CBS I-Team Sleuth Mireya Villareal Can Use Facebook, Is No Brett Shipp

By Eric Nicholson Wed., Sep. 17 2014 at 12:24 PM

CBS 11

Mireya Villareal

Our apologies to WFAA's Brett Shipp. After a lengthy run as our favorite local investigative TV journalist -- occasionally prone to hyperbole, sure, but a fantastic reporter with the proper evening-news mix of charm and obnoxiousness -- he has been displaced. That coveted spot in our heart now goes to CBS 11's Mireya Villareal.

Villareal is a relative newcomer to the Dallas media market, but she appeared on our radar early in her tenure when her sleuthing revealed that there is sex on the Internet and that Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings enjoys fine wine.

Last night she delivered another hard-charging report, this one revealing that Dallas PD's godawful new computer system was purchased from Unisys, one of the companies that may have paid bribes to John Wiley Price.

Villareal's piece raises legit questions about why the city would have paid $7.4 million for a police-records system with a well-documented history of being awful when an apparently less awful system was available from Fort Worth-based Indico for $2 million less.

But let's break down last night's report and see if merits the splashy I-Team treatment it was given. We'll start with the first sentence. Online, reads like this:

Problems piling up for Dallas' police patrol cars.

Incomplete sentence. Immediately grabs attention. Solid. Moving on.

Now, the CBS 11 I-team has uncovered, the company that was hired to update the computers inside those city cars can be tied back to indicted County Commissioner John Wiley Price.

Here, Villareal alludes to her story from last week detailing the problems with DPD's new records system, which was largely a rehash of a story broken by WFAA's Tanya Eiserer three months ago. Her mastery of the TV journalism standby of not properly crediting your competitor is impressive. It's probably a coincidence that City Councilman Philip Kingston uncovered the same information on his Facebook page last week.

CBS 11 I-Team Investigative Reporter Mireya Villarreal tracked down John Wiley Price after Dallas County Commissioner's Court Tuesday in an effort to talk with him about Unisys Corp. He played it off like he didn't remember the company.
But the thing is, back in 2008, Price sat on the county technology committee that hired Unisys Corp. to handle the inmate phone services at the jail.

"You don't remember working with Unisys back a few years ago on a county contract," Villarreal asked.

"Could have," Price quickly responded.

"You don't remember seeing them in your indictment at all," Villarreal followed up.

Price answered, "I haven't read it."

"You haven't read the indictment," Villarreal said.

"I haven't read them," Priced added before driving away.

By now, footage of Price refusing to answer questions while being trailed to an SUV that shares his face isn't worth the digits it's recorded in if the reporter doesn't get punched in the face. Nice effort though.

If the name Unisys sounds familiar to you - It could be because of a story the CBS 11 I-Team did last week. In it, Investigative Reporter Mireya Villarreal explained how Unisys was awarded a contract with the City of Dallas to handle the police department's records management system.

Or it could be because Unisys is one of the companies alleged to have paid bribes to John Wiley Price, a fact reported by basically everyone more than a month ago. Strangely, one of the people reporting this more than a month ago was Villareal herself, meaning that she simply forgot she'd reported on the Price indictment or that she intentionally didn't mention that the revelation was stale to make last night's piece more dramatic.

TV investigative journalism is the best.

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noblefurrtexas

Brett Shipp is still the best, as far as I'm concerned. That's probably - in part - due to being a second generation journalist. (His father, Burt Shipp, was assignments editor for the Channel 8 for years; one of the best - and "gruffest" in the business -- but one of the very best.)

It's good to know Channel 11's "team" is on the job. I'm just curious who else is on the team, and what positions they play.

Steeve

Not purple!

