My Letter to a Local TV news Station

[Guest db99wj]

Not sure if this should go here or not, move it if need be.

Ok, I saw a news story Sunday night on the night club shooting here in Memphis, the one on Beale, but not in the Beale Street district. I got pissed off, pretty bad on how bad the reporting and their attempt to tie it to the new law that went into effect, of course I am speaking of the restaurant carry bill. So I typed out a letter to the journalist that did the report. The response was less than I thought it would be from a reporter, but I don't know what to think. Ok here it is.

My letter:

I am so disappointed in the biased coverage of this and many other stories that your station has started doing.

This story was about a shooting outside of a night club, The Orchid Club. This shooting as tragic as it and all shootings are, had nothing, not one thing to do with a law abiding citizen with a permit holder, nothing. The story made every effort to link this shooting and the new RESTAURANT CARRY law together, which is absolutely not the case. Let me be clear, this story has nothing to do with law abiding citizens, permit carriers, or the new law that went into effect on July 14th. This story is about how rampant crime in Memphis is and not about the so called media named guns and bars bills.

Please start reporting the facts, for example, this story mentioned above, that criminals shot people outside of a bar. That's it, nothing to do with permit holders.

You and your station should be ashamed of yourselves. I have always thought of you, as a fair, unbiased reporters of the truth, but tonight, you have made me loose that faith. I have been watching Channel 5 since I was a baby, my parents watched, and I grew up watching. Before today, I watched, the morning show, while getting ready for work, logged in several times during the day, the 6pm news cast, and the 10pm newscast. Not to mention if breaking weather was on. The weather team and your technology is so much better than the other stations in my opinion.

A little background information about me; I have a college degree in Journalism/Public Relations from the University of Memphis. I was taught to keep out all bias, no matter what your personally feelings were, and report the facts as they happened. I guess I was taught wrong or things have changed over the years.

I am angry tonight, I hope I get a response and an explanation. I am a permit holder, and the picture that you paint of us is awful, when in fact that is not the truth. You know this. Your coworkers (Janice Broach, Andy Wise) have covered permit holders, and self defense, and other stories that have been fair and honest, but this restaurant carry bill has shown some disturbing things. I have canceled my subscription to the Commercial Appeal due to their obvious bias, and their anti gun owners stance, I hope that I don't have to lose my local TV station because of it as well.

Her response:

You make a valid point. Thank you for your email.

Not sure what to think. Either she is blowing me off, or it did hit her with a valid point and she will think more about it when reporting. I dunno.

[memphismason]

Great Letter.

I would be pissed at the response. It does seem like she is blowing you off, with such a short response.

[Guest pws_smokeyjones]

good letter db. IMO, she blew you off. You were lucky to get a response at all. Nothing much you can do about that though. If you keep watching and sending them letters about their bad reporting, then they win - because you are watching. If you stop watching and don't know about their bad reporting going forward, then they win as well because you won't write them letters.

[Guest clownsdd]

Yep, blow off. That's what they do when there is no reasonable explanation for what they have done.

[Garufa]

Good letter.

The response says "You are entitled to your opinion. Now piss off."

[Guest db99wj]

I withheld sending it to the GM, Lee Merideth, maybe I shouldn't have. I kinda wanted to go straight to her first. This station has shown in the past, several great articles regarding self defense and handgun permits, they have filmed and gotten permits at RangeUSA, they have been to Rangemaster, and other places as well for the other self defense items. All the reports have been positive and they didn't make gun owner look like fanatics.

It just appears that even the better stations, have fallen on the bull**** train of this restaurant carry bill. To me, it stinks.

[Guest bkelm18]

Wow, if that response doesn't say "Piss Off", then I don't know what it says.

[strickj]

Not sure if this should go here or not, move it if need be.

Ok, I saw a news story Sunday night on the night club shooting here in Memphis, the one on Beale, but not in the Beale Street district. I got pissed off, pretty bad on how bad the reporting and their attempt to tie it to the new law that went into effect, of course I am speaking of the restaurant carry bill. So I typed out a letter to the journalist that did the report. The response was less than I thought it would be from a reporter, but I don't know what to think. Ok here it is.

My letter:

Her response:

Quote:

You make a valid point. Thank you for your email.

Not sure what to think. Either she is blowing me off, or it did hit her with a valid point and she will think more about it when reporting. I dunno.

You made a good letter.Thanks for posting!

[Guest PapaB]

Well said db00wj.

Her response:

Quote:

You make a valid point. Thank you for your email.

Sounds like, "what a good boy, (while patting you on the head). Now roll over so I can rub your belly and you'll be all happy inside. Now get out of my face you idiot."

I would send it to the GM and head of the news dept as well.

[Guest Jcochran88]

I agree with everyone else "she blew you off". Send the letter to gm with her response.

[Volzfan]

I agree with everyone else "she blew you off". Send the letter to gm with her response.

Yep that's the next step.

[Fallguy]

I have wrote other journalist in other places about stories they did and always received a much better response than that.