One Chapter Ends, Another Begins

Writng Sample:  I wrote this for my blog - www.visionmixer.net that I started for 501 but have continued when time permits.  This was written about 2 weeks ago.

Guess what loyal readers?  I have a new job.  No.  Not out of TV.  Not yet – look for that in the coming years.  No, I decided to hang up my headset at what humorously has been described as “The Grande Dame of Memphis”.  WREG TV is officially in my rear view mirror.  And, while I have gained a number of, what I hope are, life long friendships, the place that is WREG is what I would describe as a life-sucking vampire that can turn good people into party-line following, self-important megalomaniacs.

Interestingly, it didn’t start that way!  I loved my job for the first couple of years!  Sure there were issues galore, but I was proud of the work we were doing and the crew that was placed in my charge.  It happened when the New York Times decided that they needed to spend more time focusing on their print media and get out of the TV news biz.  That’s when “it” happened.  WREG got gobbled up by Local TV, LLC, a company formed by an umbrella investment company – Oak Hill Capital Partners.  In addition, and to further downgrade the group, Local TV and Tribune Company (a notoriously bad employer in TV circles) formed a partnership.  It was agreed that Tribune would be providing “management services” as well as providing, under their interactive wing, platforms for web sites (Wikipedia).  This, coupled by some very poor staffing and strategy decisions by the News Director signaled the beginning of the end for Memphis’ Grande Dame.

I decided to leave primarily due to the News Director.  Though the company comes in a close second.  My decision stems from an incident that happened at the beginning of 2012.  After the installation of the new set – there were some new shot positions that were new to the production nomenclature.  On this particular morning, I sat down to direct my show – which, if you are familiar with directing, is a challenge.  Directors usually look at and block shots for their shows prior to executing.  Not in this case – I’m seeing it for the first time as it’s airing.  There was some confusion as to where one of reporters was supposed to stand.  The floor crew, looking at their rundown, saw one thing.  The script for the reporter said another.  The producer in the booth had no idea which
was correct.

I called the producer in the news room during the break and asked which position was the correct one.  To which I got the snottiest response coupled with expletives which I presume was an attempt to make me feel stupid for asking.  I tried to tell him to get his ducks in a row – and before I could finish, he started yelling at me and slammed the phone down.  Now – keep in mind – I have cameras in the studio (which is a working news room) and I watched this unfold.  He then gets up in a huff and runs toward the door to the control room.

There is 1 minute left in the commercial break.  As he rounded the corner, I firmly raised my voice before he could get a word in.  I told him that I was not going to debate him about this now.  That we could discuss it later, we were 50 seconds from air and that he could get the fuck out of my control room.  That was it.  He sulked off and unbeknownst to me wrote a nasty email to the News Director telling him that I had used profanity.  I found this out when my supervisor called me after work to find out what happened.

The following day, I asked this producer to join me in the control room for a face to face.   I was particularly uncomfortable with the fact that he had sent an incriminating email to the news director.  I asked him why he had broken the unwritten golden rule – what happens in the control room, stays in the control room.  I also told him to watch himself, that any blow-up, any miss-step – I would report.  Interestingly, he was atypically silent during this meeting.  Later that afternoon I was called to a meeting with the News Director and my supervisor.

Another meeting with the News Director and the much anticipated “stop cursing like a sailor” personnel letter to add to my already voluminous file.  He asked me to go over the events.  He asked me if I had the show’s interests at heart during the exchange.  To which I responded yes.  In fact, I added, it was the show’s interests that were entirely on my mind.  This Producer, I went on, was coming back to the control room for one reason.  To start a fight.  I knew that a knock down drag out was coming.  He was just mad that I shut him down before he got a chance to let me have it.  I told the News Director that I would do it again if the factors were similar.  I could tell he didn’t like this.  I could also tell that he didn’t like that a director had the huevos to stand up to one of his producers.

He then asked me about the face to face I had earlier that day with the producer.  He asked if I threatened him.  To which I said I had not.  I simply said that I would be watching him like a hawk.  That was it.  I left the meeting pissed off, I got a crisp new letter for my file and an assured reason for getting an insulting 1% raise for the 3rd year in a row.  It was only after the fact that I found out that this producer had actually recorded my face to face with him.  It was then that I understood the producer’s unusual silence during our meeting and why the News Director had asked if I threatened him.

I can’t work with or for a News Director that encourages this kind of behavior.  This producer recorded, what I thought was, a private conversation.  The News Director knew about it and used the information therein as leverage during my meeting with him.  It’s a real shame that Tennessee is one of the few states where at least one person has to know their conversation is being recorded.  I’d be blogging about lawyers, courtrooms and punitive damages instead.

With that, I close the chapter on News Channel 3.  Likewise, I open a new chapter at FOX.