am, I’ll admit, not a 30 Rock fan but if I was I’d sacrifice a little inconvenience to provide frequent updates for those people who had loved ones tied up in traffic, kids on school buses, or who needed a constant visual reminder NOT to go out.

Several viewers felt that NBC10 reporters did not ask the tough questions of state and Providence officials.  Why weren’t school closings more coordinated?  Why weren’t businesses asked to stagger closings?  Why weren’t police directing traffic, since much of the gridlock was caused by people creeping into, and blocking, intersections.

Bill Hudson wrote:  “I was amazed that no one challenged (Mayor Cicilline) about the city’s response to the situation.  The softball questions .  .  . (that) allowed him to cite irrelevant statistics about the number of snow plows . . . failed to get at the reality of what was happening .  .  . No one thought to ask him about what the city and the police department were doing to relieve what was the main problem – the gridlock on the city’s streets.”

Terrence McCarthy wrote to suggest that it was inappropriate and not objective for the reporter who was stuck in Thursday’s gridlock to announce, on Friday night’s news broadcast, that “this is a BIG story” and to characterize the previous night’s traffic mess as “outrageous.”  He further injected himself into the story, the viewer wrote, by mentioning during an interview with the mayor that “he (the reporter) is a parent.”

Mr. McCarthy also asked the question that, if asked by others, has certainly not been prominently reported:  What would happen if there was a terror attack, or warning, that triggered an attempted mass exodus from the city.  Would once again all the schools and businesses dismiss at the same time?

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Wait a Minute

by Paul Giacobbe

Most of the time the complaints are like this:  With five weathermen, and all that sophisticated equipment, why can’t anyone tell me for sure if it’s going to rain within the next 24 hours?  Well, it’s not, as any of the weather folk would likely say, an exact science, and whether one’s using a VIPIR or a gut feeling that comes from watching New England weather for 30 years, Mother Nature has a way of occasionally making even the best look silly.

Nevertheless, the weather reports generate a fair amount of Viewer Voice complaints even though they don’t fall within the fairness, accuracy and balance criteria.  (Accuracy, maybe, but I think we’re talking a different kind of accuracy when it comes to news reporting and weather forecasting.)

John D’Onofrio of Coventry recently emailed a typical complaint:

Since when did the daily weather report become a science lesson.  Even worse, why does the weather report have to be in two parts.  Most people want to hear the weather, they don’t want to be teased with a 3 minute overview (which by they way, never actually gives the weather).
I realize that this is an attempt to keep viewers tuned in so you can sell more advertising, but I think it may actually have the opposite effect.  Most people can get their weather instantly by tuning to channel 800 or 126 on Cox Cable.  In our house we constantly get frustrated by the 10-15 minutes of weather we have to listen to, just to hear the five day forecast.  We just change the channel.
Please, reevaluate this practice.  I realize that Channel 10 needs all of the advertising revenue it can get, but there must be a better way to keep viewers tuned in.

Another viewer called in with a complaint about the way the temperatures are displayed around the state.  Does it make a difference, he asked, that it was 36 degrees in Newport, 34 in Warwick and 33 at the Harmony Hill School?

There are a significant number of viewers who watch their local news only for the weather.  It’s hard to believe, I know, that there are those that care more about precipitation than politics, more about moving fronts than movie stars.  For those people, the news department has determined it’s important to have a weather segment in both the first and second 15 minute segment of the news program.  For those of us who just want to know if we need a raincoat or an overcoat, just sit back, be patient and wait:  Like the New England weather, the view on the screen will change in a minute.