update 3:25pm: A tipster says this story has two legs. They claim CBS4 was trying to hunt down the person who emailed Herald columnist Joan Fleischman about Ted Scouten’s phony homeless guy story in which a guy pretended to be homeless and got help from CBS4 Neighbors4Neighbors and a radio station before bing found out (see:CBS4 Dupe By Fake Homeless Man) And that management suspected Ozzie Martinez was the one who leaked it so they let him go telling employees he left to “travel”.
Update: This story doesn’t really add up since according to the official story the radio station were the ones who originally found out the guy was faking being homeless after a police officer and family called them. Then HOT105 called WFOR. It appears it wasn’t a super duper secret that no body was aware of so anyone at the radio station, CBS4 or elsewhere could have sent the info to the Herald.
If you know this to be false, i ask you kindly to e-mail me. Thank you!
update: the last part of this story about Ozzie being fired appears to be false. I’d like to apologize to Ozzie for the mishap it wasn’t intentional. No harm meant.
It appears my update yesterday is what actually happened and makes the most sense and I realised it better once I paid better attention to the facts.
A flat out lie, and near slander. Better be prepared to out your tipster, because they are a liar unfairly tarnishing the reputation of a great guy. Hope somebody has proof, Alex, or a great lawyer, because Ozzie did not leave under a cloud.
Ozzie is a wonderful person and and a fantastic producer.
absolutely not true.. ozzie left ON HIS OWN. everybody knew exactly why he left.. and it wasn’t because of any email. it was because of the HORRIBLE decisions that station has made since shannon high left. this place is in worse position in the ratings than when anne roberts and kambrell marshall were on the desk.
This blog is based on tips. We received a tip from someone who has given us credible information in the past. If the tip is incorrect, of course, we apologize; and if we receive proof that the tip is incorrect, we will issue a public apology. Sorry for the confusion.
OK TVNewser…You think you know what’s going on at WFOR? Do you or did you work there? I’m getting sick of all people bashing 4 becasue you and a few others are so enthralled with SHB and sorry to say the WSVN clone newscast. Give it up! Do you know this guy? Unless you do, only he and 4’s mgt. knows the reason. Also I worked with Khambrel and Anne and they were damn good anchors, it was the moron of a GM back then that screwed it up big time. So TVNewser…give it up!
Former WFOR Staffer rant mode off!
“This blog is based on tips.”
Alex, that doesn’t means you don’t have the responsibility to do some basic checking before you…not the ‘tipster’…post some character ruining comment. Ooooh, we gotta publish this now, if it’s bullsquat we’ll take it back. Gee, isn’t that what WFOR is being accused of with the Chief Parker story, and you know how much shite they’ve taken for that. Sometimes you cant undo something.
If you’re not sure, don’t allow character assasination. Whoever this guy is you owe him an apology unless you have proof your ‘tipster’, likely some disaffected moron with an agenda, knows something. I have yet to see you type, “Sorry Ozzie, we were full of crap.” The tip was bogus and you know it. Say so.
When i say this blog is based on tips, I’m not saying we just receive a meebo tip, and then rush to publish it. The person who tipped us off to this, is/was a reliable source and has given us factual information in the past. If the information is proven to be false, again, we will apologize about the posting false information. We’re still looking into it and contacting other sources to determine if this is true or not.
…And there’s the apology. It just takes time to figure some of these things out. Sorry.
Thank you, Alex. We hope you will be more cautious next time. This is a person’s career you could have seriously affected.
Oh, and Gato — there’s no denying that WFOR was a ratings basement-dweller in the 90s. It was no reflection on the anchors.. I was just referencing the time period. But the truth of the matter is that WFOR is rating LOWER today than they were in the 90s. And that says A LOT. It was just a few years ago that they were Number 1 at noon, 5, 530, 6 & 11. Everyone who was at 4 in those days will never forget them as the “glory days” .. number one in the ratings AND first on all the big stories and tops in weather coverage. There’s just NO denying that.
i wont deny it either but it got to be more and more seven as it went along then people got smart and saw it as a seven news clone and it went downhill fast. A lot of us in there saw it with our own eyes. The final shoe was the story about the Miami-Dade Police Chief. All of that was under SHB’s clock. Being honest.
This type of “reporting” – if you can even call it that – is why blogs as a news source will never fully replace REAL journalism (both TV news, newspapers and news magazines) as the main source of information for most people.
