Bond's Broadcast

Sometimes you can’t help but wonder about the media – main stream, bloggers, radical – you take your pick.

I can’t help but quit thinking about the overwhelming media coverage of a couple things in the past few weeks.

I’d have to go back first to the media fumbling of the ball on the Newtown, Conn., shooting.

From the very first reporters on the ground to the final piece filed from that death scene the media continuously fumbled the ball . . . and the facts.

I was in my recliner when the first news scrolled across the bottom of the television screen that there had been a shooting at a school in a small Connecticut town.

I will openly admit to you that I am slightly numb to that because it has become so frequent since the very first one I covered on Jan. 18, 1983 at East Carter High School.

I saw a story a few days ago in the Grayson (Ky.) Journal-Enquirer by Ken Hart who works for the daily in Ashland and cnhi the parent company of both the daily and the Grayson paper recalling the incident of 20 years ago and the fear and sheer terror of that winter afternoon when gunshots rang out.

There is never a time when I hear of a school shooting that I don’t let my mind go back to those days when Michelle Polakovs and Shawn Jordon teamed up for the early coverage and veteran reporter Mason Branham arrived later. Mason was from the county and knew many people.

I now know that I knew several people in place there. Shawn Moore and Garry McPeek were just two of those on the grounds when this happened. I even had a nurse while I was in the hospital the last couple times who was a senior, a member of the boys’ class, of 1993.

It was a tough scary afternoon but not one we were willing to let pass without our very best efforts.

We were on deadline. We were going to hold up the Carter County papers, both the Journal-Enquirer and The Olive Hill Times, for this breaking story.

It took a while of course but when we ran the story we were accurate. We didn’t resort to he said, she said, which had already become such an important, sad element in the newspaper industry.

The larger daily didn’t care they were going to print the shooter’s picture with his name, even though he was underage – a juvenile.

We didn’t run the shooter’s name. In fact we didn’t run it until he was indicted by the Grand Jury and his lawyer said his name publicly in the courtroom. We had no need to rush to beat others, as my preference is to be correct.

By the way, come to find out the large daily ran the wrong picture; it wasn’t the shooter and it had been misidentified.

This brings me back to the media coverage and all that has surrounded it in Newtown.

The first national news reports were totally wrong: Wrong facts, wrong players, wrong information on who had been shot - the list is endless.

Once the media members found out that they had made many, many errors because they wanted to beat the competition regardless of the facts, then it was easy to move on and promote the conspiracy theories so many have been putting out. Hey get it right or leave it alone. That’s what I have to say.

Believe me it just doesn’t work that way. I far prefer journalists who get the facts right that get them first.

Moving on to the other media circus of the month: The dissection and analysis of Lance Armstrong.

First the entire Armstrong pre-admission press frenzy allowed Oprah and her network to benefit. Her network is not making money, according to industry reports, and this was nothing but pure, media driven publicity.

You note it all became public. He was going to make this announcement days before it happened.

Then along the line small amounts of data began to be leaked and reported to build the story’s end.

Lance Armstrong and his likely pending book or movie deal received more publicity in one day than all the years of his accomplishment could have ever been reported.

Every major network and print publication, plus Internet sites and tweets, all filled the electronic airwaves of his story and his failure to compete fairly.

You can’t logic it away. He lied. He cheated. He finally got caught. He had to admit it.

Do I respect his personal resolve to shake off his health issues and compete win or lose? Absolutely, but don’t lie.

The media should be ashamed of itself for the horrendous amount of coverage they have given his wrongdoing even though there were many ways to offer a news package besides this.

I am sorry the need for competitive edge has so outweighed the need for the facts.

This saddens me and it saddens the industry.

And so, for another week, thanks and thirty.

Contact Hank Bond at [email protected]