Weathermen do not need to fake they are busy

Friday's 10PM newscasts didn't offer anything of merit, but did offer an interesting case study of how to cover weather. After black hole technical glitches on KWCH, they along side KAKE went the route of showing the typical places that always have puddles after a day's worth of rain. KSN went the route of looking back at Yesterday and the high number of tornadoes this week. I am not sure which plan I liked better, but I know one thing. I don't like a station meteorologist, I just heard on the weather segment, reappear in a story about weather. I know I mentioned this in an earlier post, but KSN showed this goofy Achilles of theirs, again on Friday. It was made even worse by the AWFUL performance of KSN Backup - Backup - Backup meteorologist Andrew Kozak. While Freeman was getting more face time (like he needs it) in Dana Hertneky's story, Junior weather guesser Kozak is behind Freeman looking all busy writing on a pad of paper and then he has this look of stupor or maybe I should say constipation. I hope the weather story will be posted soon on KSN.com, because it was truly a poor acting performance to notice. A note to Andrew, don't quit your day job, well on second thought, maybe you should. -Hal

Six Degrees of BTK, Roger Valadez, and an attorney

Didn't anyone else catch the crazy irony while watching KSN on Thursday Night? Dana Hertneky had a very strong effort in a story on a man who is suing the Wichita Police Department and its Police Chief. He says they identified him to the public as a suspect in a rape, only to be cleared a few days later through DNA. The irony was one of two attorneys sitting next to him was Craig Schulz. The name sounded familiar. After a friendly Google search, I found out Craig Schulz was the attorney to Roger Valadez who sued and won in a lawsuit against KSN for defamation of character when the station named Valadez as a suspect in the BTK investigation. Incidentally Valadez would die before I think they actually agreed on a monetary settlement. -Hal

Western Kansas Tornados

Kudos to KAKE and KWCH for getting shots of tornadoes, even though they were off so called, "Sat Cams," nevertheless they had them and provided some good documentation besides the colors of a radar. Nevertheless I am sure we will hear about this at nausea throughout the week (especially on KAKE) that they broadcast live(?) pics of a tornado. -Hal

KAKE: The Hype Machine at Work

No question about it. If KAKE was as successful with doing actual news, as they do hype, they would kick everyone without question. Although their promotions can be quite annoying, I am sure there are plenty of suckers. I must admit I was a sucker for their tease tonight. They teased a story on the effectiveness of tornado sirens in the area. Cayle Thompson had a very disappointing (after the tease) story, which basically said always have a back up plan to get warnings, because power running to siren might go out and sirens do have malfunctions occasionally. A very lackluster effort. At least they didn't have to put their meteorologist in the story anytime they do a storm awareness story, unlike another station in town (KSN). I probably wouldn't be as hard on it if it weren't for the fact that it was their lead story. And they weren't even selling weather radios. -Hal

Is KAKE an endless blackhole?

I was watching Sunday's 10PM news on KAKE. After seeing Cara Kumari's live report on a stand off and a report about an ATV crash, I thought I was having issues with my TV. If it wasn't for Larry Hatteberg looking his normal radiant self, I would have been checking my TV color settings. During Cara's Live report, she has the camera zoom in on a largely black hole behind where you can basically only make out a truck. I am not a huge fan of covering stand offs to begin with. The large majority of the time they involve someone with mental issues, and usually everyone escapes without injury, usually the only thing lost is sleep waiting for it to end. After that story they show video from an ATV accident. You couldn't see a thing outside of a few passes from what I will assume to be an officer's flash light passing over the ATV. When does someone say, "what does the viewer get out of seeing largely dark video, outside of saying, 'Darn, I'm watching KAKE because they were there, whether they can see anything or not." You know that does spawn an idea. They need to work on a promo this week, "KAKE, was the only station to bring you video, shot awhile after two guys rodeoed it up on 4 wheelers, you couldn't see and we were the only station to bring you a live report from a guy having mental problems and our reporter was there standing in a black hole. First on KAKE!!" -Hal

A Challenge for Stations Covering Jayhawk Basketball

With the Jayhawks a win away from the Final Four, one thing is certain. In fact we got a preview of that Yesterday with two stations. For whatever reason, whenever a local team plays in a national championship and it is televised, TV stations feel they must find a local angle and where else to find that then at the local watering hole. We got that preview last night as KAKE and KWCH had anchors read stories of fans at a bar and then the typical interview with a fan telling how great they feel (for a number of reasons, probably outside of basketball) that there team had won. No problem with a local wrinkle, but think outside of the box and beyond a tavern.
So here's a challenge for Wichita TV newsrooms, especially if KU gets to the Final Four: Resist the easy urge of going to the local bar and talking to the typical drunken fan happy or shedding tears in their beer over the game. Its a classic cliche of making a news story out of a sports story and an annoying one at that. So as I dream of turning on the TV news Saturday night and seeing just pure game coverage, highlights, or an interesting sidebar story, I know instead I'll see the drunken idiot holding up number one signs and saying how unbelievable the win is, and how they will find a way to Atlanta and tickets to the Final Four. -Hal

When Sports Guys Become Artists

You have to love the NCAA TV rules, but at least the local guys can have some fun doing sports. Since CBS's coverage of the NCAA Tourney went past 10PM last night, even though the KU game was over, stations cannot show highlights until CBS's coverage is over. That didn't stop Alan Shope (KAKE) and Jim Kobbe (KSN) from having some fun. Kobbe got out his sketchpad and drew his highlights with stick figures and all. Meanwhile Shope used the genre of "South Park" and played with paper dolls. The South Park style characters posed as KU and SIU players. A ball was even placed on a stick and raised up to appear as it went into a hoop on key plays. In both instances it worked and showed good creativity. As far as coverage goes, KSN was OK, but could do without overly nervous Casey Walkup. Mark Davidson was doing a fine job until Casey slid into the shot and cheapened things up. At least his upper lip wasnt sweating as can often be the case with him. Meanwhile KAKE's James Sido, as always, made me feel I was on a male testosterone roler coaster ride. This is a common practice with young sports guys. They all think they are the next ESPN anchor and start schmucking it up. He probably of anyone in the market does this the worst or best, however you want to look at it. Casey isn't far behind in that category. -Hal

The Blog Begins

After many, many, many days and nights grinding and gritting my teeth, yelling at the TV, laughing, and even sometimes nodding in agreement with the newscasts, I finally decided to blog about Wichita TV news. For those not in the area I'll focus on KWCH CBS (12), KAKE ABC (10) and KSN NBC (3). Most of my comments will be observations I see as a viewer. Some will be very critical of what I see, while others will be in praise of a station's coverage. I will admit from the outset I do have my favorite stations, reporters and anchors. The reporters and anchors aren't all from the same station. Down the road I might even list an all-star team of Wichita and that probably will start an interesting debate Anyway, if anything, I hope in the days to come we can get an interesting conversation started about Wichita TV news. Happy Wichita TV watching. -Hal