Hutch Bomb Threats Coverage Notes

The news stations found themselves breaking into regular programming throughout the afternoon as the situation broke out in Hutchinson. Early on KWCH definitely showed an aggressiveness in being on the air. Anchor Kim Setty did a decent job, with little information, staying on at for times beyond the commercial breaks they were preempting. KAKE broke in with similar information all anchored from the station. KSN lived up to their channel number, as they so often do, by starting off in 3rd. They basically continued with using only a crawl for coverage, while the others were breaking in with anchors in the studio. The early use of pictures from cell phones was good by KWCH (not sure if KAKE or KSN had them). Although they didn’t provide much in the grand scheme of things, at least it was something to look at early on. I wasn’t able to watch everything from start to finish, but I think KAKE was the first to report all the people inside were released. That was probably one of their only wins for the day. As for the newscasts, I think we need to divide my comments into two sides of thinking: stations covering overall situation and the station with the information of longstanding significance. If you are wanting to know who covered the basics of the situation best, I would say KWCH and to a smaller degree KAKE did so. I think KAKE could argue that as the day played out and we found out that there wasn't necessarily a captor inside (and basing it on that info only) then one could argue that it was OK to back off a little bit more at 6.
Meanwhile, KSN would have been a distant third if it wasn't for the information reported by Chanda Brown on the link of the Hutch event to others around the country. This was definitely the story of longstanding significance. I wonder if they knew they were the only ones with this info. If so I wondered why they would break this information on the 5PM show. I thought this was somewhat gutsy. Turns out at 6PM the others really couldn't get enough further info to corroborate it. One comment said that KSN wasn't the first to break it. I'd be curious if this is true who did? If someone else did break it, KSN had more of a presentation with maps and made it more of a part of their coverage as a key part of their story. This information probably made up for what seemed to be a slow start and pretty average information as a whole for KSN. By 10PM this fact lead all the stations, except it ironically I thought was somewhat played down on KSN, compared to 6PM.
I do want to take up the matter of information coming out from the scene. I'd be curious to hear from anyone there. I couldn't believe for something that started before Noon, it took so long for officials to release whether there were hostages. I realize that it was a little more complicated and took some time to understand it all, but a little information regarding this would have helped. A couple of times on KAKE, an anchor asked when an official press conference would be held, as they were over 2 hours into the situation and it was unknown if hostages were being held. I think a little more info would have prevented speculation (overall the stations did well in refraining from that) and having to solely rely on people from around the scene for the information. They provided much more usable information, than a mouthpiece would, but a little more information would have helped. I also must say since the FBI was involved that could have slowed down the information release.
As mentioned earlier, predictably the exclusives KSN had at 6PM, were all covered by the other 2 at 10PM. KAKE pretty much had what was said at 6PM on KSN by 10PM. KWCH actually found out more information of additional cities involved than what KSN had at 5, 6 and 10. I thought KSN definitely competed well at 6, but by 10, KWCH overtook them on information. By 10, KSN's story on the connection to other states had all the same facts at 5 and 6 plus it was buried. It appeared as if they did little to advance that angle of the story for 10. Since that is what made them competitive at 6, they should have tried to stay out on the lead of that angle for 10. They didn't. -Hal

Also:
-It was good to see KWCH reporter Alana Rocha speaking about her recovery and thanking everyone for the support. She is set to start reporting again Wednesday.
-If you have a an idea for a poll question, let me know.
-I forgot all about the weather. Posters have started to comment about KSN starting off with weather, no matter the news for the day. I agree, even if it is only "15 seconds." It can still be too long on a breaking news day. I must say I think KSN has moved up the start and begins at the same time now if not sooner, at least thats what happened Tusday night.-Hal