Back when The KANSAS CITY STAR was more relevant to Metro affairs- they had a TV/radio reporter named Barry Garron.
Barry had weekly stories on K.C.'s ratio and TV goings-on- and wasn't afraid to gore those 'sacred oxen' that presented their wares on the boxes in our homes.
The STAR replaced Barry some time in the 1990's with Aaron Barnhart and that regular reporting of Kansas City's electronic media seemed to disappear.
Barnhart seemed to like to report more on national electronic media matters and programs than the Metro he was hired to cover.
Now Barnhart is all upset because he missed his network news program because of Monday's dangerous police pursuit of the red Jeep from KC-MO's Northland into northern KC-KS..
Never mind the suspects plowing through people's yards in the Northland on a warm- pre-Spring day put residents in that area directly in harm's way.
There could have been children playing in yards behind those fences that the suspect's vehicle were taking out.
There could have been people out working in their yards- unaware a Jeep was about to plow down the fence next to them.
Never mind the suspect's Jeep travelled down the shoulder the wrong way and at high speed for several miles on a heavily-travelled freeway toward the end of the evening commuter drive- putting hundreds of motorists in harm's way.
Aaron missed his network nightly newscast!
Mr. Barnhart- there's CNN- MS-NBC and Faux News 24/7 for your national and world news coverage.
That chase had the potential to cause serious injury- even death- to MANY Metro residents in those areas the chase traversed.
We were DAMN lucky that didn't happen and you HAVE to believe the TV news helicopters DID make some difference with the live coverage.
Mr. Barnhart- if you want to whine about aspects of local TV news- review those newscasts daily content and their relevance to Metro viewers.
Tell us things like how more commercials during those newscasts are cutting into content- the running of dash cam and security cam videos from places far from Kansas City that- except for the compelling images- have NO relevance to the local viewer.
Save your 'Monday morning quarterbacking' of a potentially deadly vehicle pursuit through heavily-populated urban areas for an email that you can mail back to yourself.
Start covering the daily aspects (again) of Kansas City electronic media and get a clue.
Oh just FYI- Johnny Rowlands is NOT the pilot of KSHB's SkyTracker- who were the FIRST to cover that chase....
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4 comments:
Actually, I didn't miss my nightly newscast at all. I just went to iTunes.
And as for your arguments that TV could have saved the life of someone ..... standing OUT IN THEIR YARD .... hilarious.
Thank you for the rebuttal Mr. Barnhart.
My "argument" was confirmed by at least TWO TV news interviews- residents whose yards were farmed had been called on their highly-portable cell phones by friends warning them the Jeep-idiots were in their friends' neighborhoods.
I agree that the END result of that chase was 'much ado about nothing'- but so are many local weather warnings.
Look forward to you writing about THAT latter aspect of TV news as well sir.
Regards-
Groucho
I watched the chase and really didn't miss Brian Williams at all.. I was glad they followed the chase. I did wonder why they didn't telecast Brian at 6pm.. guess they weren't thinking much.
Now about all that local NBC follow-up reporting on the chase.. it is almost as funny as their "investigative reporting".
Too much lost LOCAL revenue by not showing the local 6 p.m. news Kansas Bob.
I agree about these "follow-ups."
It's like beat to death the story we had on FIRST.
Local newscast viewership is in decline and it WOULD be nice to have local media writers try to explain why instead of Monday morning quarterbacking one potentially-deadly incident that didn't turn out to be.
Thanks for your comment-
Groucho
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