Local Bail Out Coverage

Obviously the story on Monday was Congress voting down the bail out plan and the resulting fall out on Wall Street. KAKE and KSN lead with that at 10. I still think it was the lead story, however it seemed as if KWCH pulled a page out of the normal KAKE playbook by leading with a live "breaking news" report of a hit and run pedestrian accident. It certainly had the feel of KAKE, I certainly hope this isn't a direction they are moving toward with a new news director. They are #1 the others are battling for #2 or #3, (however you view it) so KWCH should play it conservative as they have for many years and let KAKE and KSN fight it out between themselves.

Thanks to the reader for the info on the apparent change in Kansas Now 22 with KSN taking it over from KAKE. According to a reader the changeover will happen at the beginning of '09 and the reader says KSN plans to not only do weather but also broadcast sporting events on the station. Quite a change for KSN considering they cut sports from the station completely over 5 years ago, only to bring it back a couple of years later, and now adding sports productions. Also lets hope that automated production system they use to do their newscasts isn't used to do live games. That would be a disaster. -Hal

A Nice Trend in Local TV News

The Eagle had the news that KWCH has named assistant news director Chad Cross as news director of the station. I think this marks a nice trend in Wichita TV that in my opinion is refreshing. If I am correct, the current news directors of the three TV news stations all were assistants at those stations before being promoted to the higher role. KAKE news director Dave Grant and recently named KSN news director Jason Kravarik all worked their way up the chains of command at their respective channels. Now at KWCH, Chad Cross who had been assistant has been named news director. I think it is refreshing that at the three stations they picked people from within for those top spots. Its a nice trend that people who have worked in Wichita TV news in other roles are given the chance to lead their operations. I think it is an important time in the TV news industry and the future is unknown, so having people who have experience in this market is a good thing for their employees and hopefully for us viewers as well. -Hal

Plane Crashes and Making National Stories Local

Two separate plane crashes, within hours of each other, made it seem like at least one of the three stations was waiting for a big story to break. Although this was certainly not a fatal crash, KWCH certainly made it appear as if they were ready for this to be bigger as they offered some version of team coverage for the early newscasts. KAKE and KSN also covered this story. I thought KWCH and KAKE did a nice job localizing it and finding eyewitnesses and it gave some urgency to it.
I really do not know what KSN lead with at 10PM: I don't remember. Sub reporter Aileen Simborio I think did something about the economy or stock market. But I lost interest when it looked like it was going to give me some local perspective, but instead was filled with stuff I had already gotten on the evening newscasts or the cable channels. I never understood this practice when local stations have local talent lend their voice to the stories. How hard would it have been to put a microphone outside the studio and get some local comment for that story? I normally would be against this, but if this is your only chance to make this a little local than go for it.
It is local news and if you make it appear as a local story bring me some local perspective into the story. Also Aileen has no passion when she reads. (KWCH's/Fox's Rebecca Gannon leaves me feeling the same way.) Aileen appears like she is being paid to read something on a screen and that is the only interest she has in the story. Its like half the time she appears she is reading it for the very first time when she is live on TV.
Finally A New Poll - I decided to add a new poll question. Yes, its lame and doesn't have much to do with any topics of the blog, but I am curious as to how often you read the blog. Please vote only once. -Hal

Noah's Review (Flood of '08 Coverage Notes)

The 3 stations all provided strong coverage with the changing conditions throughout the day. The story lines pretty much were the record amount of rain, flooding in West Wichita, the evacuation of the Winfield campgrounds and then the other random spots in the area including El Dorado. Mixed in was some nice video of rescues. I noticed KAKE had one of people being rescued from a car. I think they needed to make a story of it like KSN which had a similar one as their newest reporter Justin Kraemer narrated the video and it had a nice breaking news type of feel. For a storm with most of its bite shown earlier in the day, most of the 10PM newscasts resembled a tired feel and they really didn't advance things nor give a polished wrap up to the coverage you would expect for a storm of this nature. I am sure people will disagree with me. I was curious how the Fox 9PM newscast would wrap things up. Forget it. It seemed like they had more on Ike then they did on this record rainfall. -Hal

The Online Breaking News Battle

Sunday night proved to be a pretty big news night with a missing child and a fire, injuring 3 including a firefighter. I must say all three stations did a real nice job updating their online content for these events on a Sunday night when staffing usually is low. I think it was handled even better than on a weekday. My biggest question as of 12AM, where is the Eagle in all of this? Neither of the two events were posted online. Someone may say they are in the business to sell papers, but at least with the missing child, put his picture online as KAKE and KSN did (KWCH didn't have a picture online, but did have the story online). While I write about the coverage of the missing child, I appreciated KWCH mentioning specifically the guidelines required to issue an Amber Alert and the reasons why this hadn't met those qualifications. It was a question I had when I heard about the case and anchor Michael Schwanke mentioned viewers called asking that as well. Here is a question on coverage, should the broadcast stations adhere to those same guidelines to even just mention the case of the missing boy in the newscasts, without an Amber Alert? I seem to remember the broadcasters had a part in developing Amber Alert criteria and had legit reasons for making those. Should they follow that same criteria in taking it to the air? Despite not having an Amber Alert, I thought they needed to mention it and all handled it responsibly. -Hal

Football Frenzy, Fever.... whatever you call it

Tonight marks the first Friday of the Stations' high school football efforts. We will see the coverage at 10PM and had a sneak peak last night then the previews at 6 Tonight. I must say the Tailgate party KSN had tonight and I guess is having every week is an interesting idea. I don't know for sure but I think they did it last year as well. It would be better if Jim Kobbe had a better partner to chat with than Dave Freeman. Dave in these environments really shows his Achilles. Watching Leon at the Fair Tonight at Five, shows Leon would be much more comfortable to watch during the tailgates and better at interaction with Jim, rather than Dave. I don't think I mentioned it last year, but it seems as if the 3 stations all have different types of coverage. I cannot remember who does what, but one I think shows more in-depth highlites from games, while another is more about quanity then quality. I'll watch tonight and hopefully figure out who does what philosophy, if they repeat what they did last year. Interested in your thoughts about the football coverage from 10PM. -Hal