…except Daybreak OC isn't fake news.
‘Scuse us if we’re a few weeks late with this, but our secret inside source was a bit tardy burning the DVD.
But here’s the poop: On May 22, Daybreak OC – the two-hour, nearly year-old weekday morning “news” show that airs on KDOC, a show which seems to exist not for mere ratings alone, but also to prove to lead anchor Pete Weitzner’s life insurance company that he is indeed a live human with a working pulse – aired a segment about a relatively minor brain-fart in the OC District Attorney’s office.
Seems that one Ida Torres had allegedly kidnapped a child from Children’s Hospital in Orange and was on the lam – she was eventually apprehended in New Mexico. Announcing the incident and the issuance of an Amber Alert at a press conference, the DA’s office trumpeted a photo of a woman they claimed was Torres, but wasn’t – turned out the woman was actually Maria Ramos, who was already in custody in the OC jail on assault charges. D-oh! The DA’s office messed up, but they caught their mistake, corrected it, and flashed around the correct photo of Torres.
Not much of a story, really. But non-news news stories are what Daybreak OC does best. So Daybreak devoted a couple of minutes in both their 6 and 7 a.m. hours to this scintillating non-news story, reported by a big ‘ol handjob named Brad Pomerance. Pomerance did some interviews and voice-overs and some on-camera. He chatted up DA spokesflack Susan Schroeder, whose last words were “As you members of the media know better than anyone else, sometimes mistakes happen.”
And then the shit got weird.
Pomerance popped up on-camera and (badly) acted offended by Schroeder’s comment. “WE know better than anyone? WE in the MEDIA?” Pomerance (badly) fumed. “Are we in the news more often the culprits of these types of errors?”
Hells yes, Braddy, and you should know – you work at Daybreak OC, the Emperors of FuckedItUpAgainLand.
So the story has somehow turned from a simple report on a DA mistake into a self-absorbed ego-stroke, where Daybreak OC hilariously tries to appear holy – that the news media are practically all perfect specimens of perfection. But remember – this is Daybreak OC staking this claim.
After Pomerance’s fake hissy fit, the segment flashed a sound-bite interview with Cal State Fullerton communications prof Tony Fellow, who says “Journalists make fewer mistakes than do DAs, judges and lawyers.”
One problem: Daybreak OC identifies Fellow as “Chris Brown, CSUF Professor, Criminal Justice.” Too bad that the poor douche who produced the segment didn’t catch that – or those big-ass letters on the wall behind Fellow that clearly said DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS.
Oh, but it gets better!
A few seconds later, the REAL Cal State Fullerton professor Chris Brown pops up with a quote about the DA’s flub: “It’s still a violation of a person’s rights. You don’t want to be misidentified with a crime that you haven’t committed.” (I bolded that for a reason. You’ll see.)
So can you guess what happened next? Can you guess how Daybreak OC identified the real, actual, CSUF criminal justice professor Chris Brown AS HE'S SPEAKING THE LINE INTO THE CAMERA about how “you don’t want to be misidentified with a crime that you haven’t committed?” In their report about how accurate and never-ever-wrong the news media is? Go ‘head! Guess!!!
“Ida Torres – Charged with Child Abduction.”
Beautiful.
