I laughed when I read that a new book credits Southern politeness for the survival of all Flight 1549 passengers on the Hudson River. The premise of
Miracle on the Hudson: The Survivors of Flight 1549 is that passengers' Southern hospitality brought out the best in humanity and created an environment that led to a calm, orderly evacuation of everyone.
What a load.
The Observer's Tommy Tomlinson does a good job of debunking the Southern hospitality argument in this…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on October 15, 2009 at 10:30am —
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It's easy to find reporters who think their lives are more interesting than the people they cover.
You run into it a lot in this business, especially from the TV newsies. They love to insert themselves into a story. Many live for the clever stand-up. Face time!
But lately, NPR has had me screaming at my radio. Last week, Margot Adler produced a
story for
All Things Considered about her beloved C…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on August 25, 2009 at 3:00pm —
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As I've
said before, I don't dismiss Jeremy Mayfield's insistence that he's never used meth. There are too many problems with NASCAR's drug suspension of the driver. For one, its drug-testing program is a
joke. Now, we've learned that NASCAR's star witness – Mayfield's stepmother – was…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on August 17, 2009 at 5:00pm —
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Quote-of-the-week: “For a sport that promotes itself as being red, white and blue, these rules are almost Stalinist. It's un-American.”
-
Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor and drug policy adviser to sports organizations, on NASCAR's drug policy.
Yesalis made that comment to the Charlotte Observer in a Sunday
story that raises many questions about the fairness of NASCAR's drug-testing policy.
The im…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on July 27, 2009 at 12:30am —
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You never know what's going to garner response from listeners. The one thing I have learned in this business is that people often respond to stories you least expect to get any reaction.
An example of this occurred Monday. Our
Morning Edition host, Scott Graf, read a sad story about the founder of the Charlotte Business Journal dying from a bee sting. In subsequent references, the "bee" was referred to as a yellowjacket. In fact, a yellowjacket was responsible for the sting.
However, ye…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on July 21, 2009 at 2:06pm —
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South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has said a lot of bizarre things in the last week in explaining away his affair with an Argentine woman.
On Tuesday, this saga became even weirder.
By now, you're probably familiar with his
wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press. We'll get to that in a minute.
First, let's address an official statement from Sanford concerning an investigation into whether public money…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on July 1, 2009 at 10:30am —
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In Vegas, you're not supposed to beat the House. If you win big, expect a little scrutiny to make sure everything was on the up-and-up.
This logic also applies to winning big at Carowinds carnival games. And by big, I'm talking about a giant stuffed Scooby-Doo.
Ruh-Roh. Tha…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on June 15, 2009 at 6:21pm —
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The Hilarious Story-of-the-Week Award comes courtesy of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. People sure like to help out Police Chief Rodney Monroe.
Of course, there's his tainted degree from Virginia Commonwealth University he received in 2007 while police chief in Richmond, Va. VCU gave Monroe a bachelor's degree even though he only completed six of the 30 hours required of him as a transfer student.
The degree has been discredited by VCU and legislative investigations. As we've…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on June 6, 2009 at 12:00am —
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The PBS documentary program
Frontline examines Bank of America and the government's role in the national banking system in a segment called
Breaking the Bank. The program airs June 16th on public television stations across the country.
Here's a segment of
Frontline's press release describing the…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on June 5, 2009 at 2:30pm —
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The sports media has been all abuzz the last few days. The Orlando Magic advanced to the NBA finals by defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But that story was secondary to the big scandal that occurred after the final buzzer: LeBron James walked off the court without shaking the hands of Magic players.
An all-out media frenzy ensued. He's been called the
definition of a poor sport,…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on June 3, 2009 at 1:02am —
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I never lived in Charlotte when kids were placed in schools based on their race and income. Neighborhood schools are all I've ever known, so it's hard for me to imagine living in a community in which kids are regularly bused across town.
It's safe to say the pros and cons of both systems will be debated for years to come in CMS.
