Jamey Tucker’s BlogSquat

This should be interesting to keep an eye on. A weatherman from WBRZ in Baton Rouge got a ratings diary from Nielsen prior to the May sweeps. Instead of notifying them that he was employed at one of the tv stations being rated…he filled it out.

Pat Shingleton admits to filling out the book. Station manager Nick Simonette from WAFB says he saw the book in question and it did weigh heavily toward WBRZ.

Nielsen is forced to reissue a new ratings book that includes a note that reflects the elimination of the household from the rating.

I wonder how many tv station managers have told their employees not to fill out a ratings book if they receive one in the mail? I’m sure Shingleton isn’t the first tv employee to receive a book. I did once, but didn’t fill it out. I also never remember a station manager instructing me or anyone else to resist the temptation to screw with the numbers.

It doesn’t sound as if Shingleton will be disciplined. WBRZ President Richard Manship said it’s an internal matter but that “I have bigger fish to fry.”

I’m sure he regrets it happened. Not that he has a weatherman filling out Nielsen diaries that would influence the numbers. He just hates he got caught.

The house is nearly finished. The landscape guys were in today planting trees and shrubs. We gave them the go-ahead to do the sod too. Thanks to all of you who’ve volunteered to lay those 1,000 yards of sod.

Now we’ve gotta get a new refrigerator. There must some woman’s law which says when you move into a new house you’ve got to have new appliances and a new couch. I hate that law.

The Time-Warner switch from house to house is going to be a problem. I submitted a request for new service last week over their internet customer service client and didn’t hear anything back from anyone. When I called today they told me it would be the middle of August before they could get my cable installed. I may be headed back to Direct TV. I don’t want to go back to satellite but I can’t stay disconnected from the internet for 2 weeks either.

I’ve heard for years about poor customer service from Time-Warner in Memphis. I’ve had good results up until now. It stinks.

I admit I usually watch Letterman or Leno after the late local news. Tonight, I watched Nightline.

Is this the best news show on television or not? Ted Koppel is a master at the interview, maybe the best in the business. He’s interviewing Bill Parsons of NASA about the foam debris that fell off Discovery.

He’s asking every tough question you could come up with. “How could you let this shuttle take off before you solved the problem that caused the Columbia tragedy?” “Is there any reason right now that you would think Discovery wouldn’t make it back to earth safely?” “Can you get a rescue mission up there?”

Give the exact same questions, the exact same phrases to any of the other news anchors/readers and those questions might have come off as attacking. Not with Koppel. He has a tone that sends a message to the interview subjects that he’s not trying to back them into a corner, not trying to make them look bad, he’s just interested in the answer.

After all of the hard questions, Koppel thanked Bill Parsons for coming on his broadcast quickly and answering his questions. He did answer every question candidly. To the question “how could you let this shuttle liftoff before you solved the problem?” Parsons replied “we thought we had fixed the problem.”

And then, Bill Parsons thanked Ted Koppel. “Thank you Mr. Koppel.”

That’s a good interview. When the anchor/reporter asks all of the hard questions, gets the answers and then the interviewee says thanks. Maybe it’s in the tone of the interview. Maybe it’s from the respect that Mr. Koppel has earned. But maybe he’s earned that respect by being respectful to the people he’s interviewed over the years. Ted Koppel shows us you can show respect even while asking tough questions.

Good show. And I learned more about Discovery than I have reading all of the internet news reports. You can’t say that about every tv report these days.

When I drove around town today I saw the local high school band out practicing. All of the sports guys and gals are in Birmingham this week for SEC Media Days. And I’ve recently gone through and pulled out my hats and jerseys for the football Saturdays that will be here in about a month.

One thing I haven’t heard any sports reporter saying is there are 3 SEC head coaches coming off of undefeated seasons. I don’t know that that’s ever happened before.

Tommy Tuberville at Auburn, Urban Meyer at Florida (who went undefeated at Utah last year) and Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss (who was an assistant coach with the undefeated USC Trojans.

I get a little ridiculous when college football rolls around. I’ve kicked chairs across rooms during an interception. I’ve prayed for a touchdown. I’ve yelled at the neighbors. I even cried once.

I will watch coverage of the SEC Media Days on the local channels. All 1 1/2 minutes of it each night. Geesh…I wish they’d give sports a little more time during things like this.

Don’t you love that old song about a man and his pod?

Mine arrived today in fact and we’re starting to load it. The house is nearly finished, only another coat of paint on some walls, one last coat of varnish on the floor and one more cabinet in the laundry room. It’s been a long year in this rental house and we’re all anxious to get out of it and into our own house.

Today’s been spent in front of the Mac figuring out Flash and Dreamweaver for a project as well as for a new website for ACTS. It’s funny with software, it seems you’ll never understand it and then all of a sudden something clicks that opens up your understanding and vision of the program.

My headache’s gone too. A good 9 hours of sleep last night took care of it.

