Wannabes in the Lobby

Here’s something you don’t often see: The Inverted Ambush. It happened on Valentine’s Day, when a local Kansas City newspaper showed up in the lobby of KCTV with flowers, balloon and less than honorable intentions. Seems the snark peddlers at The Pitch had their knickers in a twist over a couple of local TV news stories exposing teachers with racy MySpace pages. Why this infuriated the free weekly I don’t know, but their umbrage seemed to center on the fact that Channel X stole a story from Channel Y. ZZZZZ --hmm? Oh, sorry - dozed off there. Anyhoo, the staffers of this local rag spotted an opportunity to turn the tables on the nefarious news crews; they grabbed a handycam, a few props to hide behind and set off to tilt at a satellite dish, er … windmill or two.

Amazingly, they got in. When the hapless receptionist spotted the flowers, she assumed a Valentine was in the offing and quickly summoned News Director Tracy Brogden Miller. What follows is either uncomfortable to watch or side-splittingly funny - depending on what kind of media emporium signs your check. As for Miller, she was not amused. Deeming the inverted ambush ’uncool’, she slunk back up the stairs, no doubt hoping Ashton Kutcher would spring out from behind a fern with one of his self-satisfied bear-hugs and make it all okay. Didn’t happen. Instead, the interlopers snickered off, high five-ing each other repeatedly over their cross-media manuever until they arrived back at their offices and realized they still work for a free weekly newspaper in Kansas City. From there, I’m guessing the euphoria waned…

So, what’s MY talk on this broadcast abomination? Eh…. It’s always fun to watch members of the Fourth Estate turn on each other and I’d be outright lying if I said there weren’t some TV execs I’d like to ambush. But you gotta choose your battles. Maybe the MySpace teacher kerfluffle had the good citizens of KC in an uproar, but to the distant reader, it comes off as much ado about doing. Thus, the resulting footage rings a bit hollow. Sure, it’s fun watching a News Director squirm - but over allegations they stole a story from a competitor? C’mon, people! We do worse than that by mid-morning Tuesday! You gonna come at us with your cowardly flower-cam and throw down allegations as lame as that one? You can do better! Pick something really egregious next time; maybe then you won’t come across as high school sophomores itching for a studio tour of their local Tee-Vee station.

A-hem. No, what bothers me most isn’t the inverted ambush itself, but the article that attempts to make such great hay of it. It’s stilted, aimless and most offensively, not very funny. Viral Video aside, it would seem The Pitch misfired, blowing their one good chance to lambaste the over what could barely be described as even a scandal. That’s their right, and as self-congratulatory writer types, I’m sure they hoisted many a brew over their broadcast coup. But I hope they somehow read this and realize there’s a lowly TV cameraman far, far away who finds their game weak, their prose unfunny and their collective wads, forever shot. Best stick with the free restaurant reviews...