7/17/02
Caught in the twilight zone of TV news
By Don Hendershot
The
subject line on my email screen looked intriguing: “George Ivey
Blew Up - News at 11.” George is assistant director of Friends
of the Smokies and has an office just down the street.I opened the email and found text from a Raleigh TV station’s (WTVD) news story regarding the escrowing of specialty license plate fees by the state. It was a story we reported on in the June 19-25 edition of the Smoky Mountain News.
The harsh quotes with their exclamation marks leapt from the computer screen: “We were mad beyond words!” and the confrontational tone was exaggerated — “And Ivey thinks the governor broke the law to take their funds ...”
I could empathize with Ivey. I had just been interviewed by the Asheville ABC affiliate WLOS regarding a Cherokee Tribal Council’s discussion concerning amendments to the Tribe’s Executive Session ordinance. I hadn’t seen the interview, but I received an email from a friend asking me what meeting I had been barred from and why. I decided I should stay up for “News at 11.”
WLOS played about 15 seconds of my two- to three-minute interview — a blip that sounded like I had recently been turned away from some tribal council meeting. It was in fact a short explanation of what spurred Cherokee One Feather Editor Joe Martin to introduce an amendment to the Tribe’s Executive Session ordinance.
I watched more of WLOS’ report with short snippets of video, each seemingly contradicting the other and presenting a picture of great conflict. I wondered if perhaps WLOS reporters and I were trapped in different dimensions watching the same council meeting.
In my dimension, Tribal Council Vice Chairman Larry Blythe and Chairman Bob Blankenship both agreed that the Cherokee Nation’s closed session ordinance, offered as an example to follow by Martin, could be a good compromise. From the WLOS dimension, it looked like Tribal Council was locked in internal conflict and, at the same time, girding for an attack by the media — Joe and me.
Like the naive reporter I am, I even took it upon myself to ask Joe if council made the proposed changes to the closed session ordinance, would he support it. He said yes.
So while the WLOS cameras were recording the rattling of sabers and donning of war paint, this “not ready for prime time” reporter was watching a dedicated political body, prodded by a conscientious member of the Fourth Estate who happens to be a constituent, striving for and perhaps achieving compromise and consensus that would serve all stakeholders — tribal members, tribal government and the media — equitably and honorably.
“Local Reporter Trapped in Wrong Dimension — News at 11!”
(Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)