Hopefully soon I’ll be blogging about something that’s at least interesting.

I haven’t felt good all day. The migraine started around lunchtime, maybe earlier.

Remember that episode of Cheers when Sam asked Coach about him blacking out? His response was “Kind of a nice break in the day hey Sam?”
Well these aren’t a nice break in the day…but they are about as close to a black-out as I want to come.

I had an early meeting today about a video project I’ll begin shooting Sunday. Then, best I can remember, I went to the bank, the post office and…well I don’t remember the rest.

I do remember going out to shoot b-roll and interviews for one of my ACTS Network stories. I shot some b-roll but kept wondering what I was shooting. I came home, tried to take a nap as they usually help knock these migraines out. 15 minutes later my phone rang and I was up again.

Tonight was pretty busy with swimming lessons for the kids and fixing dinner. My head is throbbing. So Tuesday’s been a washout. I’ll try again tomorrow.

My POD is coming tomorrow. One of those big trailers to help us move. I did make it by the house today. They’ve finished up the trim work, the painting and installed the columns in the great room and the back porch. It’ll be ready Friday.

I did get two more e-mails from churches regarding subscriptions. Guess that trip to Gatlinburg is beginning to pay off.

Sorry this post isn’t more interesting. I thought I might want to post all of this now so I can read it tomorrow and see what I did today.

The roadsigns on the left don’t appear to be anything funny or special…if they were on a street in Alabama.

The signs here are at the intersection of Routes 10 and 141…IN MASSACHUSETTS!

The signs were put up and sat there for a week before anyone noticed. But the most interesting (and funniest) part of it all comes from the explanation from Joe Pipczynkski, the Easthampton superintendent of public works.

Pipczynski believes the contractor opened the federal manual governing the appearance of highway signs and saw a diagram stating the correct way to install the signs. The diagram used an Alabama sign as an example.

Now…the next time someone from Massachusetts tries to say something about stupid southerners…

link to the story in the Tuscaloosa News

(thanks to an anonymous source for the story)

Cameron Harper, news anchor at ABC24, responded to my post last week about his calling a man a “fool” and then “a chump” on the UPN and ABC newscasts.

Read Cameron’s comment here.

His reaction to his name-calling and my previous post included this explanation:
“I’ve heard that some people at some of the other stations in town think that was horrible…a sin against journalism. They’re in a snit with sphincters so tight you couldn’t pull a pencil out of their ___ with a pair of vice-grips.”

Thanks for caring Cameron, but my sphincter’s just fine. I’m not bent out of shape over the comment and I don’t think it’s a ’sin against journalism’. As I may have stated before it appears to me like an attempt to shock viewers and ‘do something the other stations aren’t doing’ in a desperate attempt to drive the numbers.

I also will mention again that no one proved the construction company in question is to blame for the flood (although that may be proven, Harper says there’s more to come on this story).

A reporter should never be doused by a water truck, not once, twice or three times as was the case with Craig Bell.

It is out of character for a news anchor to stoop to sophomoric name-calling for a reason. It’s silly and impugns the character of the name-caller, not to mention their credibility.

I teach my children not to call other children names. Wonder what Cameron teaches his children?

Roanoke, Virginia’s FOX affiliate is looking to fill an anchor position.

Instead of simply looking over tapes and resumes and checking references, they’re putting the decision up for a vote. On the evenings news!

Four young women are all vying to be the new 10 o’clock news anchor at WFXR. After they completed the initial interview (giving the station the benefit of the doubt here), the station put photos of the four women on it’s website, along with a ballot. Viewers, or web clickers, can rate their on-air appeal, comfort level, energy, delivery, voice and an overall category.

The winner will be announced (or hired) this week.

I’m curious to see how this affects the careers of the women who aren’t chosen by viewers. What do their respective employers think of having their talent on another station’s website, publicly campaigning for another job?

The news director calls the approach “interactive television”, I’d call it a desperate attempt to attract viewers.

Ever get one of those phone calls that takes you completely by surprise? One that makes you grab a calendar and check to see if the person calling is wrong about a date something is due?

I got one of those phone calls this morning. My mortgage company called to tell us they have our closing date for the new house set for this Friday.

THIS FRIDAY!?!?!?!

A quick call to the builder confirmed they were on the same page. A page I hadn’t gotten to yet.

The house could be ready for move-in by this weekend! To be safe, we’ve set the closing date for next Wednesday to give the builder plenty of time to make sure everything is just so.

We’ve kept a lot of our stuff in the boxes we moved out of our old house last year so the move will be a little easier….but we’re no where near ready to start moving.

I made a call to PODS, the company with those mobile containers you put stuff in and they move it to the new location. It’ll arrive in our driveway Wednesday so we can start loading it up. I’ll do a walk-thru Friday with the builder, meet with the landscape guys to place trees and shrubs, and then we’ll start moving.

Wow…did July go by fast for anyone else?