A Day Full of News

A lot of news the past few days. With the missing El Dorado girl, and now today with the resignation of City Administrator George Kolb. I'll first open it up to your comments and your feelings of the coverage and then I'll respond later. -Hal.

The Weekend Morning Show Question

I could have called this post dumb and dumber, but that would probably be giving some involved the benefit of the doubt while being too harsh with others. I watched the weekend morning shows as the excitement was building about the upcoming KU-MU game. I must say KAKE was smart going live from Kansas City this morning. On the outside one may ask what benefit is there going live for most of the hour show, 10 hours before game time, but ESPN's Gameday has turned the otherwise nervous hours before a game into an event itself outside of the stadium. Thus the live shots on the KAKE morning show with KAKE's newest and best reporter Natasha Trelfa were good and had some fun excitement. Meanwhile back in Wichita their weekend morning anchor pair is a contrast of styles. Cayle Thompson actually shows some promise as an anchor and should be given more opportunities when Larry wants a weekend evening off. Good genuine interest and personality on camera. On the other hand his female co-anchor, Rachel Phillips reminds me of a gal who would be the first to finish off a case of beer with you and then belch the alphabet. Maybe the main topics of the morning with football caused her to act dumber than normal (not so sure if this isn't a common thing), but I am curious if she dumbs things down on a typical weekend. Meanwhile if you watched KWCH, the life was being sucked out of you. If anyone needs a co-anchor to rescue her on the set, its Kim Hynes. Flipping between KWCH and KAKE's morning cast was definitely a contrast in styles. If you get up first thing on Saturday, flip on that KWCH show, and are contemplating whether to wake up, one look at that show and you'll be back to sleep in no time. -Hal

1/2 way through Sweeps: Finally an OK day

I think we are about 1/2 through Sweeps and I must say Thursday finally served up offerings a little better than a normal day's effort. KWCH's piece on a cold case was interesting and the production was good, but at the same time didn't get in the way of the piece. KAKE's piece on "stretching Gas," was pretty decent for a KAKE series. Not too over-the-top and actually set up an interesting experiment about whether shifting a car into neutral and other stuff while driving would save gas. Apparently it does. There were some tricks in it but it wasn't overly technically produced, and was good. Meanwhile KSN sent a crew down to Louisiana to follow some Derby citizens who went down there right after a hurricane and documented their trip back to Louisiana. Today's pieces weren't too bad as the Louisiana town was genuinely touched by the help from Derby. They teased there will be more stories Tomorrow. I wonder how they'll be able to squeeze more out of this topic tomorrow. I am curious what you all think about the Sweeps so far. I'll be the first one to say the period is always over done, but I must say this month so far has been a disappointment and it hasn't been that the stories have been over hyped. Often times I think all the ads are silly and oversell the stories. When they run I often feel disappointed. This month so far, I haven't felt like they have been oversold, but there really hasn't been many that kept my interest. At this point, the KAKE gas story probably held my interest more than anything yet in November. It might have less to do with the overall execution and more with the fact of doing a different kind of gas story for once. So many times it seems when local stations do gas stories, it is when gas prices go up and then they shove cameras into customers and ask them how does it feel. Then of course the same answers we heard a month ago when the previous story came up are said. So congrats to KAKE for getting a different angle with the gas stories. It should be noted, I saw a couple of stories this week about a place in town which is redoing SUVs and other cars of celebrities to make them more fuel efficient and that to some degree was a different gas story. We can only hope the remaining days left in Sweeps can produce some more interesting pieces. -Hal

A Softer KAKE??

I couldn't help but wonder when watching the "Breaking News" on the 7 year old shot on Wednesday Night, how nice it was to NOT feel like I was hanging on the edge of a cliff while watching KAKE. Why? New reporter Natasha Trelfa handled the news very calm. That is real refreshing coming from KAKE where reporters (mostly former but still a few current) yell and get so ramped up over the smallest matters that when something a little more tragic like a 7 year old is shot occurs, it just blends in with a normal KAKE over hyped night. Wednesday was a little different. It caused me to realize that KAKE has lost a few reporters in recent months who had a more alarming delivery and style and now with them gone it brings a more calm sense and welcoming one at that. I think Natasha will quickly become one of KAKE's top reporters, merely for her calm matter-of-fact on camera style. Don't get me wrong. Although she has a calm manner to her delivery she still delivers urgency. That can be a tough thing to balance. We'll have to see how she reports through the next few weeks. Hopefully she is the beginning of what I hope might be a softer, yet still urgent when needed, KAKE.
As for Sweeps: the two pieces I saw were typical and over hyped. I thought KAKE's story was an interesting idea in theory that license plates are not available for family members of loved ones who lost their lives in military service. But not surprisingly, it came off a little too dramatic and overdone. KWCH's smoke detector story seemed like an idea probably done elsewhere in another market and used to spawn a story here. If anything the story showed that smoke detectors do work and people should have them. Did we need an over 2 minute piece to tell us that. No, but there are dumb people out there. (One interesting thing learned from the story was that the detector used in most homes works just as well as the other types shown). As for KSN's offering, I didn't see anything hyped or built as a sweeps piece and I stopped watching the 10PM after 10 minutes so maybe I missed something. -Hal

