TOD:
Well, I don't really have any favorite news reporters or anchors, but I do have a true story. When I was in high school my friend Hedy and I went down to Newport Beach during Easter Week. It was quite the thing to do, though I didn't do many of those sorts of things. (I was either at the theatre or working to make moolah.) Hedy and I were at a friend's house, watching an old movie on TV one evening. There were four of us, and one or two people were drinking a beer. Pretty quiet. Someone came to the door, saying he was Bill Stout of CBS News and he wanted to film an Easter Week party. We explained that there was no party here--that was pretty obvious--and suggested another location. But he wanted to film OUR party. He gave one of the guys some cash to buy some beer, someone said OK, we'll give you a party. So Hedy and I dug through the trash--trash collection was the next day, so we had plenty to choose from--and filled dark-colored bottles with water. Someone else phoned some friends and told them to come over pronto, put on some music, and soon we had our "party".
I thought it was all a laugh, because it was so fake, but Hedy's aunt saw us on the 6 o'clock news and wasn't pleased. I didn't get into trouble, but it was a rude awakening to learn that someone so well-respected as this news anchor would do such a thing. And his viewers believed it! I never expected it to actually go on the air!
I witnessed a second incident while in college at UCLA, where a story was reported on air--a riot--which I knew could not have happened at the time and place reported because I was there then and there was nothing! Needless to say, these two incidents stayed with me and colored my thinking about news reporting. I was quite accustomed to the fakery that takes place on movie sets--I never expected it on the news!
