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Just read about a shooting spree in Indianapolis last night in which 10 people were hurt – looked through Google News and noticed most of the headlines included the words, “Indiana Black Expo”.

I question the need to emphasize that these shootings happened in the vicinity of a “Black Expo”. This isn’t the first time media outlets have emphasized that shootings happened near events that are predominantly attended by African-Americans.

Do news outlets need to emphasize the “race angle” when shootings happen at events such as “Black Spring Break” or “Black Homecoming”? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a similar emphasis when shootings happen at events predominantly attended by whites – or Hispanics – or those from other ethnic groups.

It just makes me go, “hmmm” when a crime-related news story trumpets the angle that an incident happened near or at an event predominantly attended by those of a particular ethnic group.

This whole issue affects people depending on the type of boss one has: the time a worker is expected to arrive at work versus the start time of a scheduled shift.

Some former bosses of mine expected my co-workers and myself to arrive a few minutes early to be ready to work at the start of a shift. Others were more laid back and merely considered the start time an arrival time.

The most annoying times when this issue reared its head came when I worked in television news. Bosses in TV news tend to expect news photographers to be ready to go out on stories right at the start of a shift. In most such cases (mine included) news photographers came in about 10 or 15 minutes early to check their news vehicles, gather their gear, batteries, and tapes, and load their news cars. In many cases, this wasn’t considered “on the clock” time. I’d probably have made a few thousand more dollars during the seven years I worked in TV news had I been paid for that “prep time” before my shift officially started.

The biggest peeve I had about doing this “prep work” was when a reporter, producer, news manager, or other person “on the desk” would rush someone out the door while said work was being done. If spot news was happening and someone needed to go immediately, I gladly understood. More often than not, though, it was a manifestation of “piss poor planning” on the part of the assignment desk. In these latter cases, I often felt as if I had been taken advantage of.

Here’s a somewhat embarrassing example during my days in Jackson, Mississippi: I got rushed out the door while getting ready – schlepped at light speed to the State Capitol – and was the last news crew to arrive at a press conference with then-Governor Kirk Fordice. The reporter working with me apologized to the governor – who replied with a great zinger, “Y’all are always late!”. Ouch!

In this case, my shift began at 9:30 am. The assignment desk sent the reporter and me to a 9:30 press conference – something that had been on the calendar for at least a couple of days. Would it have killed someone in authority in our newsroom to bring one of us photographers in at 8:30 or 9:00 so we got to the press conference on time?

Frankly, I’m torn on this issue. The hardass in me wants to say, “you want me in early? the time clock starts ticking when I arrive!” to bosses who expect me to prepare for work before the time a scheduled shift starts. The conscientious worker in me considers this an issue of taking pride in one’s job – and doesn’t mind coming in a few minutes early to be ready at the start of a shift. I gravitate towards the latter stance.

To me this is another example of the often-shifting boundaries between “company time” and “personal time”…

Part of me isn’t surprised this is happening on a TV station owned by the Tribune media “borg” headed by arch-egomaniac Sam Zell, who took over Tribune via a highly leveraged buyout and by many accounts has run the company into the ground. To me Zell and his cronies appear to have shown disregard for some of the central tenets of running a media business. I don’t know how much Zell is behind this; but if the shoe fits…

Recently, New York TV station WPIX-TV began a practice that amounts to selling time slots to local restaurants during its morning newscasts. Here’s how it works: A restaurant provides gift certificates to be sold on the station’s web site. In exchange for the station getting a cut of the proceeds from these sales, the restaurant gets to present a “cooking segment” during a morning newscast.

The New York Daily News covered the quid pro quo arrangement in detail in their Tuesday editions and online. These arrangements at best may call into question the journalistic integrity of the newscasts – and at worst it can be argued that the lack of disclosure of the business deals behind these cooking segments might run afoul of federal laws and regulations requiring broadcasters to acknowledge when they’re provided “promotional consideration”.

I see a related business arrangement on a program such as “Good Company” on WKYC-TV in Cleveland, which is a morning variety program in which companies pay the station in exchange for doing segments featuring their products and services. However, it’s a much different story doing paid segments on a variety show and doing paid segments on a morning newscast.

WPIX clammed up when asked for more info on these quid pro quo arrangements for their morning newscasts.

I don’t begrudge TV stations trying to find new revenue streams in this changing media landscape and difficult economic climate; but there’s a right way to do it – and a wrong way. WPIX appears to be handling it the wrong way…