Sam Fulwood III Misses the Point on Browns vs. WOIO News
The Cleveland Browns are currently working to get out of their deal with Channel 19 WOIO in Cleveland. The deal was in place so that WOIO could broadcast the Cleveland Browns’ pre-season football games. The problems started when WOIO aired a news story featuring a 9-1-1 call placed by Nancy Fisher on July 9th after discovering her 6-year-old daughter had drowned in a creek on the family’s property. Fisher is the sister of Browns owner Randy Lerner and he was understandably upset with the network for a 9-1-1 call that was more sensationalist than necessary.
Lerner said “I just don’t know how you do business with people who do that to you.”
Under the circumstances, I can’t really disagree. The story of the drowning death of a 6-year-old with connections to the Cleveland Browns is certainly newsworthy, but the gut-wrenching 9-1-1 call is probably not necessary except to titillate and shock viewers.
The two sides appear to be prepared to battle it out in court. It seems like all pretty straight forward stuff. Then I read the most recent opinion piece by Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Sam Fulwood III, titled “Treating the rich just like the poor.” In his article Fulwood takes this situation and turns it into a story of courageous journalism and the public’s right to know.
Really? Is that the issue here?
Fulwood says, ” Airing the audio was perfectly defensible, and similarly dramatic stuff gets on the air every day.”
While I can’t disagree that similarly dramatic “stuff” gets on the air every day, I am left wondering if that is the way it should be? Hearing the horror of a person after discovering that their daughter has drowned is not an important part of the story. But don’t get me wrong. I am not naïve as to what TV news has become. We all realize that TV news is a big ratings game with their ever-increasing Doppler numbers, and their increased broadcast of shocking news. Here is the difference. Understanding what the game is about and accepting these newscasts as “the way it should be” are two very different things.
Fulwood’s article continues in another direction as he explores some hypotheticals.
” What if the person who called 9-1-1 was an ignorant-sounding person from some poor Cleveland neighborhood, instead of an affluent person from a suburban estate?”
OK, that’s an easy one. The “ignorant-sounding person from some poor Cleveland neighborhood” probably wouldn’t have any leverage like the Browns TV deal to try and punish the channel for unnecessarily dragging a family’s emotions through the grinder of their television ratings battle.
So what?
Just because Randy Lerner is a powerful guy and can exert his power when he feels he isn’t treated properly, means nothing to this situation from a philosophical standpoint. Just because this happens to poor people all the time doesn’t make it right. True, that Lerner has more opportunity for recourse, but what does that matter to the idea of whether the call should have been played or not?
Fulwood doesn’t seem to think that the call needed to be played except that if it happens to poor people then Randy Lerner should have to take it too. Since when do two wrongs make a right?
Fulwood raises another hypothetical, “Or what if the dispatcher hadn’t handled the call properly?”
Another easy answer. That is a completely different case. The story now deals with a public service (911) not working properly. That is news under a completely different heading. Reporting that there might or might not be problems with dispatchers working emergency phone lines is definitely under the guidelines of news that the community should know about. It is a far cry from what we are talking about here with Lerner’s situation.
The rest of Fulwood’s argument seems to center around the idea that one person shouldn’t dictate to a news department what is considered news. I agree with that notion whole-heartedly, but here we have a situation where every channel (I think) reported the news, but only one channel took it to the offensive level to Lerner by playing the audio to try and titillate their audience.
Yes it is news. Report on it all you want. When you cross that line into a family’s private anguish, they deserve the right to speak up. In our society rich people from the suburbs, especially those owning the Cleveland Browns, have more opportunity to do that. Is that a surprise?
So that is exactly what Randy Lerner did. He felt that the news department did something to him by playing the call. He has the right and means to speak out about it and not do business with them.
So we are still left with a question. WOIO didn’t show any bravery by playing the call, and it didn’t enhance any single viewer’s ability to be informed, so how is it defensible?
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3 Responses to “Sam Fulwood III Misses the Point on Browns vs. WOIO News”
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Fulwood’s argument is dopey class warfare BS, so I’ll ignore it. But to your question: I think it’s defensible to air the recording because it’s a public account of what actually happened. I’d rather my news channel not air it, but that’s a matter of preference, not propriety.
We agree on everything 100%. It is totally legal as a part of the public record. Just in poor taste from my (and Randy Lerner’s) point of view.
It will be interesting to see if a civil court thinks poor taste violates the terms of their contract.