She was caught Tuesday wading up to her ankles in the flooded Weiser River. Each year, especially during high water season, the GUARDIAN gives Dope Reporter awards to the newsies who insist on donning a pair of boots and standing in the water while telling viewers there is high run off in area rivers and streams.

For some reason they don’t wade around in the mud or stand in the tar when a road is being resurfaced, but the lure of standing water is just too much to resist.

Congratulations Misty! You are the first winner in 2019. The awards are all in good fun, so feel free to make your own nominations…pictures are appreciated.

PAST WINNERS

DOWNTOWN is bustling with conventioneers thanks to laws in North Carolina forcing the boys and girls to use the toilets of their gender birth. Who cars whether or not the lid is up or down?

STREETS CLOSED for assorted races, marathons, X-Games, and other weekend special events prompt a lengthy street closure press release from ACHD every Friday.

F-35 NEWS is getting old and repetitive. We did notice the Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director, Carrie Westergard, posted an op-ed piece in the Sunday STATESMAN claiming the F-35 would bring visitors, but not many in the single seat fighter! No surprise, her boss, Chairman of the BCVB board, just happens to be Rebecca Hupp the Airport Director and chief cheerleader for the F-35.

BOISE URBAN SPRAWL efforts continue with plans to create a new subdivision behind Micron off Gowen-Highway21. Maps we have seen show it is within earshot of the proposed F-35 “noise footprint.”

SEN. JIM RISCH was the lead topic on the national news circuit with his defense of Pres. Trump during hearings with former FBI Dir. James Comey. Risch claimed that Trump’s “HOPE” that Comey would cancel an investigation of Gen. Flynn was not an “ORDER.” When Mrs. Guardian says, “I hope you take the trash out,” I know damn sure THAT is an ORDER!

APOLOGY is in order for not keeping up with the blog, but motivation is lacking and things like fishing, travel, and visiting have taken center stage.

It seems that today’s politicos don’t feel they are doing their job unless they are growing the size of the city, building more fire stations, attracting deadly F-35 fighter jets, planning ball parks and building schools. Ang each agency has designs on someone else’s money. BOISE DEV has a step-by-step scenario about the ballpark financing options.

GROWTHOPHOBES are maligned for wanting to improve the bus system, limit city growth, repair fire stations, refuse the condo developer’s ball park, and retain a quiet flying mission at Gowen Field. You simply cannot spend your way to prosperity.

In other “Old News”–
We used to enjoy poking fun at the TV newsies wading in even the most minor floodwater by awarding “Dope Reporter” status. Today, with few exceptions, they all manage to find a wetspot to stand within. We still get a laugh watching an adult standing in ankle-deep water looking into the camera trying to be taken seriously.

With three nominations in our morning mail, it is obvious KTVB has plenty of viewers.

KBOI-2 showed stock images of Garden City while also doing a location shot at Emmett along the Payette River where the previously built levee was holding and there was little to no flooding. No overnight stay at Sun Valley for their reporters.

Channel 2 also warned viewers to stay away from flood waters. Obviously that didn’t apply to TV reporters. With the STATESMAN venturing into shaky cellphone video on-line, it is only a matter of time before they start playing in the water too.

Even the kids who apparently lost a football to the water had enough sense to stay out of the ditch, at least on camera.

In her stand up appearance during the Friday 10 pm newscast she noted the water was “up to our calves.” Had she stood in a different spot, the water would have been up to her chin!

This was a difficult award to make because her report explaining why there is still space in the reservoirs (to allow for future known snowpack to runoff) was otherwise well done and timely.

But fair is fair. We posted a WARNING February 23 about playing in the puddles.

Imagine a print reporter writing, “I stood in water near the Park Center Bridge to write this article.”

In all fairness, many national reporters have also performed while standing in the water. Some classic flood reports on YOUTUBE

Readers are encouraged to make nominations, along with images if possible.

The rules are simple. Any TV newsy caught needlessly standing in water will get the award. True rescues, wading to get a good camera angle, and other legitimate moves are exempt from the award. The award is intended to eliminate, well, DOPE REPORTER moves.

GUARDIAN readers are trained at spotting DOPE REPORTERS and can send nominations to us through the CONTACT button. Local nominations only please, we have seen many on national news of late.

While standing at HORSESHOE BEND ROAD and STATE street he reported on plans for the modification of an intersection more than a mile away at EAGLE ROAD and STATE.

Platt was talking about an INNOVATIVE DESIGN by the Idaho Transportation Department, but he apparently used a GPS to reach his location.

While his location was “HWY 44 and 55,” the intersection in question (Eagle and State) is also HWY 44 and 55, but NOT Horseshoe Bend Road. Honest mistake, but difficult for viewers.

911 Dispatchers also get calls for the “Orchard exit on the freeway,” which could be near Gowen Field or 15 miles east at the Orchard military training range near the Stage Stop. To add to the confusion on that one, Gowen Road crosses the freeway twice as well at either end of the airport.

Jose Esteban Coronado

We immediately wondered how many inmates shave their legs. Guess it’s really a matter of perspective how one uses a razor.

Here are some previous WINNERS over the years.

The Statesman headline writer gets a coveted “DOPE REPORTER AWARD” from the GUARDIAN for perhaps the worst mix and match subject we can remember.

According to the story in the Daily by Katy Moeller, organizers of the International Herpesvirus Workshop first contacted the Boise Visitors and Convention Bureau four years ago. The convention runs July 25-29. Coincidentally the convention overlaps two days of the the six-day Jaialdi Basque cultural event which runs once every five years.

We haven’t heard anything official, but if the GBAD folks manage to expand their facility, perhaps they can catch the syphilis and gonorrhea annual meeting next year.

UPDATE–The on-line version of the story has a new headline: “Virologists, ball players and Basques headed to Boise in July” There were several comments from Statesman readers regarding the headline.

PAST DOPE AWARD WINNERS