A Citizen Encounters Professional 'Journalism,' Journalist Gets It All Wrong: Who Is Tee Zielsdors?

Last Thursday, I attended a sizable Tea Party demonstration being held at the post office in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Tea Parties in this location have become routine in the last couple years. My father, who works as a technician at one of the nearby dealerships, walked down to the event with several of his coworkers during their lunch hour — all of them are supporters of the event and its message, but wished to serve merely in the capacity of observers.

Demonstrators were present on all four corners of the intersection, and my father and his two coworkers remained on the side of the street opposite the bulk of the activities. Again, they were constrained by a short lunch break and basically just wanted to check out the action without getting too involved.

After several minutes of observing some of their other friends on the congested side of the street, a local news station called KEYT approached my father and his friends and asked his opinion on the matter. In the off-camera portion of the interview, my father was very clear about his pro-Tea Party position. The reporter then asked if he could tape a segment with him, and my father agreed and reiterated his comments. He also pointed out his friends on the other side of the street to the reporter and recommended they also be filmed (and in fact, they did this and ended up leading into his segment with a short clip of these Pro-Tea Party friends — I was also standing with those friends on the other side of the street at the time).

To my knowledge, there was no opposition rally present — and if there was, certainly not to the extend that it would be seen as such. In fact, for an an event amassing somewhere between 400 and 1,000 people (about four to five times larger than a similar event a year ago), I was actually somewhat surprised that the were as many Pro people as there were, and found the lack of seemingly any opposition quite refreshing.

With that in mind, KEYT told my dad he could look for his interview to be aired later that day on the local 5 p.m. newscast.

As I watched the newscast later that day, I was shocked at how my father was portrayed. Not only was his interview severely spliced and edited to present some sort of vague, incomprehensible point (which I’m still not even sure I understand), but he was given the fake name of “Tee Zielsdors,” and identified as an “Anti-Tea Party demonstrator.”

Perhaps the most ridiculous part about this is he was wearing his work uniform at the time which clearly states his name, and it is definitely not “Tee.” The video footage conveniently stayed high enough to just barely avoid showing his name tag. I would almost find this laughable if I could look past the appalling fact that KEYT had to stoop to such shameless levels to manufacture an opposition point that didn’t exist.

The complexion of their agenda is fairly obvious to me. But perhaps the most disturbing element of all is the general lack of creativity displayed by the editing room of Chyron operator. “Tee Zielsdors?” Really? You’re at a “Tea” Party, so you figure you’ll name a guy “Tee?” Stunning originality.

Not only is journalistic integrity becoming an afterthought, but such absolute mockery conveys an apparent disdain for intelligent viewership. Welcome to twenty-first century “journalism” I suppose.