An interesting case study tonight at 6PM. KSN and KWCH lead with the Supreme Court ruling on partial birth abortions. Meanwhile KAKE leads with a fatal house fire. Any other day, I think the house fire leads, but because of the history the abortion issue has in Wichita, I think it was good to lead with the later. Things were a little awkward over on KWCH. Reporter Kim Hynes did the abortion story. Note to the KWCH brass, if you need a health reporter, don't pick her. Coming out of the story, she got very confused discussing abortion 101 and tried to consult her script. She got lost, all while Roger Cornish had to sit there on camera with her, watching her sink on the air. Keeping the partial birth and the normal abortions straight is confusing stuff, but she made it even more confusing. The other big story of course is follow-up on the Virginia Tech tragedy. KSN couldn't of had a better lead-in with Nightly News and the letter NBC News got from the gunman. KSN showed video from Nightly at the end of their first block, which was a great move. On the other hand, I am not a fan when they have Anita put her voice on a national story, especially if there are no local ties to it. I think its deceiving the viewer, although I feel the viewers have little clue whether Anita's voice is on the story or some unknown network person. I understand though, that much of the planning for this probably occurred, before it was known what NBC had in regards to the suspect's video. If NBC hadn't received the letter, I still would have complained about the story with Anita's voice, but could see some of the merits for having a story on it in the show. I am not a fan of throwing a local voice on a national story to make it appear local or part of the station. I know it's a part of the business, but not one I like.
Also thanks to the couple of people who have posted comments at the end of these blogs. I am hoping for a fun spirited discussion on some of the issues I bring up. Please pass this blog address onto others and feel free to comment. -Hal
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In all your blogs I noticed you seem to focus on the evening newscasts, there is nothing wrong with this however what is your opinion of the morning and noon newscasts in the Wichita market? You'll have to tape them sometime for a week or so and give your opinion on them!
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