Syesha's Scrapbook: Deggans Tries His Hand at Photojournalism

The Pulitzer committee doesn't need to be alerted just yet. But I had more fun -- and success-- than I expected shooting pictures of American Idol contestant Syesha Mercado's visit to the Tampa Bay area Friday.

Tracking the visit itself was like walking the Bataan Death March -- cruising to Tampa at 7 a.m., Sarasota by lunchtime, then back to St. Petersburg in rush hour traffic to hassle with the crowd at Tropicana Field so I could watch Syesha nail a national anthem she's sung at baseball games since she was 9 years old.

A few things did stick out while I was shadowing the Last Woman Standing in TV's most popular singing contest:

-- Syesha pretty much admitted that she doesn't listen to the judges, telling reporters her vocal coaches have more impact on her creative decisions in the competition.

-- Syesha's dad Jose said he didn't mind the barbs directed his way by idol judge Simon Cowell because most of his criticisms are just a shtick, anyway.

-- Idol is still a phenomenon, and huge draw locally for WTVT-Ch. 13. Still, it was a little surprising to see the amount of news resources the station devoted to covering her visit, including two remote trucks and their helicopter.

-- Sarasota's 70-year-old mayor, Lou Ann Palmer, reportedly did three handstands last Tuesday, during a massive Idol party hosted by an area radio station at Mattison's restaurant.

-- When Palmer failed to hold a handstand on her first try during Mercado's visit to the Ringling Museum, the mayor cracked "I pulled a Brooke," in referenced to ejected Idol Brooke White, who had two false starts while competing on the show.

-- Reality was rarely good enough for idol's camera crew; Mercado had to redo her entrance at WTVT twice and redo her departure from the stations three times before they got the footage the producer wanted. Palmer had to say the name of the song Randy Jackson picked for Syesha to sing Tuesday four times before she got it right. 

Here's a host of photos from my time Friday. Click on any photo to see an enlarged, more detailed display.

Comments

[Daniel]

Wow, my dad was a Japanese prisoner of war during WW2 and I didn't find the "Bataan Death March" reference offensive. Either Joe had a relative who participated in the "march" or he was just laid off from his job and found out his wife was sleeping with his best friend and needed to release some anger, either way, that anger was misplaced.

BTW, I loved your coverage of Sayesha and the pictures you took.

[Eric Deggans]

Joe, maybe you need to switch to decaf.

[Joe]

I would doubt that the writer of this article has any idea what the Bataan Death March was. If they did they would never have made that comparison. You do yourself a disservice by displaying your ignorance. Your pictures do not show people diseased, some crawling on their hands and knees, begging for water or praying to god to be put out of their misery. Our schools need to do a better job of teaching history and what it means. This newspaper needs to do a better job of testing the intelligence of the people they hire to report the news and proofing what is printed. This article is an insult to the 1000's of people who died and those who survived. I would hope that after thinking about it the reporter who wrote does some research and learns just what a horrible event this actually was.