Have you seen me? (I might have questionable mental capacity)

This is not a rant about that makes-me-shudder phrase now used by newspapers and network reports to describe Someone-Who-is-not-Where-He-or-She-is-Supposed-to-be.

It's about the secrets families tell police departments when it happens to that certain Someone.

People disappear in South Florida and elsewhere. They don't GO MISSING. And they never WENT MISSING. They got lost. They left their troubled families. They vanished. They were kidnapped. They intentionally  hid. They got sucked into drug and prostitution. They wandered away. Unfortunately, sometimes, they got murdered.

When someone disappears, a family member contacts a local police department and suddenly medical privacy goes out the window. 

Here are some phrases from south Florida police department news releases about missing people:

• Deputies are looking for a missing West Park man who suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s disease. (Name redacted), 72, has been missing since just before 4 p.m. from the area of 3500 S.W. 40th Avenue in West Park
• The missing person is a twenty- year- old male that has no physical or medical conditions. He jumped into a canal after arguing with family members and then threatened to kill himself.
• The missing person is a twenty (20) year-old female that has a low mental capacity. On Saturday, July 12, 2014, at approximately 5:00 p.m., she was engaged in a heated dispute with her grandmother and fled.
• (Name redacted) was last seen at home in the early afternoon. Ms Laura suffers from Dementia, is of questionable mental capacity, and is very child like. She is not a danger to anyone in the community. (Name redacted) left home without her medication.
• The Police Department is requesting your assistance in locating this missing adult. She suffers from schizophrenia and has not taken her medication.
• The Police Department is requesting your assistance in locating this endangered child, (Name redacted) was last seen at the location above at approximately 8p.m on 07/19/2014. She was wearing an orange blouse and white short pants. (Name redacted) suffers from depression and according to the family, she has a slow mental capacity.
• And my personal favorite: The missing person suffers from an un-diagnosed mental condition. Unknown if also under the influence of drugs or alcohol.   Missing person walked away in an unknown direction.

In almost every case these alerts are regurgitated on local news...either on broadcast, digital, social media. Or all three.

And it always makes me uncomfortable.

Do we really need to throw up a photo and include the "un-diagnosed mental condition" in our script?

I think not.

Sadly, I am probably a better journalist...

Great journalist or great manager: Who would you prefer for a boss? | Poynter.

Demand Rising For Enterprise TV Reporting

Read more here about a big reliance — particularly in the morning — on personality and credibility.

Demand Rising For Enterprise TV Reporting

I checked with Alfred E. Newman...

...he said the black spy really does hate the white spy.

And vice versa.

That was my first reaction when I saw Steve Schwaid's Facebook post about the reporter who debunked something from The Onion.

WTF? I wrongly assumed that the reporter was a youngster fresh out of college.

Nope, according to her online bio, she has more than six years experience. It goes on to say that when she's away from the newsroom she spends time with family, friends and her dog. May I kindly suggest she do a bit of reading?

And where oh where was her manager? Did someone assign this story to her? Or did she go rogue, investigate the proposal that the United States sever ties to the state of Alabama, determine the truth and take it upon herself to expose herself and her newsroom to ridicule on social media?

Tsk tsk.

Home, Sweet Homes

Road trip!  We've got the house on the market and we're heading south to Miami.

I haven't blogged in weeks.  On purpose.  I felt like I needed to stay low during the most intense time of my job search.  I took some trips, spent endless hours on the telephone and watched hours of newscasts from markets far and wide.

But it was a Facebook message from my former co-worker that put me on the right path.

"Know any morning Executive Producers?"
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Some things that I've wanted to blog about but didn't:

• The News Director in Wisconsin who allowed his anchor to use four precious minutes of air time to recriminate a viewer who wrote a critical message about her appearance.  Jennifer Livingston called the viewer a bully.  What?!  Seriously bad.
• Cable TV is ridiculously expensive.  I have had too much time on my hands but I haven't necessarily watched more television.  I have written the checks to Time Warner, though.  Bring on 4G wireless!
• Never watch the show "Doomsday Preppers" right before going to bed unless you want to dream of the zombie apocalypse all darn night.
• The Kansas City Chiefs are the Worst. Team. Ever.  I attended my final home game as a season ticket holder last week.  I wore black.  I foolishly hoped that they would win, up until midway through the third quarter.  Fire them all.  And some twice.  
• The television station in Denver that accidentally used a spoof shot of the Petraeus bio grabbed from the internet...SMH.  Credibility is precious.  Somebody should get suspended. 
• I cooked and baked quite a bit during my extended vacation from work.  And I wondered about things.  Like...who first decided to separate eggs and beat the hell out of the whites to form stiff peaks?  Can you imagine how long that would take if done by hand?

