A critical look at the Wichita TV news

Sunday, March 25, 2007

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

No comments: