the kicker

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”

I’m sorry I missed this the first time around, but Chris Cato, a reporter for Channel 7, a CBS affiliate in Spartanburg, South Carolina, deserves your admiration for the unflappability he displayed earlier this month in what could have been a very normal story on small town mayor’s poorly conceived edict. It all started when […]

September 28, 2009

I’m sorry I missed this the first time around, but Chris Cato, a reporter for Channel 7, a CBS affiliate in Spartanburg, South Carolina, deserves your admiration for the unflappability he displayed earlier this month in what could have been a very normal story on small town mayor’s poorly conceived edict. It all started when the station caught wind that Mayor Sallie Peake had banned police chases in hopes of preventing officer injuries—and the expensive workers’ comp cases they bring. Just watch.

Wow. (If that’s not enough for you, Cato’s raw interview footage is on the WSPA site.)

I’m guessing it took a little less restraint for Cato to make it through the follow-up piece marking the mayor’s inevitable flip-flop, which ran just this last Thursday, But it’s a worthy companion to the original. (And the raw footage for that is available too.)

Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.