We keep hearing that REAL journalism’s obituary is being written as more people turn to blogs and other “ordinary citizen” reporting tools, but clearly, bloggers and other citizen reporters don’t have (or make use of) the same methods of researching, verifying and vetting information that a reporter with a degree and training would.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t work in the media, and I regularly enjoy reading this site – but to publish an unverified tip (that borders on defamation) as fact? Sheesh.
No thanking me, TVNewser… Not my post.
Dear Chief Parker,
We apparently received a tip, confirmed by a second source, that your son had been charged with a crime. We put this on as soon as we had this. Seems now it wasn’t true. “I’d like to apologize to Ozzie (I mean, your son) for the mishap it wasn’t intentional. No harm meant.”
Of course, there’s no need for a lawsuit now, right?
Your friends at Channel 4
Looks pretty silly when you change a few words, doesn’t it, and pretty ineffective. The problem is sites like this promote bad information, lies, and personal agendas by allowing anonymous tips, and allowing anonymous people to post things which cause pain, affect careers, and spread misinformation. The people who surf here, who work at TV stations but who do not post, must boil over the stuff people say without proof, evidence, or support.
This site slandered this guy. If he were me, I’d sue. Making him out as a liar and mole could damage his career and future earning power. Lawyers get fat on that stuff. If you don’t think he’s getting copies of all of this, you’re dreaming.
So, what now? I suggest you require people to register with real names and e-mails, and verify those before they can post. Their posts would be their responsibility, and if they lie, they’d know someone could find out. Let em use an alias on the blog, but the real person would be known. And don’t allow throw away email addresses.
If you choose to post tipster news, it would be the blogger’s responsibility to trust and verify those.
I bet that would go a long way to clearing out station moles with personal agendas, folks who make things up just to stir the pot, and other weasels who hide behind ‘anon’.
What do folks think. Is it time to grow up?
Uh, I don;t think so “Cronkite’s Kid”. You are really blowing this out of proportion. The false tip was up for less then 24 hours. We did not slander him. This site maybe gets 200-300 hits a day, and most really don’t care about the stories. It’s just for you’re reading pleasure. If you’re coming to this site, expecting for 1000% fact checking, it’s really impossible. We RELY on tips. Without them, you would find out about the “new guys” at stations as they aired them. Without our tips, you would only hear about how good the Post Newsweek duopoly is. There is no way, that we would compromise the identity of our tipsters, by making them “register” and give away their identity. You are really making a federal case, out of ONE false tip. This blog has been up for a very long time, and we have provide you as well as many others with great information. If you are honestly outraged at ONE false tip, that we almost immediately took down, AND apologized for, then you are free not to log onto this site. I think we do a damn good job at trying to fact check and keep stories as factual as possible. You say that we’re the ones using false information. Well allow me to enlighten you, sir. We DON’T allow people to use throw away e-mails like you claim. You have no idea of our policies; you’re not an administrator. The tips that make it to post, are about 1 in 10. If you still have a problem with this, or you honestly still want to debate this, lets do it LIKE ADULTS, in a private forum. Please e-mail me via the contact form. I will respond.
Again, we made ONE mistake that any of YOU could have made. A trusted source that gave us one bad tip. It has happened to the most trusted names in news. Get over yourself.
Best of luck with this little issue. I have a strong suspicion you’ll need it, and that’s a tip.
The usual admin is gone for less than a week, all hell breaks loose. 😉 Just kidding, Alex, your doing a phenomenal job!
Being the usual reader of the site that I am, Alex does have a point. This is one of the very few mistakes that they make as a blogging, informative website. It’s not as if they were a news source like CNN. It’s for our viewing pleasure. They don’t have to do this. If anything, they’re doing us a favor, so stop being so hard on the guy, he’s doing the best he can. It’s not his fault that the source was unreliable ONE TIME! Like Alex said, the biggest names in news have done this, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, so on, and so forth. With all do respect, Nobody is perfect in this world, not even yourself, Cronkite’s kid. So, I say we get over the fact that someone made a silly mistake, that’s not EVEN the administrators fault, and understand the FACT that HAS been posted on the site, and that has been corrected. This really all comes down to the source, and it’s technically their fault, so if any bashing should be going on, BLAME THE SOURCE!
Those are my two cents…