10’s Valicenti & Radio Reporter Battle It Out
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Rodney King said it.
“Can we all get along?”
Easy to say—but hard to do apparently for two long time members of the RI Media.
Surely, you know the name – Gene Valicenti of Channel 10 fame. The main anchor at the NBC station here in town. And maybe you’ve heard of Scott MacKay – who now has a radio gig at National Public Radio here in Providence. Before that he was with The Providence Journal for a long time covering politics.
And how these two guys come to blows – in a war of words anyway is all linked to social media. Rodney King never had blogs or websites he just wanted everyone to get along right.
“On Politics With Ian Donnis and Scott MacKay”
A story written by Scott MacKay of WRNI fame was posted on November 10th according to the station’s website. The story is in the form of a political blog apparently that one or both of these guys write. In it, to paraphrase, WRNI's MacKay takes the Governor to task in his first year of office – and the job he is doing. Also touched on in the article is how the Pro-Jo takes whacks at Chafee. In addition Valicenti is mentioned as being the one in the media who said Chafee is the most hated Governor in Rhode Island history. Valicenti in his fight with MacKay denies that by the way but more on that in a moment.
Social Media/New Level Of Engagement
With social media and all of the great things it brings us – comes this new unfiltered way to talk to people. Yell at them. Scream at them on a blog. Call them an idiot etc. No more are the days of saying to someone’s face. There are those that will aruge this new wave of technology gives people a chance to express themselves in a way they normally would not.
Today Valicenti and MacKay can attack each other and never say a word. To each other in person that is.
Nice At First
To Valicenti’s credit, when he first posted on MacKay’s blog—after reading the article, he tactfully tried to explain that in his words he never actually said what MacKay said he said about Chafee being the most hated Governor in history etc.
Here’s a snippet of his comments:
Gene Valicenti permalink
November 16, 2011 5:47 am
Gene to planet Scott:
Not so fast. Here is what a person identified on the WRNI blog as MacKay responds with.
And now, it starts to get good.
Then the conversation turned to spelling of a word correctly. It gets comical now as Valicenti gives MacKay advice on how to boost his ratings.
The tote bag line.
Precious.
And then…..
I could go on but they didn’t give me enough space this week. We did check in with Channel 10 News Director Chris Lanni about the postings and if there are any lines that can be crossed when it comes to talent engaging in too much social media. “Media General does have social media policies that we follow, but this type of correspondence does not full under that umbrella. Social media is a moving target, so we stay flexible”.
And to borrow a line from Will Ferrell -- AKA Ron Burgundy in the movie Anchorman --“Stay Classy Providence."
And I want to be there the next time Valicenti and MacKay are together in person -- face-to-face -- at an event or a news story.
I got $50 bucks on Valicenti.
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