Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/the-time-a-man-held-a-news-anc.html
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See - if the news anchor had just been carrying a gun, things would have turned out differently! /s
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Impressive. Veteran journalist Bill Close kept his cool thorughout that whole ordeal. He clearly worked for the right station.
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O_O - well - i have to watch this later.
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I’m guessing Johnny Cash never got around to calling the Queen.
Man I would’ve loved to hear that call.
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So which is crazier - this guy’s thing or Q-anon? It’s a toss up.
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And in the middle of the Falklands War, too.
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It was a glitch.
So then his mission was successful? None of those things happened, which means he was able to prevent them. Another time traveler saves the day!
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Just watched the 1979 movie the China Syndrome. It also had a guy using a gun to get his message onto live TV. Btw the TV news gathered remote footage with film cameras back then!
In this day and age where nut jobs commit terrorism to get their manifestos disseminated, taking over a TV studio seems like quite a civil way to get 15 minutes.
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Right? There was a time when an airliner hijacking would end after hours or days of negotiating, not by plowing into a building. Tomorrow, it’ll be someone crashing a satellite into a city. Ain’t progress grand.
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It’s interesting to hear someone read word salad with a newscaster’s trained voice. I didn’t know anything about this until just now, and it’s pretty interesting. Also, it’s good to know that punk rock was created by sociology. I always suspected.
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Hence, “Film at 11!”
I was thinking the same thing. Him taking the gun, shaking the man’s hand and telling the police officers to back off in a calm, almost jovial voice, that’s real bravery. None of the tacticool wannabe operators of today would have been able to do that. These days either the newscaster would think he’s a good guy with a gun and turn it into a shootout with multiple dead or the police would put a sniper’s bullet through the man’s head as soon as the newscaster had taken away his gun, although it would be completely unnecessary at that point.
He deescalated even at a point where it was no longer necessary for anyone’s safety but the gunman’s and as a result everyone walked away safely and (hopefully) non-traumatised, including the clearly disturbed individual with the gun.
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Something similar happened in the Netherlands in 2015, confused person wanted to tell the world about a conspiracy theory. His gun was fake.
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I watched, from beginning to end - Bill Close was always my favorite local newscaster in Phoenix. He was professional, did not try to inject excessive emotion into his reporting, and could be relied upon to have at least attempted to verify his sources and stories. He was Phoenix’ Walter Cronkite. There were other hostages - Bill carried on despite being able to see that a fellow hostage had been pistol-whipped and was soaked in blood. His co-anchor, Mary Jo West (first Phoenix female co-anchor) also did am outstanding job, broadcasting the day’s news alone while drama unfolded around her.
Bill did not always keep up with the newest trends - for example, in music. He was once handed an announcement of something that had occurred at a concert in town; the headliners were, according to Bill, “Meta-lacka”.
I moved away in 1988, and by the time I moved back, he had retired (after 50 years in journalism).
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Yes, but as with so many things nowadays, I feel the need to add the ominous, “…so far…”
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David that also happened in your hometown at WCPO-TV in late 70’s or early 80’s. I was living on 4th street just one block south at the time.
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