There's more but this is a start.  Right now I'm working on my "100 Things I'll Miss About Kansas City" list. I'll post that within the next ten days.

What Is Newsworthy?

Although I am trying hard not to be a shill for HBO, I can't resist sharing the trailers/teasers they release about their upcoming series that starts later this month.

This is an interesting question that is not answered in this video.

For me, newsworthy means it affects a lot of people, may or may not include conflict although conflict is preferred or has a "holy shit" factor that cannot be predicted.  For me, most celebrity information is not newsworthy.  Most of the news releases emailed, faxed and mailed to the assignment desk as not newsworthy.  Most of the email tips we get from viewers are not newsworthy.

But.

We have to process each one.  And try not to make decisions based on our cynical views.

Flashback: Hullabaloo

In our afternoon editorial meeting Thursday, Managing Editor Brooke Givens quoted a woman regarding this week's Time magazine cover photo.
"Oh my, that will cause a real hullabaloo..."
And I had a flashback to the NBC variety show I watched as a kid,.

Getting old is easier when all of my memories can be dredged up on YouTube.

Groundhog Day

On the way home from work Wednesday, I realized, after ciphering the number in my head and confirming it by counting on my fingers, tomorrow will be the 16th time.

Sixteen times as a news director embarking on a February sweeps period.

It's kind of exciting.  It's the shortest month of the year but sweeps months are always longer than other months, somehow.  It starts with a bang for all NBC stations.  We have the Superbowl!  (Go Giants)  And there are plenty of other big events to draw folks to the  TV set.

CBS has the Grammys.  FOX has American Idol.  ABC has the Academy Awards.

Sweeps Eve?  It does feel like Groundhog Day.  And of course, tomorrow is.

For me professionally, this has been an incredible year of working on the way I communicate.  How do I get out of the death-spiral rut of negativity?  How do I transform myself into a more positive leader?  How do I provide feedback that feels like coaching, not criticism?

I still fail.  Regularly.

In the movie, the Bill Murray character (Phil Connors) is stuck in an endless loop.  I think we all get that way.

If you find yourself in a rut, keep working at it!  And for guidance, check this out:

So how does Phil Connors change in the movie? Ironically, Phil breaks free and changes his life by slowing down. By doing the equivalent of going from fast-forward to pause, he can start to see an accurate image of himself.

It's not easy.  I especially struggle with the slow down part.  There always seems to be so much to do and so little time to do it.

On this, the eve of Groundhog Day, I pledge to let go of my set ways.

And slow down so I can be a better leader.

Drive 55? No Can Do.

Seriously.  Today I had one of the Best. Birthdays. Ever.

I can live with being 55.  Double nickles.  The speed limit.

Birthdays that end in 0 or 5  are more momentous than the rest..  When I turned 50, I was unemployed. OMG!

I was fresh off of an eight-year-plus stint at WMC-TV in Memphis.  Legacy station.  Long time number one.  Ratings leader.

Some background.  I was hired in at WMC in 1998 by Bill Applegate, one of the most brilliant minds in the business. He moved on to Cleveland and was replaced by Howard Meagle.

Howard and I had a difficult beginning, to say the least.  We learned to appreciate each other.

I was invited to leave (fired) after the November book in 2006.  Not that it was a surprise.  Howard was dispatched in July, 2006 and when the new I-want-my-own-puppet GM arrived, I knew my days were numbered.  I lasted four months before hearing the words..."we need/want to make a change....blah blah blah."

Two weeks after a great 50th birthday celebration (January, 2007) in SD I traded in my beloved Mustang convertible for a Ford 500 (I am still driving the white Beast) and headed to Syracuse for a job at WSTM.  Fifteen months later John and I moved slightly south to the Scripps station in Baltimore, WMAR.  Forty-nine weeks later...west to Kansas City and KSHB.

I have now been at NBC Action News for two years, eight months.  Learned some things.  Hard things.  Survived another general manager change.  Learned to appreciate my strengths and to fix some of my weaknesses.

