Stan Geiger

El Crappo

I don't usually watch local midday news shows. I did today, however. I watched the KOTV midday show. I was, quite frankly, appalled by what I saw.

A lady was scheduled to appear on the show, a lady from a restaurant known as 'El Guapo's' located in downtown Tulsa. She was to do a cooking segment. When the station cut to her segment, she began her gig. She was immediately cut off because the station wanted to air our beloved mayor's comments live.

I watched the mayor's segment. I watched him say nothing new to a bunch of unionized city employees gathered together so they could voice their disapproval. Oh, joy. What a great piece of "breaking news" coverage.

In the course of covering the mayor's fabulous comments live, the station pissed all over a woman that had busted her hump to be on the show. The anchor involved apologized and said, "We'll have to have you back."

If I were her, I wouldn't even think about it.

This woman prepped; this woman stressed; this woman drug herself and her stuff to the studio. Then the station pissed all over her. And all that happened for no particularly good reason.

I endured the same, once upon a time. I caught a dose of the dumbass and put my name on the ballot for mayor in '94 as an Independent candidate. I had no grandiose aspirations of actually winning; I just wanted a platform from which I could make a few points.

KTUL was the only station that gave me even the slightest bit of respect. If not for that, I would have been more upset over what that station did to me one day.

A reporter from KTUL called me up. He wanted to do a story on me, along with some video from supporters and such. My Aunt Flo and Uncle John had a nice, average, home. My mom had an old working friend from the old days that had started his own cabinet-making business. I figured it would be nice to give average folks some airtime. I went to these people and asked them to allow cameras into their respective domains on my behalf. They acquiesced.

The big morning rolled around, and, oh gee, it snowed. It didn't snow much. It barely snowed at all. But the reporter assigned to follow me around for a couple of hours never showed up. The reporter assigned to do my story was hurriedly reassigned to cover the weather "calamity."

There I was, in my fanciest suit, in the house of my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle went to an awful lot of trouble to lay out a spread of treats and coffee. A couple of friends even made the effort to be there in a show of friendly support. They all knew I had no chance of winning an election; the effort they put forth was for me. But no reporter. And no phone call from a reporter to tell me there would be no reporter. We all sat and stared at each other, but no reporter ever showed. I was so embarrassed, I was so ashamed of myself, I could have crawled under the dining room table.

The next stop was to be the small business. Nobody showed up there---not even me. I sent the owner a letter later in an attempt to explain.

The day before Election Day, I was scheduled to appear at one of those "what's-in-it-for-me" forums. I blew it off. I recall being somewhat chastised by one of KTUL's anchors for not showing up. I guess it was okay for them to not show up, but for me to call it a day a day early was some kind of travesty.

For the past several years, KOTV has been my station of choice when it came to local news coverage. But things have changed of late. I don't like the changes. If not for Lori Fullbright, I wouldn't watch the station at all. The station is beginning to suck, and suck hard.

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