Journalists shot, killed in Virginia during live shot

Our good producers always put me on their references because I gladly make calls on their behalf. The bad ones never object to me bailing out their shows when they're 3 minutes light and can't find news to fill the blocks.

PC, I know that you're one of the good ones. You've been at this for a long time.

Most of the ones I've worked with have no clue on news value, what's important in a community and start every tease with "find out...". Show up, do their two years and try and move into that hospital PR job.

The good ones move up to EP and ND roles. The good ones with people skills become excellent news directors. The good ones with bad people skills become tyrants.

Find me that 19 year old college student who says "I want to spend my twenties in a tiny apartment with a cat, no money, no weekends off and writing teases for some diva news anchor who doesn't know my name." Many of the producers I've worked with fell into it.

 

I discussed that with a few people at work today, but bottom line: It happened on live TV and the killer then posted video of himself committing the murders on Facebook and Twitter while on the run from police. This was straight out of a shitty movie, so it's going to get a hell of a lot of attention regardless.

 

There were (on average) about 37 other murders in America today.

Maybe a few of them not committed by fat fucks, also.

 

It's not my role to cast judgment on the lives of the victims. I didn't know them. They could have been terrible people (Though all reports say the exact opposite.) If they were as great as people make them out to be, of course I want them to enjoy eternity in whatever it is heaven is.
But this asshole? I didn't know him either. But I know what he did in his final hours and for that he deserves to suffer. Sadly, he took the coward's way out and we won't be granted that satisfaction in this lifetime. Hence why I hope beyond hope he's at the start of an eternity of misery as we sit here discussing his actions on this message board.
Fuck him. May he rot in hell.
If they announce where he's buried, I'd like to pay my tributes and piss on his grave.

 

The video is what helps push the coverage from a 10-second read to news of the day. It could have been a disgruntled banker or a McDonald's cashier. You murder two people on live television with a GoPro on your chest and then upload it to FB and Twitter? It's going to be big news.

 

This is a tired, worthless, useless response, devoid of meaning and relevance.

 

BP nearly stole the words out of my mouth.
Your average murder is going to get a ton of coverage in its market, provided it's not a regular occurrence.
But a mass shooting? (And three people got shot here so I think that counts) That's going to get some national attention.
A mass shooting of people ON LIVE TV? Yeah, that's going to play big.
A mass shooting of people ON LIVE TV and the shooter escapes? Lead story in the country until he/she is captured.
A mass shooting of people ON LIVE TV and the shooter escapes and uploads a first-person video of it happening on TV? This one will get massive play for at least a week nationally.

 

New, young producers suck. New, young reporters suck. New, young anchors suck.

They get better with experience and with people around them that help them grow professionally. But across the board, it's an ugly process getting there.

To pretend producers are people who figured out early that they didn't have the guts to be in the field is just flat stupid. Many realize early on that they really don't give a shit about having their faces on TV, and that as a producer you have by far the biggest control over the content and presentation of a newscast. I started out as a photog and fill-in reporter and quickly figured out that I'd be a lot happier molding the whole newscast and not just my 90 seconds. Plus, I'm not competing with 200 other people for every job, and I'm making three times what the main anchor at my first station was making. It's a hell of a lot easier to move up as a producer, which is why mid-sized and smaller markets are populated with 22 years olds.

And much as people pretend most live shots are worthless, they exist for a few very good reasons -- primarily to break up the presentation of a newscast, and because that's where the reporter is. Newscasts without live shots tend to be slow and boring -- the equivalent of a newspaper page with nothing but copy. The reporter should be presenting the story somehow, and in the vast majority of the cases it's going to be from where they did the story. (In newspaper terms, it's very much like filing your Friday night football gamer from the stadium.)

Good reporters do something visual with the live shot. Bad reporters stand there holding their dicks. Either way, the live shot exists for solid reasons.

 

As often seems to me to be the case, the person accusing others of being racists was a racist person himself.

 

News of the day? Yes. But it's more than that. Cable new hasn't covered anything else almost all of today. Not even Trump.

 

Think of it this way. What's going to get more viewer interest ... 1.) Trump does something dumb again; 2.) Some bad shit happened overseas; 3.) Some lame shit on the stock market or 4.) Two reporters murdered on air and it's captured on live TV gives way to manhunt gives way to suicide gives way to mourning?

 

Dude. Two people were murdered on live TV, followed by the gunman uploading his POV video to social media. You think anyone gives a shit about Trump's latest idiocy?

I'm not saying nothing else is newsworthy. I'm saying that given the same circumstances (2 murders on live TV, POV video, gunman commits suicide) the reaction to the shooting would have been the same regardless of the occupation of the victims.