I let go of Memphis.  I began to appreciate Kansas City.  We bought a house here.

Most of all, though, I recognize the competitive spirit of the folks at 4720 Oak.  Today, I saw evidence of a high-functioning newsroom.  There have been glimpses before.  Today, I saw it clearly.

It was a great birthday present.

We can be winners.  I know it.  I believe it.

And I'm now 55 years old.  Wow.

The March to Irrelevance

I am one week away from a day I've been dreading since I became aware of the importance of demographics in the life a TV news director.

We-Who-Run-Newsrooms live and die (get fired) based on the number of people ages 18-49 or 25-54 that watch our newscasts.  Those ratings are figured every February, May, July, November.

Next Wednesday, I will no longer matter, according to Nielsen, the company that determines who watches television and when.

I will be 55 years old.  And I'm not alone.

I have more disposable income than I did at 18.  More than I had at 25.  More than I had at 35.  I have more buying power but the Powers-That-Be who determine my professional fate.  Still, they say I'm too old to matter.

I say, "Hold the bus headed the old folks home."

I'm still here, I'm still buying stuff.

Most of the time with cash!

I want a new kitchen and a deck and I want to turn my unfinished basement into a Man Cave for John.  He wants a pool table.

Don't stop paying attention to me, retailers.  I still matter.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way:

"...the current state of media evaluation and advertising targeting is dominated by a fundamentally flawed, and increasingly anachronistic, age-based process. This process is resulting in the misallocation of billions of dollars in media expenditures and in an imbalance in the programming mix of the media."

It's time for Nielsen to realize that 55 is the new 47.

WCCO’s Chinatown Dog Meat Story

IRE and RTDNA need to do seminars on this incident at the next conventions.  Best case scenario is that the news director, reporter, producer (anyone who had their hands on it) participates in a panel discussion on what happened.  We can all learn from this.

Here’s WCCO’s Chinatown Dog Meat Story

I hate it when this happens...watch all the way to the end.

I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take this anymore

Steven Slater's story really struck a chord with me. And with stressed out workers everywhere, apparently. Who hasn't considered grabbing two beers, screaming a few obscenities and pulling the ripcord on their career?

"Screw it! I'm outta here!"

Sunday night I met up with my former co-worker Tony Kovaleski and his wife Laurie.  They overnighted in Kansas City while taking their daughter to Mizzou.  Tony and I worked together 25 years ago at KTVN in Reno.  During our dinner at Abuelos in Zona Rosa and for two plus subsequent hours we remembered and laughed about our early careers in television.  I was a green reporter when Tony arrived and even though he'd already earned his stripes at a TV station in Eureka, California, our boss ordered me to "show him the ropes."

I had worked my way into the newsroom from traffic and receptionist.  I'd paid my dues so I was fully prepared to hate Tony.  In fact, I already did hate him.

Tony's immediate and obvious competence forced me to spend most of my time sulking in the news car while he and a photojournalist gathered information and sound on a story about residential mailbox vandalism.  He didn't need me to show him the ropes.  I realized pretty quickly that I would soon be learning from him.

But he couldn't know that.  I had to keep it a secret.  So I resorted to my first, best defense.

I made fun of him.  To his face.

Tony and Chip Baker (the photographer, RIP) were prepping for his stand-up and I rolled down the window of the news car so I could exercise some intimidation, in case he was nervous.

"Three-two-one-mark," he said and then launched into his stand-up.

I started laughing.

"Who the hell is Mark?" I teased him.  He tried to explain that doing a countdown helped the editor find the starting place but I would have none of it.  I just mocked him unmercifully, all the way back to the station, changing the word "mark" to his first name.

"Three-two-one-Tony" has been a trademark of our friendship for more than two decades.  He is now a National Murrow Award winning investigative journalist at KMGH in Denver.  His career took him from Reno to Los Angeles to Phoenix to Houston to Denver.  I have a few more cities in my resume...

Though the years, when I've had career bummers or questions, Tony has been there for me.  A sounding board.  A constant friend.  A counselor.  Despite our rocky beginning.

Work relationships can save you from the overwhelming stress so prevalent today.

If you feel overwhelmed, you might lose confidence and become irritable or withdrawn, become less productive and effective.  You'll definitely think your work is less rewarding. If the warning signs of work stress go unattended, it can lead to bigger problems.

Don't be a Steven.  Hang in there.  Find your Tony.