Once upon a time this gig was a golden ticket. All you needed was a face sculpted by angels, a voice smooth enough to sell whiskey, and the willingness to sign away your soul along with the rights to your face and voice so your employer could own you like a rental car. The pay was dazzling enough that you happily bent over the contract and did not complain. Those days are gone. By the mid 1990s the fairy tale soured. Out went the journalists, in came the bean counters. Today your paycheck is not money but “exposure” and your privacy is shredded. One mugshot for a DWI or one shoplifting slip and your shame is blasted everywhere faster than your best stand-up in front of city hall. The bare minimum now is brutal. You must write like Hemingway on espresso and hold a diploma from Northwestern or Columbia. Lesser schools need not apply. Then you will be tossed into the wild to recite stories in public while hecklers scream “fake news” behind you. Extra credit if you can keep a fake smile ...

  Anaheim, CA— I recently attended the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) conference, a large professional gathering that lasted four days and was packed with educational sessions. It also served as a recruitment ground for news corporations looking to find new talent. It seems that the era of hard-hitting investigative reporting, especially at the local news level, has all but disappeared. Legacy media has strayed far from its mission, rarely exposing government misconduct or holding politicians and bureaucrats accountable for their corruption. Most reporters today tend to lean liberal, and their idea of investigative reporting unfortunately  aligns with political advocacy, particularly in support of the "woke" agenda. When reporting on crime, courts, and corruption, there should be no place for political favoritism; the focus should be solely on the facts and the evidence. Legacy media has also taken on the burden of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hiring ...

Chicago, Illinois— As everyone knows, our Legacy Media is owned and carefully controlled by Left Wing propagandists.     They report in unison to influence useful idiots and otherwise impressionable people.     As social media has spread, the Legacy Media has lost much of their influence and market share.     As time marched on, the state controlled, Legacy Media has become more vocal and more desperate, stretching their misleading content to the limits.     As a result they have hemorrhaged their viewers and readers.   Make no mistake if they really want viewers/readers, they must remember rule number one, if it bleeds it leads.    Violence threatens our safety so that’s really why this is so important to everyone.    George Orwell said it best, “Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.”    Rule number one has been sidestepped to conform with the c...

NJ Governor Chris Christie captured by an  exclusive drone photo by, NJ Advance Media Los Angeles, CA —The FAA is over-regulating while moving at a snail’s pace as drone technology is advancing at supersonic speed.   Right now camera drones manufactured by DJI are totally safe and virtually crash proof. Despite claims of potential airline crashes and total mayhem there is not a single death, serious injury or significant property damage from our modern camera drones.  They've been around for years now.  TV news is spending millions that they really don’t have on $1,500.00 to $2,000.00 per hour news choppers.   Drones operate at a tiny fraction of the cost of news helicopters and they are much safer.   There are already million of drones out there in the hands of Americans of every description. Noisy helicopters are a serious distraction to first responders even at the 500-foot altitude they are required to maintain.    T...

Phoenix, AZ —My spies at the FAA insist that they will very quickly authorize the commercial use of multi-rotor, mini-drones weighing in at less than three pounds for among other things, newsgathering. Any TV station news department that has not made plans for this new technology will be left in the dirt.  The very day the drones are authorized is when the promotions departments should be heralding their new newsdronie correspondents. They all should be up and running with two or three of these prime time ready “newsdronies” to cover routine accidents, crimes and fires.  Sending a helicopter to a school lockdown for example is foolish when you can use a drone and only pony up a fraction of the price.   That FAA weight constraint will limit the size of the cameras that of the GoPro types.  But they can really capture epic and stunning imagery. What that means is the local television markets can dispatch a drone pilot that’s able to operate the device, cam...

Los Angeles, CA —Wherever you go in the City of Angeles doing news the paranoid public relations people and their security agents demand absolute control over anyone shooting video.   The equipment to shoot quality video was cumbersome and difficult to move around without attracting loads attention.  That’s changing faster than the speed of light.  They can’t seem to repress the journalist with the notepad but ejecting cameras from most real estate has proven all too easy. Today you can shoot very watchable video with quality iPhone cameras and a host of small camera choices.   The somewhat new GoPro cameras are nothing short of incredible.    I have two of them now; the Hero 3 and a Hero 3+ are in my video gathering arsenal. Any day now and I will take delivery of a Blade 350 Quadcopter that will zip right past security guards, police and fire lines.   It will instantly defeat even the tallest walls and fences to obtain exceptional ...