A Tale of Two Stories...

I am glad that Tony took the time to respond. It does show what many of us know about his nature. Many Officers agree that he has done an admirable job over the years.

I talked with Tony yesterday regarding his concerns over the story. I would like to point out that he did his job. The problem that we had was one created either through oversight of the editor or webmaster for not putting the follow up story with the interview on WHAS.com until Wednesday, December the 15th at noon. Control of this story and any follow up to it should have been immediate. Tony interviewed all the available people he could on the day of the shooting including Chief White who stated that the case was under investigation but that the initial outlook was that Officer Grissom was justified in using deadly force to save another life.

Tony was off on Monday and Tuesday and like most of us he probably doesn't hang around work and check on what other people are supposed to be doing. He had no control over what was done or more importantly what was not done in this case.

We are not trying to imply that he did anything wrong. Anyone that saw Chuck Olmstead's interview on Monday with the victim would agree with that. Again the "spin" that we were referring to was not done by him, but by whomever made the decision not to update the original story as it became available.

I expressed to Tony during our conversation that if someone used whas.com as their sole source of information, then they truly would have been mislead because the follow up investigation and interviews were not put up intil 4 days later.

To have lasted 15 years in the business Tony has to rely on his fairness in reporting the news. His reputation is based on that. I would like to say that after talking to him, his reputation is very much intact with me.

Keep up the good work Tony!

Paul Schweizer

RCFOP Recording Secretary.

Mr. Hyatt,

While I respect your candor and concern, I believe you are misunderstanding the purpose of the story. This was not a "Let's Bash Tony Hyatt and channel 11" opportunity. It was simply an attempt to make people realize that media sources have the power to influence the opinions of the masses.

Your response only proves my point. It was never stated in the original article which tv news clip we believed to be predjudicial or unfavorable, you have made that assumption based on viewing both news clips. You are naturally assuming that your news clip is being pointed out by us as "unfavorable", but that is an assumption that you made without any direction from us.

Chris Ansman