Via Gruber—it's astonishing that this video actually went out over the air, and that they didn't cut off the live feed out of pity.
Who would have thought, ten or even five years ago, that the people waiting in line at the Apple Store would appear to be the mature, respectful, respectable ones, and the TV reporters sticking microphones in their faces—or, indeed, putting spellings like "i-Phone" on the screen and calling it "the iPhone store"—would be reduced to the level of jeering, mud-throwing children?
The guy expected this to be like interviewing becostumed fans lining up for a new Star Wars movie. He ended up looking far more moronic and childish than anyone who ever put on a Darth Maul mask.
The most pathetic part is that this jackassery is the LA Times/KTLA/Tribune's last hope for ad sales, of all things: if a company (in this case, Apple) doesn't buy enough ads, the sales department asks the news department to send out reporters to insult their customers.
The station didn't cut the live feed — on the contrary, you can hear the anchors egging on the reporter — because this is their only way to make money these days.
I recognize Michaela Pereira as the anchor on the left. You'd think she would be at least a little sympathetic with the tech crowd after being on ZDTV/Tech TV (now G4TV) for so long... or maybe not, since even then her job was mainly to poke fun at the latest Internet trends. :-/
Brian Tiemann
1. COOP - 14:46 Sat 7/12/2008 ( email )