It is sad that most media outlets in Tulsa were asleep yesterday when the fires broke out just to the west of the city. I got more about the fires from the Weather Channel than 2, 6, 8,23, etc... Then I gave up and put on KRMG. First I checked their AM since I knew the fire was near their transmitter. It was on, so I went to the FM. They did a great job with reporters everywhere. Switched to 1170, NOTHING. News happens on the weekend too. Also heard reports on one of the other cox radio stations. Lazy people.
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Fire Coverage
- Thread starter shaneradio
- Start date
I have to agree with at least some of your observations. Channel 6 was breaking in pretty regularly; don't know about the others. KRMG was all over it... and it was nice to get the info that easily.
1170 is, from what I can tell, essentially dead. I found an article about the fires on their site... from Fox23. (I guess that goes away soon, huh?) The station is a pale shadow of its former self. I rarely turn over there anymore unless I can get info from KRMG or KWGS.
1170 is, from what I can tell, essentially dead. I found an article about the fires on their site... from Fox23. (I guess that goes away soon, huh?) The station is a pale shadow of its former self. I rarely turn over there anymore unless I can get info from KRMG or KWGS.
I was driving from OKC back to Tulsa on Sunday it was really sad how LITTLE was done on the OKC stations. By little I mean nothing. Absolutely nothing on anything out of OKC. KRMG broke into Handel on the Law quite a bit. Did a nice job
Agreed. The coverage overall was HORRIBLE. KOTV claims their chopper was grounded on Saturday due to mandatory maintenance. Not sure how true that is. If tornadoes had been threatening these towns, all stations would have had live coverage for hours.
ZERO coverage in Oklahoma City. The only coverage I got on KTOK was at the top of the hour national newsbreak. I got more coverage listening to the CBS News app on my phone. KRMG as always sets the gold standard in the Sooner state.
Actually, I heard the EAS box go off on several stations for this event. So, no coverage isn't exactly true. I did hear a few stations do fairly regular updates. No station did wall-to-wall.
ionosphere said:
Maintenance or not, I wouldn't have wanted to try to fly a helicopter over that area. You'd be directly in harm's way, possibly interfering with the firefighting effort, and you might not have been able to see what was going on well enough to provide any useful information.
As for the radio coverage, KRMG has always done better than the OKC talkers. KTOK was better 10-15 years ago, but it still didn't compare to KRMG and the old KVOO. When the Christmas Blizzard of '09 happened, KRMG did an excellent job covering it while KTOK simulcasted either 4 or 5 and KOKC kept running syndicated garbage. So, that's been pretty much par for the course. It's a shame, and the bigger shame is that KFAQ apparently wasn't providing much coverage either.
shaneradio:
1170, 99.5, 106.9 and 98.5 ALL provided fire and evacuation coverage. KFAQ provided updates every quarter hour for several hours. KXBL and KVOO did them twice hourly for several hours as well. KHTT provided info with their APD who was on the air that afternoon.
There was a deticated studio anchor, and a JBG reporter and mobile news unit on site, as well as audio from Tulsa FD, The Red Cross and Creek County.
Hardly the 'nothing' you described.
1170, 99.5, 106.9 and 98.5 ALL provided fire and evacuation coverage. KFAQ provided updates every quarter hour for several hours. KXBL and KVOO did them twice hourly for several hours as well. KHTT provided info with their APD who was on the air that afternoon.
There was a deticated studio anchor, and a JBG reporter and mobile news unit on site, as well as audio from Tulsa FD, The Red Cross and Creek County.
Hardly the 'nothing' you described.
I can't speak for OKC or any stations including KFAQ outside of KRMG, KTUL, KOTV, and KJRH.
KRMG-Did a fine job. I am one of the biggest critics of KRMG's news coverage of the last couple of years, however they hit a home-run this weekend. They were staffed, they didn't hesitate to break-in. They were live around 12pm Saturday, anticipating what happened unfortunately. As tragic as the Creek County fire was, the NWS warned repeatedly what type of situation we were facing Saturday. KRMG was staffed. Provided calm, rational, round the clock coverage. My hat's off to Joe Kelly and his team. They were the place to turn and did an outstanding job. A+.
KJRH-If it interfered with the Olympics it did not warrant coverage from what I saw. KJRH was live at 5pm on Saturday and again at 11pm. Outside of on-screen crawls. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Shameful to put a cash cow event like the Olympics over the lives of people and their property. It was what I'd call "the bare minimum."
KTUL-They tried. They were under-staffed for what happened, but I think the vast majority of people in Tulsa including media types don't understand how tiny KTUL's staffing is. They do not have the physical resources to compete with the other stations in town, especially KOTV.
KOTV-Overwhelmed/caught off guard/annoyed. Weekend anchor Tara Vreeland posted to Twitter around 5pm, they were calling in extra reporters/photogs/producers. No offense to Tara, but really? KOTV knew Friday night how serious this was and it was painfully obvious when a giant ash cloud was descending on Tulsa around 4pm Saturday. Those fires had been going on ALL DAY Saturday, yet, KOTV did not interrupt the PGA and waited until 5pm to show pictures and their newbie/catfish noodling/sorority girl reporter near tears in Creek County. By 10pm it seemed the adults had taken over. Dick Faurot provided a couple of cut-ins during the CBS Evening News relaying evacuations where he seemed very annoyed. He only covered up commercial time. I would assume Dick was probably thinking what I was, KOTV was caught half-assed and should have been staying on.
