bob collins just bitchslapped me
february 12, 2008 @
16:43
link
So there's that horrible story in the news today with all its horrible details and you all know what I'm talking about. You can't avoid it. And here's me, listening to The Current, trying to get my tunes on, cranking away at the office, and here comes Bob Collins with his shticky little newsbanter segment with Lucia. And he's doing his thing and then here he goes, into all the graphic details and I'm all like "seriously, we have to do this on The Current?" I mean I'm not That Guy, but it's a music station, and we often have it on in the background at the house around the kids and stuff. Seems a little trashy to go all SVU on your listening audience. Check that, a lot trashy. Kids or no kids in the room. Sure, report the story, but the sensationalist garbage details? Lame.
So I shoot a quick email to Bob and say "Maybe dial back the graphic details ... when you're on The Current." I'm all polite and stuff, I say that it's a music station, kids, blah blah blah.
His response included the following three words: thanks. no. bob.
CLASSY.
Two guesses as to how I'll answer next time MPR calls and asks me to re-up my membership.
Update 2/21/08 - Since comments are closed - and I can't reopen them without the spambots taking over - Bob emailed me a response and I added it to the thread on his behalf.
Taylor thought:
That's the same response I've always received from Bob Collins. I hate that guy.
dave thought:
ha. yeah, the silly part is that if he had just said 'thanks for the feedback' i wouldn't have given it another thought. odd that he chooses to be deliberately prickish.
dad thought:
He thinks he is somebody because he is in the media. You on the other hand have no right to question his judgement. Just ask him. It is his constitutional right etc etc.
[redacted -- ed.]
Jason D. thought:
I've met Bob and he seemed cool to me in person. There's no reason to be a jerk about it. He could have explained why he did it the way he did it.
Personally: if The Current is going to have a news segment where they cover the actual news of the day, they shouldn't really sugar-coat it. Did he warn people it was going to be nasty? On our news at 5 and 6: we told people it was going to be bad stuff before we told the story-- so they could turn it off if there were kids in the room.
dave thought:
i don't remember it word for word, but it was very conversational - like it always is during those awkward lucia/collins newsbanter segments. then he started in with the details, said something like "i'm at a loss for words", went back into some of the details and i reached over clicked the power button on my remote. then i threw it across the room.
and while i still don't see the point of 'cco feeling the need to spell out exactly what happened (seriously, i don't), nor do i understand why anyone really wants to know (seriously, i don't), the 'cco technique of warning people is still way, way better than nothing. so kudos to you and your team for trying to do the right thing.
tell douglas i was only kidding. i knew it wasn't beaver.
dave thought:
and lemme also say this - the current news segments are already sugary due to the whole chit chat casual style. it's what makes them so awkward. because they don't *feel* like news, yet sometimes the topics are serious. but whatever, they're still news, so report the news. (i said as much above.) but busting out a bunch of [sick] details of some story with total disregard for your audience isn't 'keeping it real', it's just reckless and dumb.
Aaron thought:
I won't speak to the situation about the story - I can go both ways on that one... but his personal response to you is pretty shitty... and it drives me nuts how his "blog" doesn't operate like one - it's like an opinion paper and he picks and chooses who gets to gets to be listed in his letters to the editor... but worse of all he speaks authoritatively about online media when everyone I talk to seems to agree that he doesn't get it.
Adam thought:
I think Bob Collins is great (based on the small amount of time I hear him on the Mary Lucia news segments) The banter, and the way the news is presented is often hilarious. He's incredibly sarcastic, but that's a big part of what I find amusing. I think he's the first of the news segment folk that really clicked with Mary Lucia, and that's why he's there.
I am surprised that he represents MPR as he doesn't quite have the MPR style, but I think that's a good thing.
Dylan thought:
Yeah, say what you will about the content of his "report" -- that subject is at least up for debate. But there's no way anybody should treat a listener/reader/customer that way. People have been fired for less.
Mike thought:
Who cares. Get over it.
dave thought:
10 comments is maybe a new record. boss!
huna thought:
This here a Favre-Strahan-sack-record-esque "gift comment" to give you one more to for sure set the record. There will forever be an asterisk on this one.
dave thought:
also because i've been rocking HGH for months now.
thanks for noticing, btw.
Walter thought:
I remember driving home from work last summer and trying to listen to The Current, but instead of having good music to get me through the traffic jams, I had Bob Collins and Mary Lucia yakking like idiots. Made me want to drive my Saturn over the median.
Mark Gisleson thought:
I've had some serious ups and downs with Bob and will let it go at that. News Cuts, however, is a good news blog.
The Current is a modern rock station with just enough eclecticism to be thoroughly annoying. Most of their good programming comes on when people are home and don't need the radio for music. You don't like news in the middle of your music? I don't like Patsy Cline slumming with crappy indie rock bands.
If we really needed a modern rock station, there'd be enough money in it to make it pay. Modern rock is fine, but I can think of at least 40 musical formats I'd rather hear, half of which deserve a left end of the dial slot as opposed to the right end of the dial crap that is modern rock.
Panko thought:
With all these comments, I thought I was on PankoDrift.com.
Bob Collins thought:
I admit my response to you was short but it was not meant to be off-putting so much as to give you what I felt you deserved as a listener. An answer. I come from a long line of east coast-types and for that I'm sorry. I had a little cellphone thingy, I'm not good at text messaging and I got the quickest response to you I could get, figuring I could expand on it later. And then I dropped the ball.
In terms of what I would say to those hwo posted the response, I would say that I'd really like to write something sometime about how we know the things we know.
Take your first comment -- Taylor -- who said, "That's the same response I've always received from Bob Collins. I hate that guy." Hate is a pretty strong word. Especially since I don't know anyone named Taylor and especially since you're the first person in the 53 years I can remember who got a message from me that said, "thanks. no." So when he says "that's the same response I've received from Bob Collins," I'd say he's wrong. And on the basis of that, he allocates a pretty damaging emotion to the cause.
Aaron Landry wrote, "and it drives me nuts how his "blog" doesn't operate like one - it's like an opinion paper and he picks and chooses who gets to gets to be listed in his letters to the editor... but worse of all he speaks authoritatively about online media when everyone I talk to seems to agree that he doesn't get it." As far I know, I don't do a "letters to the editor," so I don't really know what he's talking about. Then he lambastes me for "speaking authoritatively about online media" (whatever that means) and then he buys into people he's talked to who conclude I don't get it. Dave, I dig the whole transparency thing, which is why what I wish Aaron had preceded that with is, 'I've never talked to Bob. I've never met Bob. I have no idea whether he does or doesn't "get it." And if he'd thrown in the names of those people he's talked to who apparently have some knowledge otherwise, that'd be cool, too. Whether I get it (and what is IT, by the way?) is a matter for others to judge, and I have no problem subjecting myself to that. But it should be a conclusion based on knowledge.
So to Taylor and Aaron, I'll subject myself to inspection over lunch at any time. They can ask me anything they want that will help them determine the level of my "schmuckness," if that's what they want. And I would certainly encourage them to post whatever they can glean by way of first-hand knowledge. I might even buy.
Holler if you're in the neighborhood sometime and I'll buy you coffee.
B