News Leaves Empty Chair When Transit GM Refuses to Come On and Address Public Concerns

If you are a reader who lives in our nation’s capital, you already know that the D.C. Metro train system is, well, a wreck. There is always something wrong with the system, whether it is busted elevators, spontaneous track fires, or rampant crime. I don’t even live in the DMV and I’ve waited 40+ minutes for trains, gotten stuck between stations, been forced out of the tunnels to take buses when the trains went down, and dealt with faulty turnstiles when I’ve been down there. Seriously, when the Pope was in the area last fall, a petition to get him to bless the Metro got over 2500 signatures.

To give you an idea of what commuters in D.C. deal with every day, here are a few recent Google results:

As you can imagine, the residents of the area are none too thrilled that their formerly-great transit system is a living nightmare these days. The local Fox affiliate, Fox 5, knows this perhaps better than anyone. As a result, they’ve been asking Metro GM Paul Wiedefeld to appear on their channel for weeks. He has refused and his office has released statements explaining that he is busy with meetings.

That wasn’t a good enough reason for Fox 5’s Holly Morris and Steve Chenevey, the latter of whom said, “If you’re the leader of a transit system that on a daily basis has multiple safety issues, you make time to come on one of the most watched morning shows in the District to discuss the problems, and what it’s going to take to fix the problems.”

The segment on which he said that included an empty chair and a microphone for the conspicuously absent Wiedefeld, which was quite the call-out reminiscent of a stunt pulled by Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC a few years ago.

Regarding this brazen move, news director Paul McGonagle exclusively told Mediaite the following:

We’ve had deaths on Metro. It’s breaking down on a daily basis. A month ago, the GM had to shut the system down for an entire day for safety inspections. Every day, we’ve invited him on. “Talk to us. Answer our questions. Answer viewers’ questions. We are gonna give you all the time you want.” It’s been a month of invitations and we are getting nowhere. We want to show him the chair is [his], the time is [his] … We’re getting bombarded by viewers who don’t know what the future looks like!

This isn’t the first time Fox 5 has pulled out the old empty chair trick, either. According to McGonagle, in January of 2015, the empty chair was used to entice Mayor Muriel Bowser on the air to address — what else? — a malfunction on the Metro that caused a train station to fill with smoke. One woman died, as a result.

Bowser ended up on the air and the segment went well. As for Wiedefeld, his team reached out on Twitter to remind Fox 5 that he would be at a press conference later.

.@fox5dc As you know, the GM will be available for media questions today. Please send a reporter & ask anything you like. #wmata

— Metro (@wmata) April 28, 2016

That’s definitely not quite the same as sitting down in-studio, but Fox 5 is taking the high road… all the way to the press conference.

@wmata We’ll be there. And our invitation to Mr. Wiedefeld is open anytime.

— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) April 28, 2016

[image via screengrab]

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