Saturday, May 14, 2016

From The Macaroni Award-Winning Station


For the kids in the WOWO news room: 

Journalism/English 101: At a "ground breaking" the ground is "broken" not "broke".

Your English "needs fixed".


http://www.wowo.com/ground-broke-on-new-primary-care-parkview-health-clinic/


From your Macaroni award-winning station.....  The Chessiest!




"Macaroni Award"?  This might clear up the irony/satire for folks living in Kendall-tuckey:

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/29821024/wowo-wins-a-marconi-award


Monday, May 9, 2016

Facts, Pesky Little Bastards

The old media criticism of "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" is becoming the norm around these parts. 

Last week a number of local media outlets fell hook, like and sinker for a story of a benevolent individual who reportedly had purchased a vacant lot from the city for $208 and was offering accommodations to the homeless. The story soon fell apart when social media folks helped expose the individual's shady past including the fact that he had never purchased the property. Good intentions, but simple fact-checking might have saved embarrassment for WOWO, a few TV stations, and a well-regarded newspaper columnist. Ironically, a key factor in undoing the bogus story was information from the archives of the very media outlets who fell for the scam.  

Now, today, media is all excited to announce that the Ash Brokerage Skyline Parking garage is open for business. Just one problem.....the parking garage has been open for weeks. Today was merely an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. So, once again, our media gets the facts wrong....with the best of intentions.

Extra shame on WOWO calling city officials our city LEADERS. Come on, kids, we've talked about this before.


Here's 21Alive's story......oh, and the Maven can tell the new owners are cracking the whip when Jeff Bowman has to wear a tie. Sorry, dude. 


And bringing up the rear, literally and figuratively, WANE TV's effort....

Each story mentions the garage is now open....each story, from each media source is wrong since the garage, as noted above has been open for nearly a month. But, hell, who cares about facts when we have nice visuals of local politicians and their buddies looking good for the cameras and portraying themselves to be wonderful people?

Thursday, May 5, 2016

When In Doubt, Blame The Blonde

WANE TV's newsroom has a nasty habit of being lazy. They seem to no longer gather the news, they merely cut and paste their stories from government-provided releases, or poorly-written court documents. 

The latest crime against journalism:


The story smacks of sexism and stereotyping. One has to wonder why WANE TV didn't mention the woman's breast size. Oh, that's right, it was not mentioned in the "court papers". 

The only reason this story even made the air is that it's "cute". A blonde distracted the driver who hit the worker. If it was a brunette, would we even see this story at all? 

While one might argue that it's not WANE's fault, the blonde description is in the court papers. WANE TV chose to use that information to write an ignorant and sexist story. 

The Maven guesses they decided to give Tommy Schrader a day off, as he's been a 24/7 content for WANE TV since the election. 




Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Primary Night 2016

Primary Night 2016....

...Eric DeFreeuw talking at top speed, leaving sylables half spoken.

...a generic, local, female reporter juxtaposing candidates and their respective parties twice in her first paragraph.

...Democrat party operative Andy Downs masquerading as an objective political expert. Oh, Andy, please buy a tie. Tommy Schrader can offer some fashion tips.

....Jeff Neumeyer reporting live from an empty Republican Headquarters, but reassuring us that hours ago the place was packed. Really, it was, until everyone took off for Club Soda and left Jeff and is iPhone to wait for his 11pm live shot. 

And then there's the curious crawler appearing on WANE TV early in the evening which stated "Bernie Sanders has an 11,000 vote lead on Hillary Clinton, but Clinton-supporting counties yet to be counted". Then a few hours later, the crawler reported a 33,000 vote lead for Bernie. The Maven wonders, along with the kids in the WANE TV newsroom, just when those "Clinton" counties are going to kick in.