This morning ABC News had a report about a so-called "Scrooge" in Ross Township, Pennsylvania. But if the reporters had done their jobs, they would have discovered that the real Scrooges were the people who were accusing this man of insanity.
For years, brothers Bob and Bill Ansell of Ross Township, PA, had an enormous holiday Christmas light display. This wasn't just any light show. We're talking 84,000 watts of twinkle lights. The brothers would work from Labor Day up until the Christmas season hit to assemble everything, sort of like their personal hobby. They'd put up lights on weekends and about five hours per night on weekdays after they'd finished their daily jobs as electrical contractors.
They weren't doing it just for sheer kicks, either.
These two guys had a donation box in front of their house, whereby anybody who came down the street to see the lights could leave a little something for charity. Old news articles indicate that they started accepting money in the late 1980s and early 1990s for a children's hospital and The Salvation Army.
What jerks, right? :-P
OK, so apparently, the neighbors didn't like the traffic on the street that this display generated.
One in particular, Vince Heck, started complaining to township officials. He fussed and fussed. That was in 2005. See these articles for the back story, and read it for yourself:
http://triblive.com/x/archive/1436062-74/archive-story#axzz3MSiWUPJs
http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/columns/heyl/s_405093.html#axzz3MSiWUPJs
Let's fast-forward to this weekend now.
I learned about this story, but not because of the harassment that the two brothers endured, for what seems like a pretty long time.
I learned about it because ABC News had a story about Bill Ansell (which Yahoo News put up on its home page this morning). Here it is:
http://news.yahoo.com/one-man-terrorizing-neighbors-hostile-holiday-decoration-display-165658608--abc-news-topstories.html
From this account, it appears that Bill is pretty crazy. The neighbors describe him as "an angry person that's very unstable." He has changed the display into a beheaded choir, a hanging Mickey Mouse and a urinating Santa, among other things.
Apparently, it changed after Vince Heck's wife, Pamela, called Bill one Thanksgiving to ask him to turn off the lights because they were bothering her dinner guests.
When you read the story, you're under the impression that's what kicked this six-year feud off. However, if you look at the archives from the local newspaper, you get a completely different picture.
When you read the history of how Vince and Pamela Heck harassed, cajoled, complained and fussed about ALL OF THE MONEY BEING COLLECTED FOR A CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL AND THE SALVATION ARMY, is it any wonder that this guy is pissed off?
I'm not going to defend his actions today. But I understand him. However, what I don't understand is how a national news organization -- which apparently aired this segment on 20/20, of all things -- covered this like an in-depth piece and didn't even get the other side of the story into it. The other side of this story is pretty significant, if you ask me. All they had to do was look at newspaper archives.
And what happened to Bob Ansell? Why isn't he even mentioned in the piece? That's another piece of the puzzle that may also shed some light on Bill's hostility.
I know people get tired of me Monday Morning Quarterbacking a lot of these news organizations. But come on. This type of sloppy reporting is something that J-school freshmen students do. The standards of journalism have been plummeting since the proliferation of bloggers that self-style themselves as "reporters" and news Internet sites that hand over the reporting reins to people without classical journalism training. But now when I see this type of reporting by a national outfit? I'm seriously concerned about the future of our industry in this country.
And I hope that Bill Ansell keeps putting up his beheaded choir year after year, because he was trying to do a good deed and has been brush-stroked as a crazy criminal.
I don't think he's crazy, for the record.
But I do think that you're crazy if you work for ABC News and are proud of the "work" that went into this piece.
For years, brothers Bob and Bill Ansell of Ross Township, PA, had an enormous holiday Christmas light display. This wasn't just any light show. We're talking 84,000 watts of twinkle lights. The brothers would work from Labor Day up until the Christmas season hit to assemble everything, sort of like their personal hobby. They'd put up lights on weekends and about five hours per night on weekdays after they'd finished their daily jobs as electrical contractors.
They weren't doing it just for sheer kicks, either.
These two guys had a donation box in front of their house, whereby anybody who came down the street to see the lights could leave a little something for charity. Old news articles indicate that they started accepting money in the late 1980s and early 1990s for a children's hospital and The Salvation Army.
What jerks, right? :-P
OK, so apparently, the neighbors didn't like the traffic on the street that this display generated.
One in particular, Vince Heck, started complaining to township officials. He fussed and fussed. That was in 2005. See these articles for the back story, and read it for yourself:
http://triblive.com/x/archive/1436062-74/archive-story#axzz3MSiWUPJs
http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/columns/heyl/s_405093.html#axzz3MSiWUPJs
Let's fast-forward to this weekend now.
I learned about this story, but not because of the harassment that the two brothers endured, for what seems like a pretty long time.
I learned about it because ABC News had a story about Bill Ansell (which Yahoo News put up on its home page this morning). Here it is:
http://news.yahoo.com/one-man-terrorizing-neighbors-hostile-holiday-decoration-display-165658608--abc-news-topstories.html
From this account, it appears that Bill is pretty crazy. The neighbors describe him as "an angry person that's very unstable." He has changed the display into a beheaded choir, a hanging Mickey Mouse and a urinating Santa, among other things.
Apparently, it changed after Vince Heck's wife, Pamela, called Bill one Thanksgiving to ask him to turn off the lights because they were bothering her dinner guests.
When you read the story, you're under the impression that's what kicked this six-year feud off. However, if you look at the archives from the local newspaper, you get a completely different picture.
When you read the history of how Vince and Pamela Heck harassed, cajoled, complained and fussed about ALL OF THE MONEY BEING COLLECTED FOR A CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL AND THE SALVATION ARMY, is it any wonder that this guy is pissed off?
I'm not going to defend his actions today. But I understand him. However, what I don't understand is how a national news organization -- which apparently aired this segment on 20/20, of all things -- covered this like an in-depth piece and didn't even get the other side of the story into it. The other side of this story is pretty significant, if you ask me. All they had to do was look at newspaper archives.
And what happened to Bob Ansell? Why isn't he even mentioned in the piece? That's another piece of the puzzle that may also shed some light on Bill's hostility.
I know people get tired of me Monday Morning Quarterbacking a lot of these news organizations. But come on. This type of sloppy reporting is something that J-school freshmen students do. The standards of journalism have been plummeting since the proliferation of bloggers that self-style themselves as "reporters" and news Internet sites that hand over the reporting reins to people without classical journalism training. But now when I see this type of reporting by a national outfit? I'm seriously concerned about the future of our industry in this country.
And I hope that Bill Ansell keeps putting up his beheaded choir year after year, because he was trying to do a good deed and has been brush-stroked as a crazy criminal.
I don't think he's crazy, for the record.
But I do think that you're crazy if you work for ABC News and are proud of the "work" that went into this piece.
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