On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 8:35 PM Steve Timko <steveti...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a couple of observations here about Kevin's commentary. > Kevin calls her the worst he saw. And he also noted stations have been > hurt by budget cuts. > Brittney Hopper is a freelancer who works for the station. She's not > listed on the station's roster of anchors and reporters. > https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/station/cbs-kcal/ > If you take a look at her Instagram page, it looks like she is basically a > red carpet interviewer. They hire her to be the 9-pound blonde to shove a > microphone in the faces of Brad and Leo and the Jennifers. > https://www.instagram.com/brittneyhoppertv > Now, I'm not trying to pick a fight, but Kevin, how many local news > sources do you subscribe to? Because this is the result of free news on the > internet. News outlets are struggling to survive. And they're doing it > with fewer resources. > You can't "subscribe" to a TV station, but since the beginning of > television, they have used print publications to develop their stories. As > newspapers wither, television news coverage suffers as well. > > I believe I said Brittney was typical of what I saw, not that she was the worst, but that what I saw as a whole (including her) was some of the worst reporting I’ve ever seen. The only local news outlet I subscribe to is KPCC/LAist, but the sort of reporting they do isn’t what was called for in this instance. Although they have done some interesting segments about the protests, what I specifically needed last weekend were reporters with immediate on-site knowledge of the region, how local government works, the laws regarding protesting, and which law enforcement agencies had jurisdiction. I didn’t need man-on-the-street fluff-pieces or panel discussions with various minorities... I’m not saying those sorts of stories aren’t beneficial, but what I needed to know was “Is it safe to leave my fiancée and drive home?” To answer that question, a news outlet needed a working knowledge of cities and counties, who oversaw each law enforcement agency, how to obtain reliable information on the ground and from official sources, and some connection to the African-American community at the heart of the protests. And that’s just not KPCC. When it comes to the local papers, the LA Times and OC Register have financial backers... money isn’t their problem, allocating resources is. Both focus on what sells papers and drives traffic to their websites, not on actually informing the public. And the less said about the Inland Empire’s Press Enterprise, the better. For a couple years, HuffPo had some decent blogger-journalists covering Los Angeles who seemed to understand local government and the various communities, but that was several years ago when the site had a very different mission. I’m aware that freely distributed information online has hurt traditional journalism, but most of that is due to traditional journalism dragging its feet into the 21st century. They spent 15 years refusing to develop an online presence; in that vacuum, their content was usurped and shared anyway. There is much to be said about aggregator sites that copy and paste content, effectively stealing it so they can benefit from the hard work of others, but frankly I just don’t see too many “others” doing the hard work. I can count on my hands the number of journalists currently producing content worth paying for... only a couple of them are based in Southern California (and none of them are in Atlanta or DC, either). The problem of journalists’ work getting stolen is secondary to journalists being genuinely bad at being journalists. 40-years-ago, CNN debuted. They had reporters assigned to beats; they had experts covering topics they spent their lives learning about. Not every story was considered “breaking news.” It wasn’t perfect, but I’m not asking for perfection. I’m asking for a news outlet where people know what they are talking about... or they don’t talk about it. This week at work I had CNN on when Minnesota announced the charges filed against the four cops responsible for killing George Floyd. They had a panel of pundits, most of them lawyers, one of them Jeffrey F*cking Toobin, who in 25 years has only gotten dumber. Tossed into the mix was a female lawyer whose name now eludes me, but she had practiced law in Minnesota, knew the distinctions between the types of 2nd degree murder charges unique to the state, and understood what the charges meant... she was the ONLY person who should have been on the air on CNN at that moment, but she had to share time with a half dozen bloviating morons like Toobin. Then, because CNN always has to make it about CNN, they stopped talking to the lawyers (including the informed one from Minnesota) so that Wolf Blitzer could interview Don Lemon about what he thought of the charges against the officers. At that moment, the last thing anybody watching the news needed to know was Don Lemon’s opinion about anything. In fact, at any moment in the past, present, or future, the last thing anybody watching the news will need to know is Don Lemon’s opinion on anything. I appear to have drifted a bit off topic. I’ve had kind of an odd day. > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2020 at 4:51 PM Kevin M. <drunkbastar...