If a TV news report aired that said that you contribute to prostitution in Charlotte, you’d be sure you heard it right the first time, then you’d call up the station and ask for a retraction (if you didn’t decide to sue) and, come to think of it, you’d be angry.
The “you” in this case is Creative Loafing, which is still waiting for some kind of clarification or retraction after a March 16 WCNC-TV report that had a Charlotte-Mecklenburg vice officer saying that CL is kind of a pimp for illegal “spas,” as massage parlors are calling themselves these days.
These small ads run in the Charlotte Observer as well, but that wasn’t a part of the WCNC story, as were other facts and omissions, as reported by Tara Servatius in this paper on March 24 (http://charlotte.creativeloafing .com/newsstand/2004-03-24/news_feature.html)
I know from experience that reporters and editors/news directors are always willing to investigate and expose, but often less willing to admit when they don’t get it right when they are criticized. WCNC continues to insist that their story is accurate. Parts were, but other parts were not.
I’ve never liked the fact that CL runs ads to make cash like those for the “spas” in question, phone sex services, and topless bars, all “legitimate businesses,” in sales parlance. To me, they’re all sleazoids. I don’t understand why the Charlotte Observer does it, either. That’s the story no one has done: are these ads so lucrative that legitimate newspapers have to run them to make the bottom line financially?
So what we have as of this writing is a Mexican standoff between the two media outlets, which once had a cooperative relationship in covering stories. That seems a thing of the past, but this won’t be the last you’ll hear about the dispute.
With ratings up over 25 percent for the NCAA basketball tournament this year for CBS and the two ACC teams that ended up in the Final Four, color us surprised that local CBS affiliate WBTV sent no one to cover those games in San Antonio.
A local special was aired prior to the April 5 championship, but it’s an editorial gimme to send your sports team to Texas. A competitor in the market told me, “it’s a no-brainer, but they do less and less sports as times goes by.”
A WBTV staffer echoed that, telling me: “We can’t believe we’re not going, either.” Once the strongest sports department in the market, WBTV missed the slam dunk on this one.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2004.
