I think I may have gone off on this topic when the Jayhawks were a win away from the Final 4.
http://wichitatvnews.blogspot.com/2007/03/challenge-for-stations-covering-jayhawk.html
At that time my focus was on TV stations feeling they must find a local angle to a sports story and they go to a local watering hole and talk to patrons about the game. Today they didn't have to go to the watering hole, since the game was here in town, but the stories on the 3 stations were just as bad. When will a station finally take a position and say, let's just let the sports guys do their jobs and not have the news folks mettle in and do useless fan stories.
Tonight at 6, all 3 stations had to do a Shocker story after the Sports guys set the stage with highlights. They all had their news reporters do stories with the normal shots of grilling hot dogs, fans saying how great the Shockers were, etc. Although KWCH probably had one of the funniest moments when a fan screamed how he was going to take his shirt off and didn't, they had a somewhat unique angle in the otherwise bland story. Kim Wilhelm showed fans watching outside and behind the stadium drinking beer, because beer was not sold nor allowed in the stadium. That's one of those NCAA tournament rules that always make fans grumpy each year. That shows you how bad the stories were when that is singled out as interesting angle. KSN's story was useless with video of fans leaving the game and giving useless cliches something to the effect as, "There's always Tomorrow." "We played tough," and 'That was a tough one." Do viewers really get anything out of that? No. KAKE did another lame fan story, even showing fans having a tough job selling tickets at face value and even below. What does this say? Once again, Reporters, find a story. The story isn't just that an NCAA Super regional is in town. Although that would make your jobs easy, find a story and find something beyond the obvious that Shocker fans are upset when they lose and happy when they win. Is the Shockers the topic on a lot of people's minds? Yes, so reporters must make their stories interesting to play off of that. -Hal
UPDATE 10:30PM - At least KSN retooled their story slightly for 10PM on Shocker fan reaction. Still no real angle (I guess if you count on a long time season ticket holder, it was somewhat new....I don't). KAKE and KWCH must have thought their lame efforts at 6PM were so good they should run them again at 10PM. Although they may not have been exact carbon copies, they were pretty close including a very similar ending on KAKE's with Cayle Thompson. At 6PM he was promoting the 10PM story and at 10 he was promoting tomorrow, but he said the exact same lame thing about the game being on ESPN but the best highlights being on KAKE. When he said that I expected to see that cheesy special effect they do sometimes on used car commercials and other paradies when they add a sparkle to the tooth during a smile. I sure wasn't smiling. Here's a challenge for the newscasts tomorrow, I know they'll all have reporters out tomorrow for a story win or lose, but lets see if they can actually get a real fan story rather then a lame fan reaction piece. If you do the later and they lose just recue tonight's garbage, they basically already did that for 10, so what is the hurt doing it a third time. -Hal
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4 comments:
The NCAA does not allow video cameras inside the game during play. So it's hard to do anything but stories on fans outside. And again more unwarranted praise for KSN.
I don't think I praised KSN's piece whatsoever. I was going for a little sarcasm, saying they "retooled" the story by adding a season ticket holder. They weren't really going out on the line, but at least it was a new element from the 6 PM shows. Maybe I needed to add a Woah! or something for an effect.
Second, if the stations are going to use NCAA guidelines for not allowing cameras in as an excuse for not exploring different angles to a story then that is extremely weak. I am not advocating not doing fan stories, but at least do them differently then hot dogs and upset or happy fans. Actually KWCH probably came closest with the beer across the street angle. it was different, is worth a full story, that is still questionable, but next to what aired, it might have been better. If you need some help, maybe do an Irvine fan package. I would think it might be lame, but I guess its too hard to fine a story since the NCAA wont allow cams in so maybe that would work. HA (hint of sarcasm) -Hal
Why is there never any talk about editing and video quality on this blog? The visual part of the story is many times just as important as the storytelling itself. If video and editing was a frequent topic of conversation you would be forced to praise KSN even more than you already do because KAKE and KWCH don't even come close in that aspect...
You are absolutely right when you say the visual side of stories is often times just as important as the reporters working the stories. But its like a lot of things, the faces representing the product often gets the attention, hence most of the talk is about reporters. You do make a great point, though. Much like the reader wanting to know about my thoughts on the websites I'll start to pay more attention to the video and editing and post soon. On first thought I do have a few opinions out of the gate, like I did with the online topic, maybe I'll share those later tonight or tomorrow. (An update on my online opinions: I'll probably have a post by midweek on that). I still dont understand many thinking I praise KSN more. Looking back at my past blogs, outside of KAKE, I think I spread my love to both KSN and KWCH. And every once in awhile I'll praise KAKE. -Hal
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