Eagle Report: Susan Peters Faints on the Set

Carrie Rengers has an interesting nugget today. -Hal

Random Thoughts

Battle of Sweeps: The stations are ramping up their stories for ratings. I saw promos on two of the stations for Sunday stories. KWCH is promoting a story entitled, "DNA of an Athlete." Apparently its about a company which says it can tell through DNA which sports a child will be successful at. Meanwhile, KSN interviewed Defense Secretary Robert Gates about his Kansas roots. Although the KWCH topic intrigues me I am more interested to see the piece on Gates. However, considering demos and how many parents want their kids to succeed at athletics, I could see more people would be interested in the DNA of an Athlete. It will be interesting to watch and see which one is better.
KWCH certainly started the book out with a bang or should I say without a claw. The story entitled, "The Declaw Debate," was actually produced and edited fine, but its a goofy topic and I think in someways shows proof of the dumbing down of news. Ironically I am sure it takes quite a bit of thinking to dream a story like that up and even more so to make it not come off low brow.

The Revolving Door - I have been getting a number of comments about various reporters leaving stations and some of the reasons given are interesting, but I'm not posting those because some of those reasons given would be inflammatory if not true. Also, most of the names given are people about ready to leave, but they haven't yet and still are posted on the stations' web sites. However, here are two mentioned in comments and I haven't seen them on the air and they do not appear on their stations' websites: Anya Sehgal of KWCH and Jennifer Bocchieri of KAKE. -Hal

KWCH Promos For Roeder Trial Access

A Judge banned the media on Jan. 11 from portions of jury selection at the Scott Roeder trial. Roeder is accused of killing abortion doctor George Tiller. A day later the Kansas Supreme Court reversed the Judge's ruling after KWCH, The Wichita Eagle, The Kansas City Star, and the Associated Press petitioned the High Court to reverse the District Judge's ruling. A day later the Judge agreed to open jury selection to those media outlets who petitioned. I think that was the fair and right thing to do. However, in the days that followed, KWCH promoted the fact they were the only Wichita station allowed in the courtroom. The promos bothered me slightly, however I did think that since they were part of the filing to the Supreme Court they ought to get something out of it. The KWCH promo department, it seems, wanted to have more fun than they already were having. In a promo that ran on Tuesday phrases like, "One station stepped in," and "Take a stand for your rights," were used. Give me a break. I bet if it wasn't for the print publications and the AP getting things rolling, KWCH wouldn't have even gotten involved. The promos are over doing something that once the trial starts and testimony gets going, most viewers wont even remember that KWCH was the only TV station present for jury selection. -Hal