ABC News apology to Marion Barry
When you find yourself apologizing to ex-Washington, DC Mayor (and current DC Council member) Marion Barry, you've definitely messed up.
The media mix tape hit parade continues, as ABC News apologizes for — does this sound familiar? — running video of Marion Barry to illustrate a story about the antics of an entirely different DC public official, administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson, Jr., who is suing a DC dry cleaner for $54 million for allegedly losing his favorite pair of pants.
Both men, of course, are African-American. Would this be a story otherwise?
But, come on, ABC! Barry is a lovable rascally rogue of a crook. A mischievous scamp who, upon being elected mayor once again after doing time on drug charges, gleefully informed those DC voters who were horrified at the prospect of his return to power to "Get over it!" When you think Barry you think comically dysfunctional municipal government. You think crack pipes and hookers. Murder capital of the world. Fun stuff like that.
Judge Pearson, on the other hand, appears to lead-paint-chip eating insane. Or a very petty man. Or both.
Oh, also, they look nothing alike.
Let's see what our friends at ABC News have to say for themselves:
Tuesday's Broadcast
June 13, 2007 1:00 PM
Tuesday's 6:30 pm, ET feed of "World News" mistakenly used video in the program's open of DC council member Marion Barry instead of Roy Pearson. We immediately recognized the error and corrected all subsequent feeds of the broadcast. We are deeply sorry for this mistake and apologize to Mr. Barry, Mr. Pearson, and to our viewers for the error.
This is from the ABC News website. There was no on-air apology. This won't take long to slice through. As I said in my comments on the recent Fox News flub, these things happen. I didn't realize it happened so frequently, but it's the TV equivalent of typo. In this case, ABC didn't run the wrong footage in the actual news story, but in the so-called "teaser" for the story to come later in the broadcast. So it probably didn't rate an on-air apology. Unless, of course, Marion Barry wants one. Then you'd better get on camera and apologize, Charlie Gibson. He's Marion Barry, man. Marion @!&* Barry!Ok, let's do this. Impersonal corporate voice apologizing here. Not anchor Charlie Gibson or anyone else with an actual name. On the website, not on-air. It would be on-air if Mr. Barry was still mayor, but he's not. Still, they are deeply sorry. Also, we learn in a related story that Charlie Gibson is trying to reach ex-Mayor Barry to deliver a personal apology. That should be fun.
Why, you may ask, did ABC have recent footage of Marion Barry at the courthouse lying around in the first place? Well, as it happens, Mr. Barry was in court on the same day as Crazy Pants Guy innocently beating the rap on a drunk driving charge. That's why he was in front of the cameras.
Marion Barry driving drunk? Say it ain't so! Actually, that's just what the judge did.
(In all fairness to the arresting officers, even stone cold sober (or soberish), Marion Barry can look and sound drunk. It's just hard to tell.)
As for the the technicians at ABC News (along with Fox News and CNN and the rest) here is a helpful hint. Buy a labelmaker! Label your tapes! Avoid embarrassing your anchors by mixing up footage of prominent law-abiding African-American officials with that of indicted felons, convicted felons and/or Crazy Pants Guy.
Because when you screw up, Nameless Backstage Technician, it's not you that has to go on the air and apologize is it? It's not you that has to call up Marion Barry and say you're sorry. It's Charlie Gibson! And we like Charlie Gibson. So don't put Charlie Gibson in that awkward position again, okay?
DATE OF APOLOGY: June 13, 2007
APOLOGIZER: ABC News
APOLOGIZEE: Marion Barry, Crazy Pants Guy and ABC News viewers
FOR: Confusing Marion Barry with Crazy Pants Guy
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