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

KAKE Sports: JV or maybe even the Freshman Team

Its been about a month since KAKE sports director Alan Shope left the station. It will certainly take some time for KAKE to find a replacement, but the last month really shows they have a weak bench of back-up sports people. It appears Chris Frye would be their main fill-in anchor. Then you have Terrell Benton and hockey player Jason Duda. I could use an overused cliche and call this a Motley Crew of sports types, but this would certainly be slamming the band and I'm not even a fan of the group.
This week I started seeing OT Live Producer Abby Lippold fill-in on the main sports desk on KAKE as well. She has appeared on the OT Live show and I might have even seen her fill-in on the weekend, once or twice. You can definitely tell she tries hard, but she is rough to watch doing sports. Not that Wichita is a huge Top 25 market, but she certainly shouldn't be on air in this market.... yet. That's what the small markets are for to develop her talent. However, I know there will be some reading this that are saying Wichita has dropped to a small market from a psychological standpoint. I disagree. I think overall there is a good product shown on the stations, especially for the economic and industry conditions occurring. Stealing a term from a comment of a previous post, she should appear on Wichita State's Studio B and get some experience. -Hal

KSN Bankruptcy Finalized

According to the Wichita Eagle, KSN is finished with an 80 day Bankruptcy restructuring process. I know nothing about bankruptcy, so I am curious if anyone does, especially as it is concerned with a TV station and might be able to shed some light. -Hal

Slain Deputy Coverage

The tragic news of a Sedgwick County Deputy losing his life while on duty is very difficult for a community. The three stations got the information out very quickly and it seemed with accuracy. KAKE was the quickest on live coverage of press conferences, however I thought KWCH and KSN had the best storytelling of the event. KAKE might have had more angles, but it wasn't put together as well as the other two. Your thoughts. -Hal

Is Alan Shope Gone From KAKE?

Comments in recent days to this blog talked about a "secret" meeting at KAKE. Still not sure what that was about, however a reader alerted me to the fact that Alan Shope no longer is on the KAKE website as part of the sports team. Hmmmm. It is certainly an interesting time to make a change with the start of football and that is usually the busiest part of the year for the local stations. -Hal

A HEAP of Radar Gun Stories

I'm baaaaaaaaaack, to a degree. I had a nice Summer break. Lets start with my first post back with one of my favorite, or not so favorite reporters in town.
For children, the start of the school year comes with it the unpleasant realities of early bedtimes and homework. However, for adults watching TV news in Wichita comes the reality one station will air useless stories of an obnoxious reporter with a radar gun showing people going fast in school zones. Don’t get me wrong, I think many people ignore school zones, go too fast and its an accident waiting to happen, however the obnoxious ways of Brian Heap do not make the stories easy to watch. Also, it was interesting the first time, maybe even the second time, but now they are old and have become the same thing each time with him pointing a radar gun at speeding cars, although the story this past week had him wearing a raincoat and catching a police car going too fast. - Hal