Comments on: Ignite Portland 4 Hits but KGW has an Epic FAIL

By: Back Fence PDX Day! « Recovering Californian

Back Fence PDX Day! « Recovering Californian — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:57:52 +0000

[...] On PDX is totally awesome. And I'm a big fan of Geoff's writing. Especially when he compliments me. So go check out his story at Back Fence [...]

By: Geoff K

Geoff K — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:32:45 +0000

I was TOTALLY remiss in not mentioning your shoes at Ignite. The video test run on your site is a hoot! Can you ever forgive me :) ?

By: melissa lion

melissa lion — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:25:15 +0000

Hey, thanks for the shout out! My name was wrong on that news station (I don't even have TV, so whatever) and the techy glitch thing, but I still felt good — thanks to my shoes. Forget intelligence, go out and get some tall shoes!

By: Steph Stricklen

Steph Stricklen — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:49:59 +0000

@ blf – You can totally call me Steph if you don't mind me calling you blf. Actually, good friends call me Stef. As witnessed by my twitters, I'm a lazy typer who typically forgoes good, old-fashioned puncuation, proper grammer (unless I'm writing for TV), and spell-checking. Somehow, I've convinced myself that a lifetime of typing an "f" instead of a "ph" will add up to MINUTES of time I will be able to spend watching reruns of BG (January can't come soon enough). Or now Twittering, too. Anyway, I'm only attempting proper punctuation here because I forgot my flame-retardant gear at home and don't want the apology to get lost.

I know that some of you will cringe at this, but we will keep trying. It's that, or we look like every other news show on TV.

By: Mike Mathews

Mike Mathews — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:38:54 +0000

@Steph Stricklen I was manning the door from 4:00 – 7:00 with 5-6 other people and the audience was extremely diverse, far more than I expected.

Yeah, "hipster" hit me as odd, and definitely not the group to which I belong, but attendees were definitely looking for entertainment of a different sort. Ignite is PowerPoint juggling, a wide range of topics and folks hoping to hold attention for five minutes each without dropping the ball. Amazingly, most succeed. But hipsters doesn't describe the audience.

I also watched Joe prepare and he took quite some time gathering his notes. I think this was just one of those things–unfortunately, your failures show up on TV!

Come check out @beerandblog, we are not all that bad as a community. Hope you better luck next time!

By: Banana Lee Fishbones

Banana Lee Fishbones — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:32:12 +0000

Thank you Steph (can I call you Steph?) for posting this. I like you and your approach and I am hoping to see more of your coverage of this stuff. I'm not pissed I'm just disappointed that it "came out wrong".

PLEASE keep trying! And I think you'd have a great presentation no matter what subject you pick. How about "Life of a News Story" or "Day as an anchor" or something?

By: Steph Stricklen

Steph Stricklen — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:19:06 +0000

@ lynette – Sorry. To hear we not only blew it in your mind, but were also borderline insulting makes me feel lousy about it. That was not our intent.

@ blf – I'm the one who called it a hipster event. That is all me. And I apologize. Won't make that mistake again.

~In my mind, we wanted to cover it because it's the kind of event that doesn't get any press in traditional newscasts these days. The last thing we wanted to do is give it the kind of press you think it could do without (worse than no coverage at all). So, I'm sorry we let you down. It's such a cool event. Maybe work will let me off early enough in February so that I can apply to do a presentation on the "Top 5 Ways To Quickly Piss Off Smart, Tech Savvy People". Thanks, Steph

By: lynnette

lynnette — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:44:50 +0000

I agree with Madame Fishbones on this one. Sorry Geoff. Both the reporter and the station shirked some responsibilities.

As an editor, it is my job to make sure that a suitable writer is paired with each assignment. Call it quality assurance, but it makes for much better editorial. My medium is web and print, but I can't believe there isn't some similar level of responsibility in TVland.

By: Jeff H.

Jeff H. — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:40:43 +0000

Wow, thanks for the kind words regarding my Kentucky presentation.

By: Banana Lee Fishbones

Banana Lee Fishbones — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:13:37 +0000

Oh I think you can blame the reporter for the getting Adam and Melissa's names wrong. KGW is to blame for calling it a hipster event and sending the totally wrong reporter for it. He does Your Money Your Business or something doesn't he?

By: Geoff K

Geoff K — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:11:48 +0000

@lynnette – As a journalist I can tell you it's ALWAYS the reporter's responsibility to be prepared. Any time I've ever done a live (or taped live) interview, I've always done a good pre-talk with the people I interview so I get a feel for what they are talking about and what questions to ask them. Joe Smith blew the basics, like the names of the people who he was talking to (even though they were all wearing name tags).

@Andrew Deal – You're right, the presentations in of themselves aren't necessarily newsworthy. But the phenomenon of the event is. It's a good example of "which story are you telling". Perhaps they picked the wrong angle on it. Still, it's hard to excuse the basic failures in the reporting.

By: Andrew Deal

Andrew Deal — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:08:53 +0000

I saw the KGW report.. yes it was lame, but you have to admit that really, really, really… a bunch of powerpoint preso's aren't inherently valuable just because you have a 15 in 5 minute format. So the guy, in fairness, stumbled through it partially because he overreached trying to make something that is really very inane sound newsworthy.

By: lynnette

lynnette — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:03:55 +0000

Yeah, the coverage was unbelievably bad. Bordering on insulting. I don't think you can simply blame the reporter—KGW was simply ill-prepared to deal.