1 of 1- BowmanvilleBob
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Your thoughts on this?
I tend to shy away from the "I couldn't believe what I just saw/heard on air" debates that crop up here from time-to-time. People are human and mistakes happen, particularly in light of the cutbacks being endured across both radio and TV in the GTA. But I must admit I heard something this morning that tweaked my interest.
I was running errands and tuned into 680 News at the top of the hour to hear the headlines while I drove. The traffic reporter was doing his usual summation of problem spots and then shifted into talking about a specific delay along the Lakeshore. He then launched into (and I'm paraphrasing here) "I've been talking about this all morning during traffic on the ones and I just got a call from a listener who says he's on XXXXX street and wanted to know why traffic isn't moving. You might wanna try listening OK?"
A mild rebuke certainly, but was it called for? All of us who've been on the air have received our share of boneheaded questions from listeners, but in my own case, I was taught that going on the air to push back against an off-air call was verboten, unless it was something newsworthy. I understand about venting frustrations, but I think the response was out of proportion to the actual offense.
Thoughts?
- Chrisphen
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Re: Your thoughts on this?
680 News regularly warns its audience to only listen a few times a day (the messaging implicit in this is that short bursts of their programming will not be overly harmful to listeners).
It was certainly not called for and station management would be wise to send out another copy of that memo to the traffic guy.
- newsguy1
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Re: Your thoughts on this?
You don't like the way I do traffic???!! Then why don't you try it?? Try getting up[ at 4 a.m. every day and dragging your sorry ass into my chair, then trying to understand all these police transmissions, and complicated charts and highway cameras?? Huh? Huh?!!
Besides, I never wanted to be a traffic reporter. I always wanted to be a lumberjack!!
- BowmanvilleBob
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Re: Your thoughts on this?
newsguy1 wrote:
You don't like the way I do traffic???!! Then why don't you try it?? Try getting up[ at 4 a.m. every day and dragging your sorry ass into my chair, then trying to understand all these police transmissions, and complicated charts and highway cameras?? Huh? Huh?!!
Besides, I never wanted to be a traffic reporter. I always wanted to be a lumberjack!!
Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK. I sleep all night and I work all day!
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: Your thoughts on this?
I once got a call from a guy who wanted to know exactly what time it was going to rain. I tried to tell him we didn't have that information - no one really knows the exact second the first drops will fall, so I gave him an estimated time like "they say sometime after 4 PM."
Uh-uh. Not good enough. He insisted I tell him to the second, so eventually out of frustration (and because I couldn't stay on the phone with him) I went to "check" and came back and said 3:46 PM. He thanked me and hung up.
I have no idea if it rained at 3:46 that day, but at least I didn't have to deal with the insistent caller asking the dumb questions anymore.
- Chrisphen
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Re: Your thoughts on this?
You don't like the way I do traffic???!! Then why don't you try it?? Try getting up[ at 4 a.m. every day and dragging your sorry ass into my chair, then trying to understand all these police transmissions, and complicated charts and highway cameras?? Huh? Huh?!!
Besides, I never wanted to be a traffic reporter. I always wanted to be a lumberjack!!
WBEN's traffic reports are a master class. Their regular traffic guy mumbles and slurs his speech, though most listeners probably wouldn't notice because he keeps the scanners blaring at full volume next to the mic when he's on-air.
- RadioActive
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Re: Your thoughts on this?
Another time I was contributing to the station's website, and we put up a list of where the July 1st fireworks displays were going to be held. I phoned City Hall and other municipal offices, looked at the press releases for areas surrounding Toronto, and nailed down exact start times for every one of them, confirmed it, then published the information.
A day later, I got an irate phone call from an infuriated viewer tearing me a new one because one of the fireworks displays we listed had suddenly been cancelled for a reason I can't quite remember anymore. I apologized for something I had nothing to do with, but told him we got the information directly from the City and if they cancelled it at the last minute, there was no way we could have known that. The show was supposed to go on when we published the list.
Not good enough for this guy, who said I had ruined his entire weekend, that he took his family expecting to see fireworks, that it was somehow all the station's fault and he was going to complain to the CRTC etc. etc. etc. No explanation was good enough, because I guess our lowly little TV station actually controlled such things that were beyond anyone's control, like the weather or an emergency.
I had no idea we were so powerful! Wish I'd known that the next time I bought lottery tickets...
- Capricasix
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Re: Your thoughts on this?
You don't like the way I do traffic???!! Then why don't you try it?? Try getting up[ at 4 a.m. every day and dragging your sorry ass into my chair, then trying to understand all these police transmissions, and complicated charts and highway cameras?? Huh? Huh?!!
Besides, I never wanted to be a traffic reporter. I always wanted to be a lumberjack!!
Leaping from tree to tree in the mighty forests of British Columbia!