Sunday, June 24, 2007

News Flash: Television Hypes the News!

It turns out the dramatic little story by Chicago television station, WBBM, about Arcola hero, Brad Pullen, grabbing the gun when his captor laid it down to pee, tying up the alleged perpretrator with his necktie and marching him out of the bank where he had been held all day was just television hype. It didn't happen. Not even close.

It now comes out that an FBI negotiator talked the gunman into giving up. He and Brad walked out of the bank, without any gun. Don't look for a correction on WBBM's website; it isn't there. Don't get me started on television "news."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is a subject that bugs the heck out of me. It is so important to these "news" people that there story be "exclusive" or "dynamic" that they don't let the facts get in the way of it. Accuracy be damned. It's not always as dramatically false as what you report, sometimes it is just a subtle word or phrase. The fact is, there's not much difference between a news "article" and "editorial" any more.
No matter what appears to be the source of this post, I am on wordpress, not blogger.