But the last few months alone have me thinking I'd be crazy to put my kids' lives in the hands of CMS bus drivers as they criss-cross the county. Here's a rundown of w…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on May 29, 2009 at 4:30pm —
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Politicians crack me up. They want credit for everything, but rarely is anything their fault. An example of this was on display at Tuesday's joint meeting of the Mecklenburg County Commission and the CMS school board.
The county commission is in the process of cutting $38 million from the CMS budget. In response, CMS is cutting its own budget in a lot of places. Most notably, CMS has given layoff notices to 367 teachers and 83 assistant principals.
But several commissioners, including Bill Jam…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on May 28, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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The hiring of former first lady Mary Easley at NC State University never looked good.
First, there was her suspicious hiring at $80,000 a year in 2005. The interim provost created her position, waived a job search and hired her. Next thing you know, the interim provost, Larry Nielsen, was hired to be the permanent provost even though he hadn't been a candidate for the job up to that point.
Then, last year Mary Easley gets a $90,000 salary bump and a new five-year contract. She now makes $170,0…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on May 22, 2009 at 1:30pm —
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High-tech suits have helped swimmers break a slew of world records since February 2008.
Last year, a NASA-tested Speedo suit was all the rage. According to the Associated Press, it was worn by most swimmers who broke 108 records in 2008.
This year, world-class swimmers are turning to polyurethane suits. FINA, swimming's governing body, is in the process of setting regulations for the high-tech suits.
But FINA has bigger problems it needs to crack. Or, shall I say, uncrack.
Male swimmers are…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on May 18, 2009 at 5:30pm —
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The longer former Governor Mike Easley is out of office, the more he and others close to him look like scoundrels if you believe the
reporting in the
Raleigh News & Observer (and printed in the Charlotte Observer).
My first impression of Easley upon moving to North Carolina last year was that he's an odd guy for a modern politician. From a distance, there's nothing dynamic about his personality. In fact, he prefers distan…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on May 14, 2009 at 5:00pm —
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The following is Greg Collard's archived live blog coverage of Wednesday's Bank of America shareholders meeting. The blog starts at the bottom.
2:21
Gotta go. Be sure to listen for updates, or check the web. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
2:17
I appreciate that.
2:17
[Comment From Mullins]
Good job overall, just wanted to add my 2 cents :) Thanks for the coverage.
2:16
Thanks, Ann!
2:16
[Comment From Ann]
I thought the coverage was great- how wonderful to hear about all the detai…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on April 30, 2009 at 1:30pm —
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An odd
poll was released this week by
Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling company in Raleigh. The headline on its blog says "Impact of Newspaper Endorsements limited in NC."
No surprise there. I've always thought the media gives much more importance to newspaper political endorsements than they deserve. The only people who care are politicians and reporters – two groups of people t…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on March 27, 2009 at 5:30pm —
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I'm in need of a break. I need a break from public relations professionals pitching a story with this fascinating hook: It's National (insert name here) Awareness Day/Week/Month.
The number of specially-designated days, weeks and months is out of control. Take the month of April. Why, it's National STD Awareness Month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Pecan Month, Knuckles Down Month and Straw Hat Month!
It's also Month of the Young Child, but not to be outdone by Month of the Military Child. I…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on March 25, 2009 at 4:30pm —
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For several weeks, it's been big news that CMS classroom layoffs are inevitable. Superintendent Peter Gorman has been working on a plan to cut jobs to help close what's now a $79 million budget shortfall
Lots of people are understandably upset and concerned. I wasn't surprised when the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators announced Monday morning that it was organizing a rally to protest the cuts before Tuesday's school board meeting. In fact, some in our newsroom were surprised it to…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on March 11, 2009 at 4:30pm —
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I was editing a story several months ago when I first learned that North Carolina's official lottery name is the North Carolina Education Lottery. I couldn't help but laugh.
Encourage people to gamble away their money, and call it education. It's absurd.
I kept use of the word "education" to a minimum. There may be good reasons to have a lottery, but I'm not going to promulgate political propaganda. It's a lottery. Nothing more, nothing less.
I wasn't surprised when Gov. Bev Perdue announced…
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Added by Greg Collard, News Director, WFAE on March 4, 2009 at 2:00am —
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