Reporter asks Mo Farah if he's ever run before

coach d wrote:

According to Latoya Norton's bio, she is an anchor/ investigative reporter. She is not a runner (obviously) and she is not a sports reporter.

So why was she interviewing Mo Farah to begin with?

I mean, do you have Mike Greenberg or Dan Patrick interviewing Obama about the budget negotiations?

Because it's local news. It's not really a sports story to the channel. They're just reporting on a local event. I don't think that excuses the fact that they didn't take the time to look into who Mo Farah is, but I don't see why a normal anchor for a local news show can't do a quick interview with him if he happens to be in town winning races.

This is, of course, all assuming competency, of which I see no evidence.

I felt really sad watching that. Farah puts in so much into his running, and because a news reporter can't do her damn job correctly, I'm sure it made Farah feel like crap.

I really believe we should take 5 mins out of our day and send an e-mail to this station/reporter. An apology would be nice.

As to everyone saying running is not a big deal and stuff. Yeah ok, I get it, but it shut down half the city essentially, brings in thousands in tourism dollars, and the video has gone viral.

If running wasnt so popular you think this would be such a big deal? I mean other news outlets are reporting this fiasco, that should tell you something.

As a fellow Louisiana runner/resident, I am embarrassed (but honestly not surprised).

Just 90 seconds of research on google will produce enough info for the interviewer.

Now there's this:

Piers Morgan ‏@piersmorgan

BOOM! The power of Twitter... fellow gooner @Mo_Farah has agreed to come on my CNN show tonight to discuss this:

http://bit.ly/X7WWS4

Has she ever interviewed before?

You can't google common sense

Deadman Running wrote:

SMJO wrote:

She really didn't know. She is one of those people who asks "how long was your marathon?".

It almost came across like he was visiting New Orleans and decided to run the race on a lark and showed remarkable aptitude for running.

Exactly. It would have been hilarious to be able to think fast enough on your feet and respond to such an idiotic question by saying " Well, I was out drinking hurricanes on Bourbon Street until the early hours of the morning and some guy at the bar bet me $100 that I couldn't finish the half-marathon. So, I put out my cigarette and staggered over to the start line and gave it go. I can't believe how fast I ran ! I might have to try this again."

Aside from the whole Mo and Islam no-drinking thing, this makes the most sense. That or a Chappelle-style Li'l Jon interview:

Do you run?

WHAAAAAAT?

Have you run before?

WHAAAAAAT?

Have you run a race before?

Well, in Mogadishu as a very young boy, I ran from rifle fire

Wow, that's amazing

WHAAAAAAT?

I usually try my best not to nitpick, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt when it's warranted, but this is her job. She is paid to do this, and sports reporter or not, the fact is she was the one interviewing Mo. Like most runners I'm perpetually frustrated by running's lack of wide spread attention as well as the indifference/ignorance running is met with. Like someone said earlier..you don't know anything about running? Fine, but a quick google search would show you the bullet points for a lazy, but competent and respectful interview. If I was going to do a brief interview with the world's best cricket player, I'd like to think I would say, "Ok, I know nothing about cricket, nor do I have any clue who this guy is, so I'll do some research on it, if not to avoid being disrespectful to him, then at least to make it look like I can actually do my job that I am paid for". I know this is more about her being awful at her job than it is about the lack of respect running gets, but I want to rant about both.

from the Daily Mail story:

"The list of anchors on WDSU's Wikipedia page had been edited this afternoon to read: 'LaTonya 'Doesn't know who Mo Farah is' Norton'."

nice work by somebody!

sjl wrote:

from the Daily Mail story:

"The list of anchors on WDSU's Wikipedia page had been edited this afternoon to read: 'LaTonya 'Doesn't know who Mo Farah is' Norton'."

nice work by somebody!

LOL! But that's been removed and the top of the page says, "Editing of this article by new or unregistered users is currently disabled until March 1, 2013 due to vandalism."

