In the age of The Great Google Machine there is no excuse to not prep and do 5 minutes of research for every interview you do. In a light-hearted local interview it doesn't seem like a big deal... although this one is pretty insulting to the interviewee...
But on a bigger level this no-research thing is scary because there are so many media-faithful idiots blindly swallowing every over-sensationalized headline that is churned out without a real fact check.
Five minutes of research on Google? I never realized becoming a successful journalist or interviewer required that much effort.
...she's asking if he's ever run this race before jesus......and even if she is asking him if he is actually ever ran before it has nothing to do with knowing who mo farah is..it has to do with knowing that somebody could not possibly win a half marathon with never running...and who cares. He's not that famous he's a distance runner what more do you want from her?
Come on, some of you. "She's asking him this . . . " or "What she meant is that . . . "
We know that. We also know she is a professional TV anchor and journalist, working for a (presumably) respectable TV station's news show. Stop telling us what she meant to do. She didn't do it!
P.S. They all completely missed the opportunity to play up to an Olympic hero (yes, he is, in Europe), and use that clip for ages to promote the show. Now they are getting the old "any news is good news" marketing B.S., which they may profit from anyway, except in a back-handed manner.
They could pull a Marco Rubio and just make a joke and gain some publicity from the whole fiasco, but apparently they pulled the video and are hoping it just blows over.
Louisiana might be one of the dumbest states as a whole, but they have some of the top schools in the nation (Benjamin F. High, Jesuit High, etc). You haven't got a clue.
Prosecution Ploy wrote:
Louisiana might be one of the dumbest states as a whole, but they have some of the top schools in the nation (Benjamin F. High, Jesuit High, etc). You haven't got a clue.
Yeah, those schools are right up there with Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, St. Paul's, etc.
In case you're confused, that was sarcasm.
Sounds like the stupid questions that I'm gonna have to answer from my ignorant non-running extended family members (Aunts, Uncles, cousins etc.) when I go home on my visit next month to RUN in a competition.
I admit the whole thing was pretty funny, but I think most of you are being way too critical. This was probably the only 90 seconds of coverage of any running event that the station will have all year. Some local news outlet isn't going to hire Toni Reavis to provide 90 seconds of running coverage annually. Regarding the "5 minute Google search," she was probably tasked with interviewing whoever won, and probably found out the name of the winner less than 5 minutes prior to the interview. If this were a tri and the reporter asked the winner of the last winner of the Ironman World Championships if he had ever done a tri before, most of us wouldn't think anything of it, because most of us wouldn't have any idea who the hell the winner of the last Ironman World Champs was.
bump...sorry that I started a new thread when this one was already out there.
not a big deal. few Americans know who he is and she was probably handed a sheet that said his name, time and course record. Who knows what she meant? But the takeaway for runners should be that she was extremely impressed by the time with the repeated wows and you want high achievements to be noticed even by someone who knows nothing about running.
HaileUnlikely wrote:
I admit the whole thing was pretty funny, but I think most of you are being way too critical. This was probably the only 90 seconds of coverage of any running event that the station will have all year. Some local news outlet isn't going to hire Toni Reavis to provide 90 seconds of running coverage annually. Regarding the "5 minute Google search," she was probably tasked with interviewing whoever won, and probably found out the name of the winner less than 5 minutes prior to the interview. If this were a tri and the reporter asked the winner of the last winner of the Ironman World Championships if he had ever done a tri before, most of us wouldn't think anything of it, because most of us wouldn't have any idea who the hell the winner of the last Ironman World Champs was.
I'm pretty sure we would assume that a winner of the Ironman World Championships would have in fact done a tri before.
I can't really name any event where an individual would win on their first attempt except for possibly a wet t-shirt contest.
Maybe I'm completely wrong, but was I the only one who took her asking him "haven't you run before?" as a sort of leading question, where she wanted him to talk about being Olympic Gold medalist on his own, and where he got confused (and understandably so) and went a different direction, she just figured it failed and to let it die and not bring up the Olympics on her own? I figure if she wasn't trying to get him to bring up the Olympics, she would have said "have you run before?" as opposed to "haven't you run before?" which to me implies she clearly knew he HAD run before.
Typical American douchebag wrote:
On Twitter Mo Farah just tweeted:
@piersmorgan haha it was bit funny..!! I felt sorry for her... So I tried to help her out...!! All good though!
Farah is such a nice dude. Thank goodness he's a bit more gracious than some people on this forum.
yeah i'd agree but she did say after "you're certainly off to a great start" ...
warrenwarren wrote:
Maybe I'm completely wrong, but was I the only one who took her asking him "haven't you run before?" as a sort of leading question, where she wanted him to talk about being Olympic Gold medalist on his own, and where he got confused (and understandably so) and went a different direction, she just figured it failed and to let it die and not bring up the Olympics on her own? I figure if she wasn't trying to get him to bring up the Olympics, she would have said "have you run before?" as opposed to "haven't you run before?" which to me implies she clearly knew he HAD run before.
Face it folks running isn't a major sport so how can you expect journalists on local TV to keep up?
Going in she should have been tipped off that she was going to talk to a world class runner but she had no clue.
Even when this was a double gold Olympic winner just a year ago.
Yet I don't think she was so stupid to think he never ran before. Like others posted I think she meant the question to be if he ran that particular race before. Which is still ignorant, like she couldn't believe some world class runner could ever win a road race the first time they ever ran it.
This is a shame!
I can't blame the reporter but I blame the news agency. They need to use someone who know about running when interviewing a runner, or they should give her enough info about the runner especially if the runner is a world class runner.
The way it looks, she didn't even know Mo ran a half marathon and not a marathon lol.
Reporters asking silly questions--not unique to running: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ACQpZW-eTg
This is LaTonya Norton's 15 minutes of fame that took less than 5 minutes to do. The interview has gone viral.
Prosecution Ploy wrote:
Louisiana might be one of the dumbest states as a whole, but they have some of the top schools in the nation (Benjamin F. High, Jesuit High, etc). You haven't got a clue.
Top schools = high schools? Are you 12?
I meant that the winner of your local tri could have been a world champ and most of us would have no idea, because we'd have no idea who the world champ in the tri was.
SMJO wrote:
HaileUnlikely wrote:I admit the whole thing was pretty funny, but I think most of you are being way too critical. This was probably the only 90 seconds of coverage of any running event that the station will have all year. Some local news outlet isn't going to hire Toni Reavis to provide 90 seconds of running coverage annually. Regarding the "5 minute Google search," she was probably tasked with interviewing whoever won, and probably found out the name of the winner less than 5 minutes prior to the interview. If this were a tri and the reporter asked the winner of the last winner of the Ironman World Championships if he had ever done a tri before, most of us wouldn't think anything of it, because most of us wouldn't have any idea who the hell the winner of the last Ironman World Champs was.
I'm pretty sure we would assume that a winner of the Ironman World Championships would have in fact done a tri before.
I can't really name any event where an individual would win on their first attempt except for possibly a wet t-shirt contest.