The Writers' Strike Helps KWCH

Its been awhile since I have posted and normally I do everything I can to not miss a newscast during the ratings period of November. (Yeah promo and sales people, some people do fall for all the antics of Sweeps.) However, my viewing time has been limited quite a bit so I haven't been up to speed on much as normal. I will say nothing has really knocked the wind out of me as far as stories go. KAKE hit weather pretty hard at the end of last week analyzing radar images from the Greensburg tornado for a whole story and a piece that ran on the weekend updating individuals' stories we heard immediately after the storm. (I know the KWCH e-mails will come along right about......now, saying they have been on the story continuing to update it since it happened. They have, but I liked the presentation with the KAKE storm survivor update piece. This isn't a dig at the bureau reporter doing the majority of the pieces out there for KWCH, but lets be honest some of them are less memorable, because when the other 2 do stories out there they do them up big, send Wichita reporters and probably other people, produce and edit them up bigger than their normal car wreck and shooting stories. That can make them a little more eye catching and memorable when they run, like it or not. Curious of your thoughts on this one. I am sure a few are mad about my thoughts on this one. I could have made a separate post on this one.)
Someone e-mailed me and wanted me to go back to doing more periodic critiques of the daily newscasts. OK. Lets do tonight. It happens probably to every station at some point, and tonight it happened to KWCH. A 7 year old is shot. KAKE and KSN is there live with the details. I have said numerous times I am not a huge fan of constant crime stories, but it is a 7 year old. KAKE and KSN's lead must have been news to KWCH. Luckily for them the writers are on strike. What does this have to do with news in Wichita? Letterman was a rerun, even more reason (like they needed one anyway) why they could suddenly expand the newscast from 35 minutes to 38 and squeeze in the "Breaking news" on the shooting that happened a couple of hours earlier in the added extra minutes. -Hal

Cheever Death Verdict and Sweeps Woody Warning

It was interesting to evaluate how the 3 stations advanced or maybe tried to advance the decision of a jury for the death penalty against Scott Cheever at 10PM. I know when I heard that the jury decided death for Cheever, the first question in my head was will he ever see the death chamber? KAKE headed in that direction and had a decent story on the chances of the death penalty ever being carried out. Good effort. KSN had a respectable effort with an interview from a member of the jury. By 10PM, I think many knew the news so it was smart to advance the death verdict slightly instead of just doing a recap of the day's events. I thought KAKE did this best while KSN probably finished a close second. Meanwhile KWCH -I bet this will throw anon #8 from the last post for a loop. Wink, Wink;)- just went for a recap of the day's events. Since this story had been the lead for the last week on most of the stations, I am used to hearing the same stuff over and over (even if Cheever testified today). A different angle, like KAKE's using Today's death verdict, brought to light a different (not necessarily new) angle.
-Sweeps Woody Warning - I forgot all about it until this morning when I kept hearing and seeing commercials promoting stories like the one on KWCH Tonight: it's once again ratings time. Lets start with KWCH's story tonight on a supplement which can lower one's blood alcohol level and not feel the effects of drinking. Maybe I had such high hopes for the product, that when they said it failed, my view of the story was tainted because I didn't like that the product failed. The topic of the story wasn't all that bad and probably did what it intended to do in getting people to watch, but it was a tad gimmicky. But isn't that what Sweeps is all about? KAKE opened Sweeps with a piece from meteorologist Jay Prater. He talked to a meteorologist who had studied radar images from the Greensburg tornado. I know my summary may make this sound like a boring story, but actually it was pretty good and KAKE, once again, gets my thumbs up for a decent Sweeps piece. Note to KAKE, it wasn't done in the otherwise in-your-face KAKE style. Maybe Jay should do more stories for them. I like his style, although I wasn't a fan of shooting excerpts of Prater from the night of storm, from a TV set. I know its about station self promotion, but I think it comes off as lame when you mix promotions into a news story. As for KSN, I don't remember seeing anything out of the ordinary for them or sweeps pieces. Maybe they haven't gotten the memo yet that it has started. -Hal