Pulling something of a Clint Eastwood, FOX5 Morning News anchors Holly Morris and Steve Chenevey brought out an empty chair (replete with a lonely microphone) this morning to symbolize their invitation/shame Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld into appearing on their show.

“FOX 5 viewers are frustrated, and furious, over the state of our Metro system. Hey, I am, too,” Morris intones. “We want to ask him questions—from our FOX 5 viewers—who are demanding immediate action and accountability.”

Indeed Metro is a mess, and people are definitely angry. But Wiedefeld has issued a number of public statements, and was just answering questions on the Kojo Nnamdi Show last week (not to mention that whole business of actually doing the work to, uh, fix the system). It seems like he’s pretty responsive, so what’s with all the drama?

Apparently Wiedefeld was willing to sit down with Fox’s reporters, but it was at an inconvenient time for them.

“He is available for your reporters to ask questions to address the concerns of your viewers tomorrow at 11. Because he often has early morning meetings, the in-studio or talkbacks during the morning show are a bit tougher to schedule,” a spokesperson told the channel. This morning, for example, Wiedefeld was at a Metro board meeting.

Cue the outrage. “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,” Chenevey says, before adding “full disclosure: we like Wiedefeld’s style.”

In response, Metro repeated their offer to make Wiedefeld available for questions during the day.

It’s not the first time that the morning show shamed a public official while using a live shot of an empty chair. Last January, they did the same to Mayor Muriel Bowser, demanding she come on the show to discuss the Metro smoke incident.

“We called her out on live TV by telling [the] mayor this empty chair was waiting for her. After that happened, the mayor’s people called and she was on our air within the next few days,” according to a publicist for the station.

And more recently Fox 5 reporter Marina Marraco chased Bowser down to tell her “it feels like you never want to speak with us one-on-one.”

“I’m not even aware of what you’re talking about,” the mayor responded, before an aide ushered her into the building. She wound up taking part in a Twitter interview (#Fox5Twitterview), though a Bowser spokeswoman told District Links it had been been in the works for weeks.

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