Ditzy reporting – when a story becomes personal

Time Warner Cable reporter Suzi Theodory’s  live shot about a brush fire in Southern California becomes more about her than the fire after she is soaked by a helicopter air drop.  She transforms live from being young and inexperienced but sincerely trying into a ditzy rookie.  Sorry.  But the water drop becomes apparently more of the story about her instead of the fire as she repeatedly assures us that she and her crew are “so close to the fire”…. though this is not manifested in the pictures for there are no flames to be seen.

Note too the contradictions within the minute forty-seven second story from being “a growing fire at 10 acres” to suddenly being “almost under control” after the water drop.  Huh?  How did that happen? Oh, and by the way, one speaks of a fire being contained, not controlled, but what’s language have to do with anything when you’re all wet.  Literally.

And again, we wonder why audiences think the press is often too silly for words?

Author: Peter Shaplen Productions

More than four decades of experience as a journalist, producer, reporter, writer and professor of news, corporate production, crisis management. View all posts by Peter Shaplen Productions