KOKI-Outside of news crawls, I did not watch their 9pm newscast, but did not catch any type of special programming.
KOTV did a very poor job. People depend on them, especially in rural areas. The fire was threatening Mannford after 5pm. But, it was inflicting serious damage well before then and was by no means under control until late Saturday night. I assume cost-cutting, not wanting to interrupt weekends, and no overtime policies kept them from being staffed and providing coverage before 5pm Saturday. I do not know if KOTV can call its own shots or is beholden to KWTV and the Griffin families when it comes to making on-the-spot emergency staffing decisions for its Tulsa newsroom. They no longer have a general manager on-sight in Tulsa, so I don't know how much editorial/staffing control they have. If that did happen, then shame on KWTV/Griffin's.
KRMG-Did a fine job. I am one of the biggest critics of KRMG's news coverage of the last couple of years, however they hit a home-run this weekend. They were staffed, they didn't hesitate to break-in. They were live around 12pm Saturday, anticipating what happened unfortunately. As tragic as the Creek County fire was, the NWS warned repeatedly what type of situation we were facing Saturday. KRMG was staffed. Provided calm, rational, round the clock coverage. My hat's off to Joe Kelly and his team. They were the place to turn and did an outstanding job. A+.
KJRH-If it interfered with the Olympics it did not warrant coverage from what I saw. KJRH was live at 5pm on Saturday and again at 11pm. Outside of on-screen crawls. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Shameful to put a cash cow event like the Olympics over the lives of people and their property. It was what I'd call "the bare minimum."
KTUL-They tried. They were under-staffed for what happened, but I think the vast majority of people in Tulsa including media types don't understand how tiny KTUL's staffing is. They do not have the physical resources to compete with the other stations in town, especially KOTV.
KOTV-Overwhelmed/caught off guard/annoyed. Weekend anchor Tara Vreeland posted to Twitter around 5pm, they were calling in extra reporters/photogs/producers. No offense to Tara, but really? KOTV knew Friday night how serious this was and it was painfully obvious when a giant ash cloud was descending on Tulsa around 4pm Saturday. Those fires had been going on ALL DAY Saturday, yet, KOTV did not interrupt the PGA and waited until 5pm to show pictures and their newbie/catfish noodling/sorority girl reporter near tears in Creek County. By 10pm it seemed the adults had taken over. Dick Faurot provided a couple of cut-ins during the CBS Evening News relaying evacuations where he seemed very annoyed. He only covered up commercial time. I would assume Dick was probably thinking what I was, KOTV was caught half-assed and should have been staying on.
KOKI-Outside of news crawls, I did not watch their 9pm newscast, but did not catch any type of special programming.
KOTV did a very poor job. People depend on them, especially in rural areas. The fire was threatening Mannford after 5pm. But, it was inflicting serious damage well before then and was by no means under control until late Saturday night. I assume cost-cutting, not wanting to interrupt weekends, and no overtime policies kept them from being staffed and providing coverage before 5pm Saturday. I do not know if KOTV can call its own shots or is beholden to KWTV and the Griffin families when it comes to making on-the-spot emergency staffing decisions for its Tulsa newsroom. They no longer have a general manager on-sight in Tulsa, so I don't know how much editorial/staffing control they have. If that did happen, then shame on KWTV/Griffin's.
KTUL is a shadow of the former "8s the Place". Remember when they ruled? KFAQ will probably always be that "other talk station that nobody listens to". KWGS does a good job as well. Durkee has that news department sounding better.
KRMG and KWGS..... Otherwise it's "fend for yourself" via your smart phone, as long as it still works....
Thanks for the nice words. We did a lot more on line and on social media than on-air. We only have a staff of three and a dump truck load of student. They are great to send out to get sound. But, alas, until TU starts year-round school, we are going to be at a disadvantage in summer.
Hats off to KRMG. They sounded good and meet the expectations of their audience.
Hats off to KRMG. They sounded good and meet the expectations of their audience.
You do a great job with smoke and mirrors Mr. Durkee. KWGS has improved under your leadership.
Kent said:
I completely disagree. The winds were consistently blowing from SW to NE. You fly that chopper on the south side of that fire and track it's progress toward Mannford. With all of the rumors and flat-out wrong information being thrown around (like KOTV tweeting that the fire was in the center of town), it would've been helpful to have visual proof of where the fire was. And how would that affect the firefighting effort? Keep the chopper away from whatever reservoir they were pulling water out of, keep it at a higher altitude than the bucket choppers and keep a decent distance. Let your camera do the work. For a station that constantly tells us they have the only full time news helicopter in town, they were definitely caught with their pants down. What a shame.
I listened to KRMG during the fires since TV was nowhere to be seen and I have to say,with the exception of the truly awful woman they had anchoring it, they did a bang up job. Whoever she is, i suspect she's another former TV-er 'slumming it' in radio, she is dreadful. Cannot string 2 sentences together.
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