The long anticipated announcement on who would be awarded the large USAF Tanker deal, provided Wichita TV stations with a story they had days to plan for and yet it seemed for 2 of them, they were not as prepared. All week long stations did stories previewing the decision. All saying the announcement could come at anytime. So when the decision was finally made that Boeing would not get the contract, KAKE was the first to hit the air as long time reporter Chris Frank broke the news around 3:30, citing Sen. Pat Robert's office as the source. I believe Chris is the aviation reporter and I was happy for him that he was able to get it first. I think they are the only station with an aviation beat reporter, (for lack of a better term) so to me it seems deserving he would be the first to break it. I will say since they have a 4PM newscast they were able to run the press conference of the announcement live and had decent breaking news coverage. Although KAKE did well early on with this story Yesterday afternoon, the rest of their coverage at 6 and 10 was not as good. By 10PM, it was as if the announcement was an afterthought. For a station who broke the news, their story and coverage was the worse of the 3 stations at 10PM. If anything, they should of had a taped segment with Chris Frank, even giving his own thoughts after having covered aviation for so long in this town.
Meanwhile KWCH was the second station to break the news with Roger Cornish on the air a couple of minutes after KAKE. By 6PM it was evident, KWCH had the best overall plan for the decision. Obviously the decision to not award the contract to Boeing came as a surprise, but it was clear KWCH had a plan in place probably for several weeks, no matter who got it. And when the announcement came it paid off. One could always argue does quantity necessarily mean quality. No not always, but in this case especially at 6PM, KWCH's coverage was best. (KWCHers, please don't let this inflate your egos anymore than they already are.) For a 2 hour old decision they had 3-4 stories on the decision. The others all had multiple reporters, but KWCH's presentation did not seem rushed or thrown together. Roger Cornish had a story talking to an aviation historian. Although nothing award winning, it was a nice piece to put an historical perspective on a big story and probably was taped ahead of time and was ready to go no matter what the decision was. Also at 6 they had a decent story on local parts suppliers and the effect on them. The parts supplier story was done by all the stations before the announcement and in later newscasts, but on Friday combined with their other stories, I thought KWCH did the best presenting them especially at 6PM.
KSN was the last to break in or, maybe ironically, crawl the information on screen that Boeing was not selected. I question what KSN had planned ahead of time. Despite them doing stories throughout the week, it seemed they were caught surprised that a decision was made and little planning was made for such a decision until 3:30 when the decision was made public. All their stories at 6 had the basics you would expect and that was about it. It was a slow crawl for them to finally get up to speed. By 10PM they improved, as often is the case with KSN, and had more execution, which gave them better coverage of the day's big story over KAKE for one newscast. -Hal
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
20 comments:
KWCH at 10 nailed the story bar none. Too bad Friday evening viewership is probably lower then other nights..
I would say KAKE handled the situation as it was going down better though. It came as quite a suprise to say the least and was probably tough to report because most were expecting a positive outcome for Boeing.
KWCHers, please don't let this inflate your egos anymore than they already are.)"
Please don't think everyone there has an ego. Just b/c a couple of egotistical pricks get on here all the time b/c they have no life and post every day does NOT mean the entire station is that way! Sick of the generalizations!
I thought KWCH was way ahead on the likely departure of Wichita Superintendent Winston Brooks. They did the most at 6pm on Saturday, KSN mentioned it and KAKE didn't have it at all.
Then at 10 KWCH had two reporters on it. One covered the potential impact on the school bond vote and the other looked at the fact that Brooks has been courted before.
This is a major story and it seems KAKE blew it and KSN barely hung on. Just my thoughts.
Hal,
Sorry big guy I didn't know how to send you a message directly, so I am sending it as a comment. I am curious on your thoughts on KAKE's extra local programming on Sunday night. I want to hear what you think of Overtime Live and Lawyer On the Line. And I would love for you to post something about it and open it up to comments from everyone else.
There is a weather opening at KWCH! Someone must be leaving!
The opening there is Lindsey Butor or whatever her name is!
There's also a sports opening at KWCH. Who's leaving?
Give the weather opening at KWCH to Ross' dog, Millie!
Ben Pringle out?? Mike Iuen stumbled while introducing weather, saying "I almost said Ben Pringle, who is no longer with us."
Richard Smith is supposedly leaving. It is possible Ross Janssen might be leaving too.
With all these comments about certain people leaving, why couldn't Wichita be lucky and it be someone like Anita Cochran or Dave Freeman. I do not think I am alone in saying I would certainly watch KSN more if they weren't schmucking up things on air.
For the first time in my life, I'm glad my daughter watches American Idol. It gave me the chance to see KWCH's Fox newscast promo Tuesday night that claimed the jail guard involved in that fight had been arrested.
Too bad it's completely false. Whoops!
I believe they corrected that on-air.
I like how one station's "marketing director" replies to questions about people leaving by throwing up a smokescreen. So once again, Hal-- do you know anything about Ben Pringle leaving? What happened?
I hope they keep Ross Janssen. He's very deliberate and careful in his style, without the stuffiness of his partners.
Is Ben Pringle gone? I really like him better than Prater!
Hal- Curious, if you followed the story on the stations about the so-called human foot found. Then Today it is announced it is a bear's foot. KAKE leads with the story at 6PM Tonight. I think it would have been better to end the newscast as somewhat of a lighter or humorous story.
"I like how one station's "marketing director" replies to questions about people leaving by throwing up a smokescreen. So once again, Hal-- do you know anything about Ben Pringle leaving? What happened?"
I know all three of the Marketing Directors --
Who are saying is throwing up a smokescreen?
Who knows where Pringle is on-air. Either they forgot to remove his picture from the web page or maybe he's just on a vacation looking for other jobs. Mike could of just had a forecast of his own when saying "former," meaning the morning show may soon be saying goodbye to a weatherman.
Geez...Pringle is on vacation, having fun. Just because some lines may occasionally appear on your TV, does not mean there are always things to read between them. Chill.
Post a Comment