I was doing my usual flipping through the 10 p.m. local news broadcasts and came across a report by KGUN-9 about a protest downtown by various groups wanting the city to fess up on how the Museum of Contemporary Arts managed to get a sweetheart deal from the city for use of the old TFD HQ.
Among those protesting was Tucson Police Officers Association President Larry Lopez, who claimed that the city had rigged the bidding process and that he had a source in the city who told him there had been other, oral bids for the building. But then he refused to say who told him that.
At which point KGUN played a clip lifted from YouTube, of all places, of Joseph Welch’s famous retort to Sen. Joe McCarthy “Have you no decency sir?”
Wow.
I teach a reporting public affairs class at the UA J-school. I teach my students not to use superlatives and hyperbole in their writing. They rarely work and usually make readers, especially educated, savvy, older readers, roll their eyes.
I guess now I’ll have to warn them about using outrageous, sensationalistic, editorializing comparisons of horrible historical characters that are out of context and have no real relevance to the story being reported.
Larry Lopez as Joe McCarthy? Gimme a break.
[I tried to figure out how to get clip the off my DVR and on here so you can see it, but I'm out of time and have to go to the County BOS meeting this morning, so if anyone out there has a link to the clip, send it my way or post it in the comments below]