Team Prenda Tries To Flip The Story Of John Steele's Mother-in-Law To Make Alan Cooper Look Bad

News Anchor Does Twitter Wrong: Teases Homicide Story Referencing Breaking Bad

from the hot-hot-hot dept

Mon, Oct 7th 2013 7:50pm — Timothy Geigner

We all know that companies will occasionally use social media in a way that just comes off as wrong, either intentionally or not. For instance, one pizzeria's friendly promotion for free pie is another feminist league's gross attempt to view women's breasts. The point is that in a world that is more connected than ever, in which social media attempts can go viral quickly for reasons good or bad, a corporation had damned well better get the message right or risk the consequences.

One would think that news organizations and their employees, already adept at writing headlines, would be proficient in this. One would not, however, always be right in that regard. Take the example of a Fox News employee, Joyce Evans, who tweeted the following to followers of the local Philadelphia station:

Thought "Breaking Bad" was hot last Sunday? @FOX29philly See who's breakin' bad in SW Philly leavin' 6 people SHOT - Tonite at Ten!

— Joyce Evans (@JoyceEvansFox29) October 7, 2013

Your reaction range ought to be somewhere between cringe and laugh, depending on how dark your sense of humor is. Teasing a story in which multiple people were shot using that kind of terminology is something you just don't do. At the very least, those involved in the story are going to be outraged. More likely, you're going to outrage a good portion of those not involved who don't think that conflating entertainment with the real-life harm of a multiple shooting is something news companies should be doing.

So, as you'd imagine, the properly chastised Evans issued a sincere apology. Just kidding, she doubled down on her ignorance.

Last tweet NOT AST ALL A JOKE. Very real life drama was the point as oppose to one that end on tv. That was my point

— Joyce Evans (@JoyceEvansFox29) October 7, 2013

Mmm, no. Your point was that the story was "hot" in the same entertaining way as a fictional show. And nobody is buying the BS, either. Welcome to social media, Joyce!

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Filed Under: breaking bad, journalism, joyce evans, philadelphia

30 Comments

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GMacGuffin (profile), 7 Oct 2013 @ 6:26pm

Even my bad-taste buds -- dulled by years of abuse, lack of a keep-it-to-yourself governor, and a faulty tackiness gauge -- were shocked at the sour that tweet left behind.
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- Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 1:16am
  
  Re:
  To me it looks like a journalist who do not want to admit that she was trying to draw a story larger than it were.
  
  As long as we are humans, arrogance will be part of life. Whether by others or ourself!
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  - nasch (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:20am
    
    Re: Re:
    To me it looks like a journalist who do not want to admit that she was trying to draw a story larger than it were.
    
    You're saying she was trying to make the insignificant multiple shooting seem bigger by comparing it to the more important Breaking Bad finale?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 9:19pm

copyright infringement? I hope.
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- nasch (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:22am
  
  Re:
  copyright infringement? I hope.
  
  Thankfully, mentioning the title of a TV show is not copyright infringement.
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Androgynous Cowherd, 7 Oct 2013 @ 9:35pm

Key words here.
One would think that news organizations and their employees, already adept at writing headlines, would be proficient in this. One would not, however, always be right in that regard. Take the example of a Fox News employee...

The key words here, of course, are "Fox News".

News organizations should indeed be proficient at avoiding being impolitic with any substantial constituency.

Propaganda organizations, on the other hand, are pandering to a particular base and, in the instant case, this one also has a significant goal that can be aided by glorifying violence.
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- Rocco Maglio (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 5:17am
  
  Re: Key words here.
  The Fox News claim here is bogus. It was FOX 29 in Philly. This has nothing to do with Fox News. I understand that words are being twisted here since Fox 29 News anchor can be described as Fox News employee, but it is misleading since Fox News is a well known brand. As for the person who fell for it and started denigrating Fox News. Who exactly is the propagandist? If it was an NBC 10 News Employee you would be fine with them being referred to a NBC News anchor and then a rant about how NBC News is biased and just propaganda?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 7:17am
    
    Re: Re: Key words here.
    NBC is just meandering crap. And more than a little biased.
    