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I hadn’t planned on watching the local news in LA, because I know they >> are all shite. I also know they slashed their operating budgets, they hired >> unqualified teenagers with bleached hair and tanned skin, and they focus on >> flash over substance, but it turned out my fiancée’s house was encircled by >> stores and businesses being looted, a curfew had been imposed, and I needed >> to know actual information pertinent to what was occurring literally on the >> doorstep. So I tuned in. Ugh. >> >> A note about the internet and social media and newspapers online: Nobody >> handled (or is handling, as this is ongoing) this crisis well. All are as >> guilty of the same crimes of ignorance and uninformed opinion as local TV >> news. One of the biggest struggles of this crisis is there is literally >> nobody to turn to for unbiased, factual, relevant, timely information. I’m >> not employing hyperbole here. There is nobody in Southern California with >> any sense of journalism who has either the intellect, the expertise, or the >> financial means to report on this story. Pointing a camera at something and >> saying “Hey! Look at that!” is not journalism. As much as the main focus of >> these protests are police failures, the failures of the press are certainly >> being brought front and center, as well. >> >> I’m going to single out one “reporter” (those are sarcastic air-quotes) >> named Brittney Hopper, but don’t assume she is the worst of the bunch. She >> is sadly typical of the crap I watched yesterday, and her specific form of >> crap is merely memorable in how truly bad she is at her job. I’m not saying >> she deserved to have rocks thrown at her in her newsvan last night in the >> CVS parking lot, but I’m not not saying that, either. >> >> Hopper was assigned to cover the protests in Long Beach. I’m not saying >> she was the wrong choice for the job, but if I was an assignment editor and >> I wanted someone who could gain the trust of the largely African American >> group of protestors, an eight pound blonde would not have been my first, >> second, or twenty-third choice. But one assumes the pickings are slim over >> at CBS2/KCAL9. A note for those not living in the LA area: Two rival TV >> stations share the same news team for budget reasons, and of course because >> we all know that fewer choices for news is always better (?!). So away >> Hopper went to Long Beach. >> >> Things started to get beyond her ability long before the looting started. >> Whether it was the guy on the street she chose to interview live without >> either she or a producer talking with him ahead of time, who said “I am a >> Marine Corps veteran, f*ck the police! F*ck the police! F*ck f*ck f*ck the >> f*cking police!” or the kid on the skateboard (guessing he was 12 or 13) >> who kept skating behind her with both middle fingers pointed in her >> direction, Hopper was out of her depth. She could not control a crowd of >> drunk lemmings, let alone deal with a protest filled with angry people. >> >> Then the looting started. >> >> Hopper was at The Pike, an outdoor shopping center not far from the Queen >> Mary. Now, I don’t mean to belittle the damage and loss of property >> suffered by property owners, because it is real and heartbreaking, but >> frankly every police chief and sheriff In Southern California has talked >> about little else in their largely unchallenged press conferences and >> interviews, so I’m going to assume that as a given and move on. Throughout >> the day and into the night, Hopper kept injecting herself into the story. >> She was experiencing this... it was all happening to her... it wasn’t about >> the protesters or the police or the citizens of the city, and it certainly >> wasn’t about George Floyd... it was about Brittney Hopper. At no point was >> this more evident than when she said on-air that what she was seeing was >> “like a war zone” or “like a third world country.” Maybe she has experience >> in war zones and developing nations, and kudos to her if she has, but The >> Pike in Long Beach has a Hooters and a Sunglasses Hut, so although there >> were some broken windows and other damage to property, the comparison seems >> at best insensitive to both the residents and the protesters. >> >> And so as the evening dragged on, and KCAL and KCBS cut from one bit of >> looting to another, no context, no substance, no coverage of the largely >> peaceful groups of protesters, Hopper ended up at a CVS pharmacy, where she >> was shocked, shocked she’ll tell you, to find no police presence. And as >> she was speculating about what might be going on inside the CVS, pointing >> out that there was no way she was going to venture inside because guessing >> about it live on-air was the more professional way to go, someone threw a >> rock at her windshield, an event so monumental to the life of Brittney >> Hopper that she posted it on her social media. >> >> If it seems as if I’m being unduly harsh towards Hopper, I probably am. >> As I said, everyone covering the story was as inept as she was. Over on >> ABC7, they got 45 seconds of footage of people running out of a store that >> they loved so much they showed it non stop for nearly two solid hours. And >> on NBC4, after having been shamed by Lebron James for not showing any of >> the peaceful protests, Robert Kovacik held up an iPad and showed seven >> seconds of a peaceful protest in Colorado. It was the protest where >> everyone stayed still and chanted “I can’t breathe” the entire length of >> time George Floyd was crushed to death by a police officer... very moving >> if you haven’t seen it. NBC4 couldn’t be bothered to upload the video; they >> just had a guy hold up his tablet for a few seconds to prove they weren’t >> just focused on the destruction... then they immediately returned to >> focusing on the destruction. >> >> I could lament that at a time when I needed to know what was going on, no >> news agency existed to inform me, but instead — and unlike Brittney Hopper >> — I choose to not make it about me. The changes that need to occur for >> everyone in our country need to begin with a substantive conversation. That >> means people skilled at asking questions and holding subjects accountable >> need to put people with opposing viewpoints in a room and get them talking, >> and the public needs to hear and react to those conversations, and from >> that public debate, new ideas and even new leaders can emerge. That’s how >> the change is going to happen. And that is exactly what we didn’t see on >> the news, and what we didn’t see online, either. >> -- >> Kevin M. 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