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Don't touch me: Investigative reporting gets awkward [VIDEO]

Posted May 28th, 2010 at 6:45 AM and seen
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Marc Slavin is less camera shy than he lets on. When Bay Area ABC news reporter Dan Noyes goes down to ask tough questions about a hospital patient gift fund at Laguna Honda Hospital, Slavin tries to drive Noyes away by getting touchy. Way touchy. In fact, Slavin, who is the hospital's director of community relations, just can't stop patting Noyes on the shoulder, despite repeated requests to stop.

Watch the terribly awkward clip, which Gawker calls the "best local news video this year."

Here's the Noyes's completed story on the hospital funds:

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 Noelle Chun

Comments (5)

May 28, 2010
Steve Pye said...
Wow, that reporter actually deserves some serious kudos for maintaining a such professional composure and being as respectful as he was. Slavin clearly has some serious touchy-feely issues; I can't imagine anyone being so clueless as to refuse to back off of someone like that.
May 28, 2010
nick starte said...
i doubt slavin has "issues" at all; i suspect it was actually a well-executed plan to get the reporter flustered and distracted. by remaining creepy but calm, slavin's then able to say that the frustrated reporter and cameraperson are disrupting hospital operations and the planned town hall meeting. point slavin.
May 28, 2010
Jim said...
Slavin made this much worse than it could have been. Absolute worse PR management ever. Of course, he wasn't helped by the horrible way Lagunda Honda management handled this affair. What could have been a minor scandal forgotten about after a week or so should now probably lead to people getting fired, Slavin included.
May 28, 2010
ericallen247 said...
Looks like Slavin is a student of the "fight fires with gasoline" school of public relations. He did exactly the kind of thing that increases the scrutiny on what the hospital administration was trying (and failing) to cover up. And Noyes played if perfectly: gets a second camera running on Slavin which triggers more of the space invading (on camera) and then targets the fund sources by interviewing some the more prominent donors (who would have been otherwise unaware of the fund situation.) The state investigation is really just the icing on the cake.
May 29, 2010
John said...
The link on YouTube has been removed, here is the ABC link http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=7453588, unbelievable misappropriation, hope police investigate further. There is no doubt in my mind from watching Slavin that this wasn't a pre-planned disruption, perhaps he's done this before because it allowed the director to slip out.

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