    Fox News has the double sin of being biased and being complete morons unable to check sources before firing at the hip.
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  - Androgynous Cowherd, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:15pm
    
    Re: Re: Key words here.
    So, what you're saying is it wasn't Fox, it was Fox?
    
    Alllll-rightythen.
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avideogameplayer, 7 Oct 2013 @ 10:46pm

Philadelphia...

Enuff said...
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 11:28pm

I laughed because it was the kind of thing I could easily see the Onion saying.
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 11:29pm
  
  Re:
  Yeah, I cracked up too. That's some unintentional comedy gold. If she does that often I may have to follow her, or whatever the twitter-kids call it these days.
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PaulT (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 1:07am

"Last tweet NOT AST ALL A JOKE"

Well, perhaps if she took a moment to understand why people were thinking (hoping?) it was a joke and why it was in bad taste either way, she wouldn't have been rage pawing at her keyboard so hard that she managed to misspell "at".

Joke or not, it was trying to promote a news story on a pretty horrific public shooting by trying to compare it to a fictional drama. That's bad taste whether humour was intended or she was deadly serious - in fact, it's actually worse if she was serious.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 2:35am

Wow. This is news?

Techdirt seems to be under the misinterpretation that mainstream news is not about entertaining people. That's exactly its purpose.

As an aside, this was hardly in bad taste. Had this been an introduction to a story on-air or in a news column, no one would be complaining. It's part of keeping news from being dry and uninteresting, which will send viewers elsewhere.

Thus "Hot, hot, hot! Read all about it!"
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- JustMe (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 5:04am
  
  Re: A/C Troll
  Umm, no, that's not right. People would still be upset about conflating tragedy with TV, but (absent someone recording the live broadcast) the audience is much narrower. Here, @JoyceEvansFox29 gave the entire world a special present. Also, WTF is she doing tweeting about her nightly new show? Who does that?
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  - PaulT (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 5:29am
    
    Re: Re: A/C Troll
    "Who does that?"
    
    Most people with material to promote. While she definitely did it wrong, why wouldn't she promote her own work via her Twitter feed?
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Rocco Maglio (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 5:36am

Fox News claim is bogus
It truly saddens me that this blog has resorted to this level of misrepresentation. The story stands on its own as a dumb thing a news anchor did. This blog often makes good arguments about intellectual property, but now all that can be ignored since you are making claims in the blog post that imply something that is not true. The blog can now be lumped with numerous others out on the internet that either make false claims or false implications.
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- PaulT (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:05am
  
  Re: Fox News claim is bogus
  Perhaps people would agree with you if you'd like to explain what's been misrepresented? From what I can see, everything that's being claimed is cited and linked correctly. What am I missing?
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  - nasch (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:25am
    
    Re: Re: Fox News claim is bogus
    Perhaps people would agree with you if you'd like to explain what's been misrepresented?
    
    It's in the subject line. This reporter is not a Fox News reporter, but an employee of an affiliate station.
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    - Rocco Maglio (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:55am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Fox News claim is bogus
      From the article "Take the example of a Fox News employee, Joyce Evans, who tweeted the following to followers of the local Philadelphia station". She does not work for Fox News Channel, so calling her a Fox News Employee is bogus. If you are saying no one would misunderstand what was being claimed, I present Androgynous Cowherd and his comment Keywords Here which was a rant against Fox News. I also like the claim that I work for Fox News, because apparently no one else would care about blatant misrepresentation of the truth. I do not work for Fox News, but I do believe it is important to be accurate.
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      - PaulT (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 7:39am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Fox News claim is bogus
        Really that's your problem?
        
