Reaction to A New Low for WCCO News For its "Hatchet Job" Story on Beloved 85 year old Local Doctor

1. I havn't been so pissed at one of our local TV news readers since  WCCO's version of Ted Baxter,   Don "the Blues Man "Shelby opened the WCCO 10:00 PM News broadcast the night Kirby Puckett died with a repetition of criminal charges HE HAD BEEN ACQUITTED OF and was  NO LONGER NEWS having been covered to death by local news readers who traded their journalistic standards and integrity in  for some kind of Hollywood Celebrity Gossip and trash talk tabloid journalism practiced by little people who will never accomplish anything of substance other than to take sadistic pleasure in tearing people greater than them down so they could feel better about their pathetic miserable little lives.  
2. I can get past the "Shelby Knot" twaddle and not so much his stalking and running off one of the few journalists at WCCO, Colleen Needles, who later said of being the center of Ted "Shelby" Baxter's attention "I can now see why Pat Miles would rather make herself blind then look at him".  Shelby's distasteful running down of Mr. Puckett who gave so much back to this state and his sport in the manner that Shelby disgraced himself and his station that night was utterly breathtaking. 
3. Totally tone deaf in reading the mood of its audience, the news writers and editorial staff wrote classless and ill mannered copy any real reporter would have sight edited and not delivered.  But that would be way too much to ask of some self absorbed news reader whose sole contribution to his "profession" is for a fashion trend appropriately named for a fop like him, the "Shelby Knot".
4.  To the horror of the audience that night Ted "Shelby" Baxter plunged ahead oblivious, impervious and incapable of conducting himself with even the slightest hint of any decency, humanity or even common sense.  Don "the Blues Man" devoured his lines with the desperate zeal of a tv evangelist,  infomercial host, or hell, President (the ways things have been going).  When Shelby got done "eulogizing" this great Minnesotan and beloved member of our community,  Kirby is reported to have said in Heaven "I feel as valued and appreciated as Manafort, Kelly, Spicer, Comey and most recently Cracker General, the difference between the AG and I is I like to take steam showers and he likes to forcibly "Hot Box" prisoners in the heat of Alabama summers, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. I know, I know,  this is just a continuation of the mean spirited, Hollywood styled celebrity gossip coverage I rage about, it just feels good turning it back on the people who peddled this tripe...I just want to know Don was it to much to ask of you to treat Kirby with even a modicum of respect, at least while the man's body was still warm?
5. Enough Shelby, the torch has been passed to a new generation of idiots, the husband and wife team of news readers who threw all journalism standards out the window to jump on the victimization/witch hunt band wagon to unfairly and in true tabloid fashion treat a beloved 85 year old doctor with the  same unfair pile on character assassination tabloid journalism that was used against Mr. Puckett.  For such "smart people" as you news readers think you are, you would think geniuses like you would know that your reporting only makes you look bad, not the victims of your lies and shoddy journalism..
6. 
   
   
7. 
   

   Tom Swanson

   May 31, 2017 at 2:53 pm

   This a total ” hatchet job” on a terrific doctor. I didn’t see any mention of ALL the great work he has done treating people w/Tourtettes Syndrome. Never mind myself after seeing doctors from ages 6 to 26 ( just a great childhood) how about the Twin’s player Jim Eisenriech who was cast-off to Kansas City only to become a league All- Star? Tramadol? Gimme ‘ a break! It used to be prescribed like Tylenol. It was just 2 years ago it became a controlled substance. It is NOT for SEVERE pain. It is a mild pain-killer. Get your facts right. I’m sure you won’t even acknowledge this.You are ruining a great man when he didn’t MAKE anyone force them into suicide or whatever …..

   TR Swanson
   No Oaks MN.

   Reply | Report comment

1. The Great Roll Call (@Mghtyfieldofvsn)

   August 18, 2017 at 5:36 pm

   I agree completely with Mr. Swanson. Like legislation by victimization, news reporting that jumps on the victimization band wagon and loses all perspective is a disservice to their viewers and paints an incredibly distorted view of one of the best doctors in his field in the Twin Cities if not the country. It is truly sad what happened to Mr. Arens but who was in the best position to get him help? Why the family of course and to unjustly heap blame for his tragic death on Dr. Abuzzahab is so misguided and unfair I do not know where to begin. I wonder if you looked at all the psychiatrists in the state of Minnesota and see how many of their patients commit suicide perhaps you will come to the conclusion that unfortunately suicide is part of treating people with mental illnesses and is not always the result of professional malfeasance. Journalists are supposed to be independent and objective not the public relations arm of people lashing out in misguided victimhood. The self congratulatory follow-up story “celebrating” the “countless lives” supposedly saved by driving a good doctor out of the practice of medicine and depriving his patients of care I predict will have exactly the opposite effect. Will WCCO and its husband and wife news readers take credit for having blood on its hands?

   Patient of Dr. Abuzzahab