8-14-13
It's day two of the Shane Spencer fallout for Sports Talker WTMM in upstate New York and this one could prove to be an interesting case study for stations all across the country. With programming staffs being slashed, how prepared are your local jocks and talkers at preventing fake callers from getting on the air and doing serious damage by telling lies? That's exactly what WTMM and host Mike Lindsley are dealing with today.
Somehow a caller pretending to be Spencer got on the air and confessed to taking steroids while playing for the Yankees. Steroids are the hottest negative topic in Major League Baseball today. The problem, which Lindsley discovered 30 minutes later, is the caller was a fake, but the information was already out there, and Spencer caught wind of it. Obviously he was outraged. As Spencer works to get his reputation back, Townsquare Media is trying to track down the man who hoaxed WTMM. Albany Times Union Sports Media columnist Pete Dougherty is putting the pressure on. He wants the station to take responsibility and what he says he's hearing is silence.
On his show, according to Dougherty's column, Lindsley said, ?It was under our understanding that an interview was scheduled. And it was. We came to the conclusion around 1:32 or 3 that Shane Spencer was going to be unable to do this interview, and a rescheduling of the interview was going to happen. At 2 o?clock we received a hoax call from someone who claimed that he was Shane Spencer. It was a complete dupe on us. It was a complete dupe and hoax on Shane Spencer. It?s completely unacceptable. This is bad for baseball, it?s bad for us, it?s bad in general. It does nobody any favor by having a hoax person saying they are Shane Spencer.?
Dougherty doesn't really accept what Lindsley said and wants more from him and the station. He asks, "Didn't
Lindsley get suspicious at some of the answers he was hearing from the fake Spencer, who admitted steroid use? Did the fake Spencer use the private number, which usually is given to call-in guests, or was it on the public line? Did Lindsley tell his audience that Spencer hadn?t called in, perhaps giving the prankster an opening to pull off this stunt? Stephen Giuttari, the operations manager at WTMM, also has not returned calls from yesterday and today, although he did send an interesting email at 1:41 a.m. ? that?s past my bedtime ? with the subject heading, ?Pete ? we wanted you to have this immediately ? we did an interview with Shane Spencer about 3? hours ago.?
Well, so much for immediacy. In the meantime, the audience deserves more answers than what WTMM is giving."
Read Doughterty's full column HERE
If this happened at your station how would you handle it?
(8/15/2013 12:18:14 PM)
A tough call for many a radio station. What to do?
I hear this in market after market on a more frequent basis than I care too in large, medium, small and micro-markets.
Part of it is "laziness" -- the other part is "economic" -- the last part is "common sense."
1. Do you know how many stations from all over the country fly by the seat of their pants with no delay? Way too many. Not having call screeners is bad enough, but not having a delay for those "F-Bomb attacks" and fake calls such as this is just plain dumb.
2. Never have a guest call in. Always extend the courtesy to call the guest or his/her agent, whatever. Won't do? Blow off the interview. Nothing beats an embarrassing situation like this one. Nothing is that important to put your station in litigation. Won't give a phone number due to "lack of spontanaity"? Get over yourselves and make it happen in pre-planning. It won't stop it completely, but it lessens the odds in your favor.
3. Do your homework. "Show prep" is important. Be prepared. Yes, it takes times and expense of time. Nothing beats doing it right. That's not a Fisher-Price Telephone you're using -- it's a potential lethal weapon. You have enough problems with regular callers pranking, let alone special guests. Concentrate on all of it and be prepared.
4. Nothing beats "being first" than "being right." Ask the people at Cox / KTVU about that with the plane crash incident and fallout weeks after the fact in San Francisco. They can help you learn a most valuable lesson. Watch it on YouTube.
5. Know, if you can afford a call screener, that they are qualified and not just playing radio screener or producer. It only takes one eff-up like this to make fools of everyone. No matter how "cutting edge" you may be on-air, remember -- the consequences still rest with you for your laziness or pressing the envelope too far. It doesn't have to take away from your spontanaity to be prepared.
6. Book good guests. Shane Spencer?
The hypocrisy here is hysterical - the "not funny" kind.
Jocks all over the country have always been making phone calls pretending to be somebody else. And we all know where that can go.
This is the nature of real-time broadcasting. If somebody's bonafides are in question, is the on-air personality going to dump the call - just in case?
I mean, all kinds of things and people get smuggled through customs. S**t happens. Next.
Who was the call screener? Why wasn't more time put into researching the caller? It's like asking someone with a fake ID what year they were born. Before that caller hit the air... the call screener should have put them through a test of experience. If there was doubt. It should have been a signal to leave them out.
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