Nov
5
Written by:
11/5/2010 6:11 AM
Thanks to the Internet, humiliation can be doled
out by strangers across the globe within seconds. So it was for a news crew at
KGTV-TV in San Diego this week. A video clip from a somewhat disastrous news
broadcast made the rounds, prompting repeated speculation that it may have been
the “worst newscast opening ever.”
The clip starts with the typical heavy-handed serious voice-over “from the 10
News Communications Center” with optically wack 3D graphics, and cuts to said
Communications Center where an unsuspecting reporter reads notes to herself
beside a blank screen. She looks up, somewhat startled, before the camera
immediately pans to the anchor desk, where the proceedings continue down hill.
Mere viral proliferation not being an adequate form of mortification,
anzel2002, who posted the video on
YouTube, added a few strains from “The Benny Hill Show” theme song.
“Here’s the first minute of San Diego ABC affiliate Channel 10’s 11 a.m.
newscast from September 12,”
anzel2002
says. “Everything that could have gone wrong did. Everything. Yes, folks--worst
newscast ever.”
Granted, the one-minute clip is a comedy of errors. And granted, working in
media comes with complementary back targets. But what if
everyone’s work performance were so conveniently public? What if
all of anzel2002’s work was out there
in the world to see? Then again, given the anonymity of the ’Net, anzel2002 may have been behind KGTV’s
camera just before he was replaced by robots.
I’m not above the occasional ribbing--both dishing and taking. I inveigh on
regulators regularly. However, if they deigned to bother, they’d know where to
find me. There are times I would love nothing more than to flame someone
anonymously, and I confess to passive-aggressive grousing about situations I’ve
not lifted a finger to ameliorate. Both, I realize, are unnecessary.
Grousing just perpetuates pessimism, which helps no one. Anonymous flaming is
something else all together, however. Foremost, it’s cowardly. Secondarily, it’s
meant to inflict pain. This dynamic is what’s otherwise known as “bullying.”
We’re just now beginning to understand that bullying is a deadly plague among
young people. Extreme outcomes have included suicide and mass murder. There’s a
great deal of discussion and angst over what to do about bullying, and yet a
complete disconnect between it and what’s deemed acceptable behavior by adults
today. That young people are negatively influenced by video games but not rancorous
political invective is absurd. That they are unaffected by the savage way some
adults comport themselves online is ignorant.
It may seem incomprehensible to link a one-minute blooper clip to violent and
destructive behavior among children, but perhaps that’s problem. We are so
inured to incivility, it’s become difficult to identify. And that’s a shame.
I watched the KGTV-TV clip--intentionally not included here. I cringed for all
the folks on camera. I don’t know, but I imagine all of them have worked hard
to get where they are. I would suppose they’ve done work that made their
families proud.
I’m sorry that’s been distilled into 60 seconds of ridicule.
11 comment(s) so far...
McAdams On: Civility
Hey, when we spend $200 to go see the local baseball team loose we leave the stadium saying, "Well, that's baseball!" Why can't critics just be content with the difficulties of live TV and say, "That's live TV!" and appreciate the thousand more newscasts that go much better. This news team had a real-life lesson by this experience and hopefully will be better by it.
By on
11/5/2010 7:40 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
It may seem incomprehensible to link a one-minute blooper clip to violent and destructive behavior among children, but perhaps that’s (the) problem. -- You're welcome.
By on
11/5/2010 6:49 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
Well said, Deborah, and kudos for omitting a link to the original clip, and thus refusing to help perpetuate such harmful and yet strangely socially acceptable behaviour in our society. It never ceases to amaze me, how intensely rudely, inconsiderately or downright maliciously such a vast majority of our society's people act, or how much humour they seemingly find in other's misfortune, as a course of their daily existence, while in the same instant, they cower, hiding themselves from identification, lest they become victims of someone else's identical, evil, and yet somehow apathetically-acceptable mindset, or, they go to any possible extreme, in their diabolical drive to retaliate at someone who has perpetrated the same crime on them. Crime? You bet it is, whether we treat it as socially acceptable, or not. Thanks, Deborah, for speaking up about the advanced decay of certain necessary yet ignored values in our social structure, and their impact in further eroding our seemingly near-nonexistent sense of right action in our lives.
By on
11/5/2010 7:39 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
Oh come on, let's be adults. There is absolutely NOTHING here to be ashamed of. Stuff like this happens. The station should post the video, make an apology then move on.
It was a PUBLIC broadcast now everyone is trying to hide what happened.
YouTube is doing their best to keep deleting it but someone out there keeps re-posting it.
Go to YouTube and do a search for Midday Trainwreck and you will most likely find it.
And if you can't find it there then use Google.
By on
11/5/2010 8:19 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
Oh come on, let's be adults. There is absolutely NOTHING here to be ashamed of. Stuff like this happens. The station should post the video, make an apology then move on.
It was a PUBLIC broadcast now everyone is trying to hide what happened.
YouTube is doing their best to keep deleting it but someone out there keeps re-posting it.
Go to YouTube and do a search for Midday Trainwreck and you will most likely find it.
And if you can't find it there then use Google.
By on
11/5/2010 8:19 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
Oh come on, let's be adults. There is absolutely NOTHING here to be ashamed of. Stuff like this happens.
It was a PUBLIC broadcast now everyone is trying to hide what happened. The station should post the video, make an apology then move on. Then perhaps we wouldn't have people like anzel2002 re-posting the video.
Actually you did your part to promote this whole thing for had it not been for your report I would have known nothing about it!!! So a great big THANK YOU goes out to McAdams for helping to promote this!!!
YouTube is doing their best to keep deleting the video but someone out there keeps re-posting it.
Go to YouTube and do a search for Midday Trainwreck and you will most likely find it.
And if you can't find it there then use Google.
And when the title is changed, a bit of imagination using Google and you will find the video again!!!
Or perhaps McAdams will be so kind to post another report filling us in on the newest version...
By humanydayp on
11/5/2010 8:34 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
Civility? have you driven on the freeway today? There is no such thing from where I sit.
By on
11/5/2010 10:39 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
As an employee of the station, I can tell you that the clip is from 5 years ago. Why it resurfaced now? Who knows. Speculation is that the labor dispute had something to do with it.
By on
11/5/2010 10:59 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
It's possible that a disgruntled employee posted this old clip, which made the rounds internally at the station when it first aired 5 years ago. However, as a union official currently involved in a contract dispute with KGTV, I can say that the posting of that clip has nothing to do with the dispute. It both predates the dispute and serves no useful purpose in bringing about resolution.
By on
11/15/2010 4:06 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
I like how that last comment was anonymous. - McAdams
By Shirley2010 on
11/5/2010 9:01 AM
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McAdams On: Civility
It could be worse... how about a whole national broadcast network going down because of constant automation errors
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3053767.htm
By on
11/8/2010 4:17 AM
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