Journalists shot, killed in Virginia during live shot

Just watching the actual news station feed is haunting enough, and yes, the screen shot is much worse. She was just there, doing her job, smiling. Normal day stuff. Hears the first shot and you just see it all go away. It's a very real representation of here one second, gone the next. And a lot of people got to see it first hand. I witnessed two helicopters crash into each other eight years ago. Everyone on board died. To this day I sometimes picture it and think how there was life there and then there wasn't. And that I saw people in their last seconds. It's just a tough thing no matter what.

 

Or he followed them all on Twitter.

 

I'm surprised Flanagan didn't post it publicly in a blog, or on LinkedIn.

 

WDBJ GM just said they don't make secret where they're doing live shots on the morning show. But they might reconsider that in the future.

 

Chris Cuomo: Let us know how we can help.
GM: Do the news.

 

My thoughts exactly.

I remember about 10 years ago, one of our reporters got on the bad side of a city official (?) who also had a radio show. So, he announced on his show her children's names and where they went to school. Then claimed he meant no harm.

 

And this goes into all of these news managers who insist all of us tweet 37 times a day.

That's fine until you send the world a road map on where you will be all throughout a certain day, especially if it's a rather remote spot that's easy to get to with few others around you.

Having said that, I don't think this was the issue here. The shooter probably knew these two would be there just by watching the early news at 5 am.

However, 80 percent of live shots are pointless. Only positive is that it gets you away from the producers who are usually recent journalism school grads who realized, a semester in, that they didn't have the stomach to go knock on doors to get stories and they weren't good at math so the only option is to "stack" newscasts and get on the management track where if they play their cards right...

... they have the authority to send all of the reporters for pointless live shots because the consultants say "live, local, late breaking" is what people want.

 

So, you want there to be a heaven and hell so that this guy suffers in eternity, but not because you wish for his victims to spend eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven?

 

Yeah, lessons.

We sure are learning them.

 

As someone who's been a TV news producer for many years, I feel pretty confident in saying the producers want you the fuck out of the building.

 

I hesitated to bring this up, because it could come across as callous, but I can't help but think the coverage is blatantly disproportionate.

The murder was horrible and tragic, and aspects of it make it newsworthy, but it was a workplace shooting. I think in a forum like this it should be discussed at length and in depth, because it is our workplace.

However, would CNN send Chris Cuomo to do man-on-the-street interviews if two people were killed at a textile factory? Would we have wall-to-wall coverage of it wasn't involved with the media?