Saw in another post the discussion of the boys throwing stuff off the bridge. After watching the story on the evening news, I sent an e-mail to KCCI's news director about how disgusted I was that their crew just stood there and watched. Here is the response I got the next day. I guess his response makes sense.
Thanks for expressing your concern about our story on the kids tossing debris off the freeway bridge.
A couple of things you should know:
The crew went to the scene after hearing the police scanner report. They got there well after the incident had been under way. Other motorists had seen the problem and called police.
The crew was still two blocks from the bridge - the photographer was zoomed in all the way - making it look like they were a lot closer. As soon as they arrived and assessed what was happening, the reporter started going over to intervene but saw the police car coming up over the bridge. In fact, the officer in the patrol car saw the one boy toss the log over the railing. Viewers could not tell that from the way the video was edited.
In short, the crew instantly recognized it as a dangerous situation, went to intervene but saw the police arriving. We got there at the very end of the sequence of events and were there for only a few seconds when it ended. The video was edited to tell viewers the story of what happened - NOT to tell viewers what our crew did about it. in fact the story ran a lot longer than our crew was actually there at the scene because of the way the shots were repeated and slowed down.
We think this is an extremely dangerous situation. Anyone who drives on the freeway - which is everyone - can recognize that. This is at least the second such dangerous incident we know of in the past week. Our job is to tell the story of what happened as best as we can in hopes that the DOT, police and the community at large can then do their job to figure out a way to prevent this from endangering the rest of us.
Sincerely,
Dave Busiek
KCCI News Director
Thanks for expressing your concern about our story on the kids tossing debris off the freeway bridge.
A couple of things you should know:
The crew went to the scene after hearing the police scanner report. They got there well after the incident had been under way. Other motorists had seen the problem and called police.
The crew was still two blocks from the bridge - the photographer was zoomed in all the way - making it look like they were a lot closer. As soon as they arrived and assessed what was happening, the reporter started going over to intervene but saw the police car coming up over the bridge. In fact, the officer in the patrol car saw the one boy toss the log over the railing. Viewers could not tell that from the way the video was edited.
In short, the crew instantly recognized it as a dangerous situation, went to intervene but saw the police arriving. We got there at the very end of the sequence of events and were there for only a few seconds when it ended. The video was edited to tell viewers the story of what happened - NOT to tell viewers what our crew did about it. in fact the story ran a lot longer than our crew was actually there at the scene because of the way the shots were repeated and slowed down.
We think this is an extremely dangerous situation. Anyone who drives on the freeway - which is everyone - can recognize that. This is at least the second such dangerous incident we know of in the past week. Our job is to tell the story of what happened as best as we can in hopes that the DOT, police and the community at large can then do their job to figure out a way to prevent this from endangering the rest of us.
Sincerely,
Dave Busiek
KCCI News Director