Montemalone topcommenter

Is this one of those pot-kettle-black stories?

bvckvs topcommenter

This is what we get for letting the religious community have control of our tax dollars.

swimonedal

most local tv reporters are hacks who work for corporate masters who are more concerned with making sure if it bleeds it leads and ending the newscast with puppies just as long as they don't anger their sponsors...Journalism school in this day and age is a joke and local TV reporters are its punch line

odiepage

When I was a DART Activist... I had a Reporter from KXAS come in late to a Board Meeting.She asked me what were the stories of the day... and who should she talk to. If I had not been an honorable person... I could have steered her the wrong way... or just played up issues I cared about. Let's face it... SOME Reporters are damned lazy. There is even less time for reporting.. with few stations having "Beat" Reporters available. And what is sadder, is the loss of continuity that comes from longtime employees, who know the Market... and how to pronounce the names of the Cities they serve.

Anonamouse

She's cute. She's Hispanic. No mystery as to why she was hired.

ScottsMerkin topcommenter

CBS news has sucked for a long time, the local website is a hot mess co-mingled with that garbage website the Fan has, and I cant remember the last time I caught the news there, though I usually catch the last 30 seconds of the show since Wheel of Fortune starts at like 6:27 now.

roo_ster

In her defense, she is easy on the eyes.

dingo

'If the name Unisys sounds familiar to you - It could be because of a story the CBS 11 I-Team did last week'

'Or it could be because Unisys is one of the companies alleged to have paid bribes to John Wiley Price'

Or it could be because....

'Unisys has a long history in the technology industry. The company traces its roots back to the founding of American Arithmometer Company (later Burroughs Corporation) in 1886 and the Sperry Gyroscope Company in 1910. Unisys predecessor companies also include the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, which developed the world's first commercial digital computers, the BINAC, and the UNIVAC.

In September 1986 Unisys was formed through the merger of the mainframe corporations Sperry and Burroughs, with Burroughs buying Sperry for $4.8 billion... ..The merger was the largest in the computer industry at the time and made Unisys the second largest computer company with annual revenue of $10.5 billion.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisys

bradjohnson774

Surely Villareal gets extra style points for the goofy folding-chairs-in-front-of-DPD stunt. And she has a definite leg up on Shipp, who still has the look of the sad school-newspaper kid reporting on the junior high dance instead of finding a girlfriend, and on Eiserer, who definitely doesn't have the on-air-personality looks.

whocareswhatithink

5,4,3,2,1.....before a city council member who likes to see his name in print is in front of her

WylieH

Well.... DPD's new computer system really does suck. From what I am hearing, officers appear to be spending an additional roughly 30 minutes per shift inputting data, cutting into available patrol time in a major way.

ScottsMerkin topcommenter

@bvckvs That's quite a tantrum, dumbass

Sotiredofitall topcommenter

@bvckvs That would be off-topic. The article was about Dallas TV journalists - not about the religious community.

halldecker

@odiepage

It cuts both ways. I recall the Ft Worth elected lady who told us "If you think up a good quote, use it, and report that I said it. I'll back you up."

bvckvs topcommenter

@ScottsMerkin

You really don't understand the term, "Hot Mess", do you?

bvckvs topcommenter

@dingo

That would have been off-topic. The article was about Dallas - not about mergers and acquisitions the tech industry.

TheCredibleHulk topcommenter

@WylieH

That's a whole lot of wasted shooting time.

bvckvs topcommenter

@Sotiredofitall @bvckvs

The article detailed a story she did about a leader in Dallas's religious community who's now been indicted for corruption.

Your mistake was in not reading past the headline. It's an understandable mistake for you to make, since you're just here to harass other users.

ScottsMerkin topcommenter

That's quite a tantrum, dumbass. You're too old understand the meaning in the way I used it

ScottsMerkin topcommenter

@bvckvs That's quite a tantrum, dumbass

WylieH

@TheCredibleHulk @WylieH It's huge, when you deduct in a typical shift:

1) briefing

2) getting patrol car ready

3) driving to the beat area

4) meal break

5) base case time spent writing reports

6) time returning to the station house

ozonelarryb

Stopping for bottled water on the way to calls...

RTGolden1 topcommenter

@WylieH @TheCredibleHulk don't forget sub-activity 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6a: Time spent in back of briefing room, in motor pool, at red lights, while driving (even in school zones) at meals and at the desk while entranced by something on their cell phones.