Questions about broadcasters' name changes arise after Roanoke shooting

In the aftermath of the tragedy in Roanoke, Va., Wednesday, the shooter's very public alias looms as one of many puzzling elements in the saga.

The tradition of broadcasters adopting on-air names is as old as the business itself, reflecting the importance of name recognition in an industry rife with brutal competition and fickle viewers.

When he was a reporter for a Roanoke TV station, WDBJ, the shooter, Vester Flanagan, was known to viewers by a more boy-next-door moniker, Bryce Williams. His bosses were aware of the on-air name switch. And the practice is, if not common, certainly widely known.

But new questions surrounding the practice are surfacing as the station that hired Flanagan and his shooting victims – Alison Parker and Adam Ward – now concedes it failed to check Flanagan's credentials using his birth name. WDBJ General Manager Jeff Marks said the station knew the true identity of Flanagan. But the alias allowed Flanagan to avoid a professional reference check on his real name, Marks said.

Flanagan "passed himself off as Bryce Williams, not as Vester Flanagan," Marks said. "We didn't know what he'd done elsewhere" under his real name. When checking references, "we looked up Bryce Williams but it didn't strike us to look up his real name," Marks said. The company did conduct a criminal background check using his real name, and that came back with no issues, he said.

Mark Feldstein, a former broadcast journalist and now a journalism professor at the University of Maryland, says a reporter insisting on using an alias "would immediately raise a red flag."

"I'd want to know what the explanation is," he says. "Is there something in the past? Is there a criminal record that they're trying to evade? Or is it a reflection of some deeply seeded psychological issues that may manifest on the job? Or does it suggest a cavalier attitude toward facts or truth?"

WDBJ's Marks said at a news conference Thursday that the station "could probably screen more, but by in large we get great employees here."

One problem, he said, is that most companies prohibit giving negative references and the references they do issue are almost always positive. "I don't know what else we could do to screen employees, nor do I have an answer now the first day after something happened."

In past generations – when multiculturalism was still a nascent concept in the U.S. – the practice was more common, Feldstein says. Larry King, Mike Wallace and Hannah Storm are just a small percentage of TV and radio broadcasters who have either voluntarily changed their name or acceded to their agents' or bosses' wishes to do so.

Reasons vary. Some want WASP-ier names to obfuscate their background. Others want some pizazz that may move viewers to remember their name. Ensuring privacy and security for on-air personalities is also part of the calculation.

“It is certainly not common among all broadcasters,” says Mike Cavender, executive director of Radio Television Digital News Association. “Management may have asked to consider adopting a name that’s easily pronounced or understood by the audience. It occurs at all levels of the business.”

Kelly McBride, who teaches media ethics at The Poynter Institute, sees no problem with journalists devising a derivative of their given names to be distinctive or for ease of use. But a complete reinvention of one's identity is a cause for concern, she says. "Nom de guerre is the stuff of other universes, but not journalism," she says.

The practice is generally waning, says Mendes Napoli, a former broadcast TV executive who now runs Napoli Management Group, an on-air talent agency.

"I've been around for 40 years. I think (back) then, you might want to make yourself less ethnic, or a station may feel your name should be simpler. But I haven't had or seen that in quite some time," he says, estimating "six to eight" of his 600 clients use an alias.

The number of TV stations requesting journalists to change their names is also declining, Napoli says. In the last five years, he surmises, he's had one request for a client name change. And that was due to a broadcaster in the same market having a similar name, he says.

"It seems very unusual that (Flanagan) would have a totally different name," he says. "It sounds like it was done for obvious reasons, to maybe camouflage his background."

Scott Lauer, an agent who represents broadcast journalists, says he had to change his name when he started his career as a radio sports reporter in Oklahoma. The station's owner wanted Lauer to avoid his birth name – Dorian – and refer to himself by his middle name, Scott. "He thought Scott had a good sports ring to it," he says. "It was heartbreaking."

Lauer estimates about a quarter of his clients have made similar changes or tweaks to their names. But he says such changes aren't necessarily a breach of ethics.

"I don't think you're misleading because you're saying that's who you are as your on-air persona," he says. "Often, that is what they go by in real life as well."