I’ve been watching the news videos about the shooting at Gabrielle Giffords event today. I’d been away and offline most of the evening. It took awhile to catch up on the tragedy’s events.
I didn’t see any on the spot coverage at all. Usually, you’d at least expect a local Phoenix reporter to be there covering something like that for the local news.
I see the local press where I work once in awhile. We occasionally have a speaker or special events at the University I work at and it gets local coverage.Usually it’s only the reporter and a camera person. Not a big crew. Sometimes we’ll get reporters from all three of our local stations.
Did I miss something in the news? Or was there no press coverage of a U.S. Congresswoman’s event?
I know the Doctor that was there said it was a pretty small gathering. About 25 people, quietly talking with her one on one. No protests. No speeches. Just people talking.
To be honest the event itself doesn’t seem like it was a big deal or anything unusual. The local Congresscritter was holding a meet and greet in front of a supermarket. Elected officials hold a lot of events like these and they’re not necessarily that interesting. I don’t know anything about the local papers in her district, but I’m not surprised if there were no reporters there.
I’d imagine the reporters are kicking themselves for not being there now. Although, the reporter might have become part of the story in this case.
I see your point. Events like this are very low key. I like them myself because it is a nice chance to briefly talk with an local or state official. I hope today’s tragedy doesn’t make these small events impossible in the future.
Well, every reporter wants to be the first person to get hold of a big story, but in this case that might’ve involved being shot to death. So I don’t know how regretful anybody is. I’m sure that for a little while, similar events in the district will get press coverage. And I also hope there isn’t a chilling effect on events like this. But representatives need to keep their faces out there with their constituents, so I doubt they’ll go away.
Yeah, it was just your typical meet-n-greet event. Legislators hold them nearly every weekend, with no press coverage. Sometimes nearly no public coverage either – I’ve seen ones where only a couple dozen people showed up.
The press isn’t there because usually the Congressperson is not speaking (in the sense of making a public statement), but listening to their constituents, trying to solve problems, and getting a sense of what people are concerned about. No major news there.
As a (former) political reporter I’ve got to say that being sentenced to cover these things is hell. This sort of thing is a snoozer. She’s not going to say anything worth reporting. The people aren’t going to say anything worth reporting. Nothing of note will happen.
Until, of course, it does.
But you simply can’t go to every event. It’s not physically possible. And on a Saturday there’s fewer people around. Sunday is already to bed and your kid has a ballgame and so forth. Feh, it doesn’t surprise me that no reporters were there.
This used to be common, even at the Presidential level. News media did not put out much effort to cover ordinary political events – like a political lunch with a Presidential motorcade through Dallas to get there. Until something happened. Remember how Walter Cronkite stayed on-air at CBS for hours? Because they did not have much else to put on the air. Not many people there in Dallas to do live interviews, nor the technology to get them aired.
Since that happened, networks decided that they would never be caught like that again – now there are crowds of media following the President constantly, even to the most mundane event – just in case that happens again. But not lower offices.
There are simply too many members of congress, and too many of them halfway anonymous, for the work to be worth the benefit. This is a spectacular event and therefore is gaining coverage. But it’s the vast exception and includes extenuating circumstances.
But you’re right about the President. Even take offs and landings of Air Force One are taped. Just in case.
We’re all vultures. But we’re vultures because you people want to see the tape.
Didn’t the AP only use black and white for the Bud Dwyer press conference? Because, before everything went down, it was supposed to be a simple press conference. Why waste color film?
And then it became an world famous event and then they decided to never just do black and white again.
Actually, given all the people that have cell phones with cameras, I’m surprised that some amateur video of this hasn’t surfaced already. Maybe it happened too suddenly, but afterwards, when the crowd was restraining the shooter, and trying to help the victims, I’d think someone would have filmed a bit with their cell phone camera. Maybe the authorities took all those as evidence?
I’ve been to a zillion such events, and even when there has been a congressman present, press coverage is nonexistent. Sending a reporter and/or photographer costs money, and if it’s an event no one really cares about, the media just won’t bother.
Ditto what was said above. If the representative has anything newsworthy to say he or she will have their office contact the local press with a heads up in advance. I once got a heads up from a congressperson’s press guy and went to one of these things, then the rep decided to hold off on whatever announcement he was going to make. They were great about getting the heads up out, but nobody bothered to let us know they’d changed their minds.
My editor was six kinds of pissed about that, since there were other things I could have been covering.
Actually, that event wasn’t planned to be a “simple press conference”, it was Dwyer’s first public statement after being convicted of accepting a bribe, and as Pennsylvania’s State Treasurer that was rather a big deal. If you’ve seen the infamous video, you can tell that there are quite a number of newsmen and photographers in attendance. And there had to be at least two video cameras there, because I’ve seen the tapes from two vantage points.
IOW, the Dwyer press conference was a long way from just a routine meet-and-greet.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking: what about the amateur newsies? My local news has a thing where they ask you to send in footage of news stories, which, if they use, they’ll send you a few bucks. Since we are often behind on trends like this, I assumed it be present in other places.
The idea that they were confiscated makes sense, though.