Tag: WMC-TV

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News The Fly-By

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CHOAS 901

Remember Elvis Week 2016? Gosh, it seems like it was only last week when fans of the King assembled in front of Graceland to light a candle and stream up the hill and through the mansion’s Meditation Garden. And all the Black Lives Matters demonstrators showed up to engage in a bit of modestly disruptive protest, so police showed up in numbers sufficient to ensure there wasn’t any fan base mingling at the party. And it rained like hell. Those were the days, my friend. Or as WMC-TV put it in an alarming all-caps headline: “Elvis Week CHOAS.” As in “Get CHOAS a proofreader” maybe?

What does CHOAS even mean? Is it a run-of-the-mill typo or a new word for something worse than ordinary CHAOS because it’s chaos inside of CHAOS? Is it local TV’s Superman Dam Fool moment? Is it a startling vision of Memphis’ future? Is CHOAS inevitable? Stay tuned.

Verbatim

“We’re devastating people’s lives, and I can’t be part of that.” — Michael Rallings announcing his opposition to loosening marijuana laws during a forum on heroin use because REEFER MADNESS! It’s hard to know whose lives the new police director thinks will be destroyed by loosening current pot laws, since, according to data compiled by the ACLU, 88 percent of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests in the U.S. between 2001 and 2010 were for simple weed-only possession, and blacks were 3.73 times more likely to be arrested in spite of relative equal usage rates. Blue Crush service techs, maybe?

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News The Fly-By

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Unbe-WEAVE-Able

You know what is UnbeWEAVEable? Spell check, that’s what. This unfortunate promotional image teased the latest in a never-ending series of WMC reports about weaves, weave-related crime, and weaves that might be possessed by demon ghosts from foreign countries where people aren’t Christian. Sadly, we’re not making any of this up. This time, WMC’s senior weave correspondent Felicia Bolton used science — or a microscope anyway — to get to “the root” of the problem and determine whether or not products claiming to be made of 100 percent human hair are made from 100 percent human hair. The very serious two-part series was ultimately inconclusive.

Game of Fail

It’s that special time of year when The Commercial Appeal asks Mid-Southerners to vote in their Memphis Most poll, a reader survey created to celebrate regional favorites and sell some ads. You know, like the Flyer‘s “Best of” issue, only awkward. And speaking of awkward, what image could be more quintessentially Memphis than a white hand knuckle-clutching a flaming scepter and/or cattle brand? Check the apocalyptic cityscape in this image — just the kind of place everybody wants to live in and open a business. And this King — is it Elvis? Lawler? The Scorpion King?

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1413

Build-a-Mule

WTTE-TV Columbus reports that a plan to transport drugs to Memphis was thwarted when a shipping clerk got suspicious and discovered a bottle of liquid codeine inside an adorable teddy bear.

Hair Story

WMC-TV’s investigative story about demonically possessed hair weaves has gone international. Last week The Sun, the UK’s largest daily tabloid, reported a “massive spike” in crimes related to the “beauty business” in Memphis. The Sun excerpted passages from WMC’s original report and quoted a local hairstylist saying “selling hair is like crack.” Which it is because … we give up.

Daily Outrage

Sometimes you tell a bad joke. Sometimes you tell a joke so bad somebody calls the police. Memphis law enforcement is currently investigating Facebook user Jaton Justsilly Jaibabi for posting a picture of two small children with their hands and mouths duct-taped and a caption reading, “Kids for sale, 45% off because they bad.” On one hand, duct-taping your kids up hostage-style is probably never a good idea, even if you’re just trying to score a couple of thumbs ups and maybe a laughy face. On the other, your Pesky Fly is thankful there were fewer people on Facebook when his children were in the larval stage.

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News The Fly-By

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Well Played

Advice to media professionals: When people are critical of your work, follow the lead of WMC-TV weatherman Spencer Denton and remind your critics there are dead children in the world, and it’s sad.

This proved effective last week when Denton joined other local weather forecasters in over-hyping a winter storm that never really happened in Memphis but still resulted in event cancellations, school closings, and businesses shuttering.

On the night before the “storm,” Denton dropped a post on his “Spencer Denton Meteorologist” Facebook page implying that, even if his prediction turns out wrong (like it did), people need to chillax and think about unrelated tragedies, like the recent death of 2-year-old Noah Chamberlin, an East Tennessee boy whose body was found several days after he disappeared during a hike with his grandmother.

“We are already getting blasted by people about our forecast, and the event hasn’t even happened yet. And some of the comments are personal attacks,” Denton wrote. “Funny thing is, I really don’t care. All I can think about is that little boy Noah and what he endured over the past several days. It puts things in perspective. If you get 3 to 6 inches of snow, enjoy a snow day with family and friends. If you get an inch or less, be thankful for less accidents on the roads. Whether my forecast is right or wrong, I get to go home to a little two-year-old girl tonight, for that I am truly thankful. #RIPNOAH.”

Neverending Elvis

If it’s true, this has to be one of the saddest “what ifs” in pop history. In an interview with the Orange County Register, honky-tonk torchbearer Dwight Yoakam claimed that Elvis Presley heard a recording of David Bowie’s “Golden Years” and called the Thin White Duke to ask if he’d consider producing a future record for him. It was 1977, six months before death week prime.

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News

Andy Wise is Now on WMC-5’s Side

CREDIT: WREG.com

The Flyer just received the following press release from WMC-TV:

December 21, 2007 — The Mid-South’s premier newscast and best known investigative reporter are joining forces in an unprecedented move: Investigative reporter Andy Wise is leaving WREG to join WMC-TV and Action News 5.

Wise is a long-time consumer investigative specialist who is instantly recognizable to Mid-South viewers as a no-nonsense, hard-hitting reporter. With Wise joining “The Action News 5 Investigators” there can be little doubt that WMC-TV5 has cornered the market for television investigative reporting.

“For generations, Mid-Southerners have trusted the tradition of broadcast journalism at Action News 5. They grew up watching it. Their parents grew up watching it. Now in the age of HDTV, I am thrilled to be a part of producing ground-breaking segments for WMC-TV and wmctv.com that will set a new standard for consumer protection in this generation,” said Action News 5’s Andy Wise.

Got that, people? Andy Wise will take his hard-hittin’ investigative mojo over to Joe Birch’s place. You’ve been warned.