Fair and Balanced

In the studio with Ernie Anastos.

I have to admit, when I got a call from a producer at Fox 5 a couple of weeks ago asking me to come on the news to talk about bike lanes, I was more than a little skeptical of how the segment might play out. Years in the Bikelash trenches have taught me that if you want a calm, nuanced discussion about how bikes fit into a city’s transportation network, local news isn’t always the place to find it.

So imagine my surprise when veteran TV anchor Ernie Anastos sat down in the green room at the Fox 5 studios for a pre-interview and asked me great, open-ended questions about New York City’s evolution as a bike city… and then did the same thing when we went live on the air. As you’ll hopefully agree, Mr. Anastos allowed me the space to offer a positive view of how far our great city has come and a little taste of what I believe we still have left to do.

Never mind the chyron. Some TV news habits die hard, I suppose.

I also hope you’ll agree that the segment that preceded the interview was also, as they say in the Fox News world, fair and balanced. Arthur Chi’en has a history of good reporting on safe streets, so I was very grateful that my interview followed his story.

Many thanks to Ernie Anastos — seriously, such a great guy — and the producers and crew at Fox 5. I’ll be on again this Friday at 6 pm to talk about bike safety. Watch the full segment and let me know what you think.