My point was: if you were about to interview A cricket player, ANY cricket player, at no point would it ever have occurred to you that the one you were about to interview might be the best one in the world. She was probably tasked with interviewing whoever won. At 99.99% of races that happen in the United States, "whoever won" is not even a national class athlete, much less a world class athlete, much less an Olympion, much less the Olympic champion, and there is nothing to be found on Google other than maybe his Athlinks page showing that he won the Turkey Trot a couple years ago or something. Just like you wouldn't have had any idea that Mr. Cricket Player Guy was the best cricket player in the world, and thus wouldn't have had any idea that there was anything to google, I think it is legitimate that the thought of there being anything worth Googling didn't even enter her mind. Why should it? In every race on U.S. soil except this one and the major marathons (they obviously would not have her cover the Boston Marathon), that would result in wasted time to look up the stud that just dropped a 69 minute half, which is no less mind-boggling than a 61 to a non-runner.

Mo has tweeted: "Just wanna say to everyone being nasty to LaTonya Norton please stop!! She made a mistake like we all do!! She didn’t mean anything by it"

Yes that is what happened. She phrased it poorly. She knew he had run before, but was unsure about a half-marathon or THIS particular half it seemed listening to her. still...

No, I see what you're saying. That's definitely a legitimate point..but the fact still remains that she did not have any idea who Mo is. So I guess my question is: why enter an interview as a reporter, regardless of how brief, if you're embarrassingly oblivious as to who you're interviewing, and why you are interviewing them. At that rate, anyone could do her job..there are plenty of people out there who can read a teleprompter who have no clue who Mo Farah is.

Fair enough. Mo's a big boy, he can take it, though. I honestly think it would be more insulting to a national class athlete struggling to make a living running, dedicating several years of his life to qualifying for the Olympic Trials, qualifying, running like 2:18 and finishing say 25th, etc., and then coming home and winning his hometown half in 65 and being asked if he's ever run before. Ouch. Ask somebody with a couple of Olympic golds, who is making a comfortable living, if he's ever run before and it's embarrassing and funny but not particularly harmful to anybody. No reporter who is assigned to interview the winner of their hometown race is ever going to know anything about the winner (including who it'll be, until the race is over), unless it's the same reporter covering the same race year after year and the same guy winning it year after year (thinking of, for example, a race in DC that Michael Wardian wins every year). If Mo's finish was slightly less good, she would have been interviewing Gebre Gebremariam. Despite his being a past NYCM champ, and being basically the same caliber of athlete as Mo (as evidenced by Mo having to work hard to beat him), nobody would have thought anything of it if the reporter obviously didn't know who Gebre Gebremariam was. In all seriousness, what proportion of people who posted on this thread do you think know who Gebre Gebremariam is? I'd be astonished if it was more than half. Asking anybody good enough to win a big race if they've ever run before is patently absurd, but no additional deductions for not knowing who Mo is. I didn't know until a couple years ago that Steve Nash was white or that he was Canadian. I don't watch basketball. If I saw him at a bar after a game, it would never have even occurred to me that he might have been a basketball player, much less one of the best in the history of the sport.

Diles Mavis wrote:

No, I see what you're saying. That's definitely a legitimate point..but the fact still remains that she did not have any idea who Mo is. So I guess my question is: why enter an interview as a reporter, regardless of how brief, if you're embarrassingly oblivious as to who you're interviewing, and why you are interviewing them. At that rate, anyone could do her job..there are plenty of people out there who can read a teleprompter who have no clue who Mo Farah is.

I would think most Americans wouldn't know who Mo Farah is either. But still it's a funny if cringeworthy story.

Mavis Diles wrote:

I would think most Americans wouldn't know who Mo Farah is either. But still it's a funny if cringeworthy story.

Even if she didn't know who he was, she should have known that you don't win a (half) marathon the first time you run. It was like she was covering the local elementary school's gym class mile.

The other point is that the whole coverage by the New Orleans station just reflects how running is not viewed as a serious sport. Despite Mo's explanations that he had not done a marathon and that he had not run a marathon, the graphic under his image refers to him as "Marathon Winner," even after he said he wasn't, and her last words are that he'd won the marathon. And why is she so impressed by "61 minutes" if she has no idea how far he RAN in 61 minutes? Plus her various "wow" responses indicate that she wasn't grasping any meaning from his answers.

It was a bad interview by the reporter, but you have to admit that his answer to the question about upcoming races -- running half of a full marathon was pretty messed up. It was like he knew as much about racing ad the reporter like he didn't know the difference between a 21097.5 race and a full marathon.