"Media Waste" Ask Dr. Christpopher

Ask Dr. Christopher

Donovan

2008.08

Media Waste

Will someone please gently show Ms. Spears the Exit!

Editorial and Opinion

Has ABC affiliate KTNV- 13 Las Vegas lost its Grip?

Part I

Upon perusing Journal Broadcast Group previous news releases we were fascinated by the following disclosure: “Karin Movesian, News Director for Channel 13 Action News announced today that Darcy Spears has joined the Action News Team as chief investigative reporter. Spears is a former investigative reporter at KVBC in Las Vegas.”

Under normal circumstances such a release would be considered benign in nature serving associates in the industry to track the movements of their peers from network to network and station to station.

This announcement though suggests that station management at KTNV failed to perform due diligence prior to this hire.

Channel 13 in Las Vegas has maintained a certain pedigree of outstanding reporting and journalistic standards with the recently departed yet community involved icon Cathy Ray. Trisha Kean and more recently Tiffani Sargent who work hard to perfect their craft and often deliver flawlessly from the anchor chair. The ever lovable Ron Futrell {who has since apparently departed the station} and the greatly adored incarnation of Cathy Ray Jessica Lovell serve as reminders of the continuation of the pursuit of taking the high road in journalistic integrity.

However the addition of Darcy Spears may short circuit such elite journalistic standards. Even on the best of days Ms. Spears functions as a lighting rod of controversy. At her worst she appears as a serial defamer, compulsive liar and or stalker.

In a current Clark County district case filing {lawsuit} two of her sources {cronies} in one previously broadcast and hard hitting segment claimed indigent status and may be adjudicated as committing multiple acts of online and other forms of defamation.

Ms. Spears was previously warned of pending litigation in an email while she was researching a report regarding husband and wife {plaintiffs} in this case. Ms. Spears who may have dispatched an “Art Van”, in an attempt to penetrate a twelve step meeting hosted by this couple in their home. The Van and occupants were intercepted by Metro. She proceeded with her reporting despite the previously filed lawsuit against the aforementioned sources. Ms. Spears later claimed indirectly through one of the defendants that she wasn’t aware of any lawsuits pending even though she videotaped the plaintiff’s entering Clark County Justice Center. They were subsequently shadowed or stalked for the entirety of the afternoon in the court of Judge Bixler by one Marie Mortera who remains employed by KVBC-TV Channel 3 in Las Vegas. Is Ms. Mortera a stalker or was she just performing her job? Ms. Spears later referenced the video which contradicted her own reporting of this story fragment!

Apparently someone who is near and dear to Ms. Spears is also a member of a twelve step recovery program. Does Ms. Spears value the anonymity of her loved one’s program but not that of anyone else? Was she really prepared to enter a twelve step meeting and secretly videotape the members of this particular group and then air said video?

One of the defendants and witnesses against the plaintiff Traci Glon, aka Ariane Glon, aka Ariane Enterprises previously worked with Ms. Spears on an Investigative Report featuring a Moving Company in Florida. Apparently Ms. Glon and her online minions drove this woman/owner-operator out of business with their continuous online bashing. Then they proceeded to stalk her to her new position as Vice-President of an Air Freight Company. Their rants and postings remain online today some seven {7} years later.

Why did Ms. Spears mislead the viewing public by failing to disclose her previous relationship with a woman {Ms. Glon} who appeared in this report as a helpless waif?

Are there more sinister motives at work? Both defendants claimed indigent status meaning the taxpayers of Nevada footed the bill for their defense until the second defendant Shannon Hart aka Shannon Hudnell posted multiple acts of sexually vulgar defamation online against her attorney and his wife. Their law firm promptly withdrew as counsel.

Does Ms. Spears intentionally utilize the services of indigent persons as reputable sources knowing that most persons defamed by such transients will not proceed with the enormous undertaking of litigating against said persons? Does she think that this type of firewall immunizes her from not conducting basic fact checking thereby promoting the continuation of shoddy journalistic practices in an era of increasingly constrained television news budgets?

Either way Channel 13 will now have the dubious honor of reporting about one of their own in her upcoming trial as Ms. Spears will be asked to answer allegations of defamation and or negligence if this case is in filed Clark County District Court.

Apparently Ms. Spears was formally educated in Berkley, California and the prestigious Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Medill founded in 1921 as a standard bearer to the journalistic profession lists appropriate core values on their home page including:

1. Be respectful of the school, yourself and others-which included personal and professional integrity.

2. Be the Best

3. Be Distinctive.

Ms. Spears has apparently abdicated on all three of these professions of journalistic excellence. Since her stint at CBS in Chicago she is now standing on third base of the network quadrangle as most recently employed by NBC. We doubt though when her current tenure expires at ABC she will be invited home by FOX.

The end may be near though as we recently watched in disbelief as Ms. Spears staked out a Dumpster in North Las Vegas and secretly videotaped a woman retrieving tortillas {still in the wraps} for her hungry family. Since the expiration date passed on this food Ms. Spears was concerned that said ingredients were being used in the preparation of products sold by roadside caterers. It must be hard for someone of her elitism to relate to people who shop for well stocked but day old produce at Food for Less or other preferred venues of the Latin community and other frugal consumers.

In these days of economic turmoil salvage food stores specialize in the stocking of label expiration food and beverage products that the general public can purchase at deep discounts. Jackie Davis The Director of The City Mission of Las Vegas stated in a recent newsletter: “Until Pop found work to support us, I remember how he would supplement his little income he’d receive by doing odd jobs, by looking in the trash bins behind the grocery stores to find bruised and over ripened fruits and vegetables for us to eat. He walked in our kitchen with a small wooded crate, filled with grapes, strawberries, bell peppers, carrots and a busted melon. ….But best yet, if we were lucky Pop might find smashed {but wrapped} shortcakes in the trash too-YAHOO! We’d have strawberry shortcake for dinner. The extra food helped a little girl’s tummy, but I wonder if you can imagine what it did to my Dad’s self esteem.”

Ms. Spears represents someone we have all met who in the middle of the party makes an embarrassing comment to shame or humiliate another human being. Somewhere along the way a producer provided her a eunuch holding a camera, a much larger platform from which to project her own character defects on others and bad hair. She instantly became a legend opposed to the divine.

Since The Office of the Attorney General of Nevada, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, The City Parking Fine Authority and virtually anyone else who could lend credibility to her reporting have all recently refused to go on camera how much more can the viewing public be expected to endure while she holds out tracking down parking fine scofflaws, dead beat dads and chasing taco trucks around town and more pressing how much longer will station management at Channel 13 lend their credibility providing lip service to this charade masquerading as legitimate investigative reporting!

For the sake of a reputation built on journalistic integrity earned over many years there is no need to risk the livelihoods of an entire station to fuel the proclivities of a well heeled but incessantly angry loose cannon and bomb thrower!

Ms. Spears, good luck in your future profession outside of journalism. Unfortunately for you at some junction in your career you devolved into one of the scam and rip off artists you claim to investigate to keep everyone safe. The lives and reputations you have systematically annihilated and then crawled over to meet your next deadline only exacerbates the mistrust of society against television media to the detriment of both broadcasters and the communities they purportedly serve. In years past people were proud to be interviewed and could invite friends and family over to watch their contribution on television. Now it seems as though only media savvy crack professionals and people with nothing left to lose are willing to lend their voices on camera as our representatives, the lonely remnants of a previously adoring public cooperating with a once trusted profession. Can you hear that? I think it might be…. Yes it’s Walt! Oh my! He’s rolling over!

Dr. Christopher

February 19, 2008

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