Let me just come right out and say this – I very much dislike the “On Your Side” consumer stories that many TV stations do.
Not because they can at times make a business own up to mistakes (this can be dealt with), but because a majority of the time they only tell part of the story (not so easy to deal with).
As you may have guessed, I recently had to deal with one of these and the end result left me somewhat discombobulated due to how faulty the reporting was. The reporter did his best to make it appear as if his TV segment was the lone reason a positive outcome was obtained for the consumer and only told half of the story.
I’m all for allowing the media to help consumers, but the goal of a majority of these segments is to show that the TV station made something happen… and that’s not balanced.
After the segment aired I did a significant amount of damage control and in doing so highlighted several flaws in the reporting which caused the story to be pulled out of rotation and deleted from the stations Web site. This took place in a top 25 market and I think it speaks volumes about the reporting given that the story was pulled.
Did the station do a follow-up story to highlight the flaws? Absolutely not. Think about the irony. They went after a business for a mistake, but when the station did something wrong they didn’t own up and correct the mistake – they simply made it go away.
I have no problem dealing with negative stories, but I do have a problem with faulty reporting.
