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ATLANTA SNOW COVERAGE

So I started watching Fox 5 News at 10 snow coverage. Then I went over to
WSB at 11. FOX 5 IS KICKING WSB'S BUTT! I switched back to 5. WSB seems
to have the B team reporting Sunday night.
 
WOW only 35 minutes coverage by WSB of what may be the biggest snowstorm
in 30 years!!! Now, they've moved on to Falcons coverage (another show).

GO FOX 5, GO FOX 5, GO FOX 5..................
 
As of 1:20am both FOX 5 and 11 ALIVE are on live with reporters in the field live too. Didn't expect much from CBS Atlanta, but Channel 2 Action News has lost this one.
 
typed this at 11 this morning, and then the boards went down.......when I hit send.

At 11 AM WSB was in the game and doing well and Fox 5 was doing great also.
The morning show at 46 was trying, but seemed out of their element. TV 11
was not good at all and I wanted to go to sleep watching them.

The snow had been forecast to arrive at 1 AM and I think WSB was caught off guard
when it showed up at 9PM instead. But, you'd have thought 2 hours would have
given them plenty of time to re-group and make adjustment.......it didn't.
 
And who will be patting themselves on the back when this is all said and done? Will you tire of the self promotion?
 
The self-promotion started last week. WSB TV and radio was running spots puffing their incredible winter storm coverage. It was about the last winter storm back at Christmas but they suddenly started running the spots much more frequently right before this one hit. Clearly trying to predict their own future. They failed. What I saw of ch. 2 was dull. Didn't listen to the radio at all today.

Watched 46 most of the morning. They were short on people and those they had on the air were kinda burning out. But not too bad.

Flipped up to 11 and eventually realized everybody I was seeing on the air was ex-Fox 5. Ken Cook, Brenda Moore, and Jeff Hullinger. Hullinger was great. Lots of energy even in the afternoon. Don't know how long he'd been on but he seemed ready for more. 11 got national coverage with their burning BMW footage. Good catch.

Both stations were running tons of ads for ambulance chaser lawyers. Go figure.
 
Day two

I know the story is getting old by now, but the image today of interstate traffic going down an
entrance ramp and folks stuck at Greyhound without food or water deserves coverage. I think
they went back to network programming too soon. What happened to public service......
in times of need? If this doesn't call for more coverage, I don't know what does.
 
I haven't been through as many Georgia weather binges as some of the rest of you, but maybe this one has not given the broadcasters the opportunity to play hero and miracle worker.

We had how many days of advance notice what was coming? And then it comes in starting on a Sunday afternoon/evening. We did not have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people stranded at work, facing the life-threatening question: Do I go straight home while maybe I can still make it.... or do I stop by the store to grab some things I need and take a chance I can't get home.

We had a somewhat leisurely Saturday and Sunday to stock up; we had plenty of time Sunday to phone and email about going to work or not, working from home or not. No kids stranded at school... all the schools threw in the towel in plenty of time Sunday night.

And so far we don't havde that many power outages. What else is there for broadcasters to do other than show us all the trucks on 285 near the airport, all the people stranded at the Greyhound bus station. So what do we get: wall-to-wall displays on TV of all the iPhone pictures of children making angels in the snow, a 7 year old boy doing donuts with his four-wheeler, and four or five people helping push a car out of a tight spot. Ho hum. From a broadcasters point of view, this is just like one more small bit of winter in Indianapolis or Madison, WI or Detroit.
 
I watched coverage during the late morning and early afternoon on Monday and have to say that I enjoyed 11 and 46 the most. Overall it was interesting to see how each stations strengths and weaknesses are highlighted while covering a weather event. The roads were in horrible condition and people mostly stayed home, and lots of accident footage was covered simply by using DOT cameras. So with extended coverage about a story where most people are basically doing nothing, it is incumbent that reporters tell a good story, oh yeah, and smile and laugh.

Since 11 allows their reporters to do actual feature stories on most other days of the year, they were prepared and succeeded in creating interesting reports on a snow day. Plus, their help center was put to good use and seemed to be very productive. And I loved seeing Jeff Hullinger, Brenda Wood and Paul Ossman together again. The reporters at 46 are also generally given room to be creative, so they wound up with things like Adam Murphy covering the sledding at Piedmont Park. It seemed like 2 and 5 stuck to their usual routines, especially 2. Channel 2's reporters were mostly dull, although Jeff Dore can usually be counted on for a good story. Most of the reporters treated the snow and ice like they do every murder, rape and robbery. Either they don't know how to create an interesting feature story or the bosses at 2 don't want them to do one.
 
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