        I did a little research and you're right. No, she's not a Fox News employee. She's an employee of Fox 29, a TV station owned and operated by Fox Television Stations, which is owned by the same corporation as Fox News. In other words, if Tim had merely omitted the word "news", he would have been perfectly accurate.
        
        *This* is the level of "misrepresentation" that makes you ignore facts and discussion? Why do you even visit blogs at all if this is what sets you off? I understand your distaste at the reactions of some commenters, but seriously do you think that Cowherd's reaction would have been different if the article had accurately said "Fox employee" instead of "Fox News employee"? I kind of doubt it myself.
        
        "I do not work for Fox News, but I do believe it is important to be accurate."
        
        Indeed it is, which is why fact checking and citations are important. Some things slip through, but in my experience sites like this are much better at correcting mistakes than many "proper" news outlets. At worst it's a typo made by a non-professional blogger, and one that accurately describes the person (she's an employee of a Fox station that broadcasts news, even if it's not the one named "Fox News" - merely making the second word lower case would correct it), and doubtless one that will be corrected now that it's been pointed out.
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    - PaulT (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 7:41am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Fox News claim is bogus
      "It's in the subject line."
      
      I don't see that anywhere. The title of the article is "News Anchor Does Twitter Wrong: Teases Homicide Story Referencing Breaking Bad", and Fox isn't mentioned anywhere in the article apart from one sentence in the second paragraph.
      
      Did the article change at some point?
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      - nasch (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:12am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Fox News claim is bogus
        The subject line of his comment, not the headline of the article.
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        PaulT (profile), 9 Oct 2013 @ 3:29am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fox News claim is bogus
        I realised what you were saying afterwards, but it's still a pretty low bar to set for outrage in my opinion. Yes, the anchor worked as an employee of Fox on a news channel owned by them, it just wasn't the one named "Fox News". As noted, simply making the "News" lower case would be factually correct. If that's enough to set him off against a site, I'd suggest he doesn't read blogs at all.
        
        In fact, don't read news at all, since I've seen most major publications and other media make similar mistakes in the past (often without correction). Unless there's an obvious campaign or tendency to skew the facts in a specific direction or against specific organisations (hello Daily Mail), individual mistakes aren't enough for me to abandon a source. If I did, I'd have very little left to read.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 5:55am

I wonder if the process of trying to shame her the reporter is not somewhat the same process that others use to justify criticism to violent video games as cause for violence.

Think about the reason as the story and the way how the story is presented(e.g. written, story board, video, audio) is the process.

She is a criminal reporter, she probably get excited about crimes and their stories, in the same way doctors get excited about getting their hands on corpses to study or paleontologists get excited about finding fresh roadkill carcasses, which means lots of free bones to study.

Should this be an issue really?
Why?

I want to understand, I am horrible in social settings, I am a blind person when it comes to noticing what others feel or how they will react unless is something that have been around for a very long, long, long time and everyone everywhere have the same exact reaction to it.

This I am not so sure, it sparked nothing in me, I saw it as "Oh, Breaking Bad is cool and if I use it will make my story sound cool too", mostly I found it dumb and harmless.
So someone please enlighten me as to why this is so bad?
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- TKnarr (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 9:10am
  
  Re:
  Because she's a news anchor. Part of her job is supposed to be recognizing how her audience is likely to react to a story and it's presentation and making that presentation as attractive to viewers as possible. And she went with this, something that even a few moments' thought should've told her would upset a lot of people. She not only biffed it, she biffed a basic part of her job.
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Pragmatic, 8 Oct 2013 @ 5:58am

So when did you start working for Fox "What about guns?" News?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:22am

ROFL NO FUCKING WAY!!

I cannot believe they hired OOTB!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 9:23am

No outrage if she said:

'Thought "Homeland" was hot last Sunday? @FOX29philly See whose homeland is gone in Pakistan after a drone strike leaves 60 people DEAD - LOL!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2013 @ 1:49am

Looks like Teri Buhl found another buddy to join the "Journo" Club.
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