Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Dumb Doesn't Take A Holiday

I'm not a journalist anymore, but damn it if this reporter from WBIR in Tennessee didn't perfectly capture a perfect moment in time during a report. Here's the story.

(CNN) -- A wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from a coal plant in central Tennessee broke this week, spilling more than 500 million gallons of waste into the surrounding area.The sludge, a byproduct of ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley TVA spokesman Gil Francis told CNN that up to 400 acres of land had been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Tragic and awful and all that, but...wait for it...the reporter finds a woman directly effected by the sludge dump and drops this amazing little gem:

Some of the goop spilled into the tributary, but preliminary water quality tests show that the drinking water at a nearby treatment plant meets standards.
"I don't want to drink it. It doesn't look healthy to me," Jody Miles, who fishes in the Clinch River, told CNN affiliate WBIR. "Do you reckon they can bring all this life back that's going to die from all this mess?"

Pardon my directness, but no shit you don't want to drink it, it's ashen sludge you idiot. The rest of the ashen sludge you regularly ingest looks a little healthier to you, does it? When you fish in sludge-filled lakes and lay down by crap-filled streams, that's perfectly normal?

But it's the second part that really makes me happy. Any sentence that starts with "Do you reckon" has only gold on the other side. To read the whole sentence, I can just picture Jody Miles, trying to come up with something profound and instead finding an inquiry into whether toxic, ashen sludge might kill fish tumbling out of her mouth. Do you suppose she felt the interview went well?

I think Mrs. Miles should be a standard at other events.

At the scene of a house fire:
"Do you reckon their furniture is burning up too?"

At the scene of a shooting
"Those are some nice shoes. It's a cryin' shame they got blood all over 'em."

Nice work, reporter!

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