fred flintstone said:
Ken, the examples you cited a legitimate hard news stories. Not argument there, although I do lack sympathy for people who live in a flood plain. How long does it take them to figure out what happens every time the river rises? Then radio and TV play the great enabler of stupid behavior. And make them out to be somehow heroic by coming back and rebuilding (often at public expense) just in time for next year's flood.
The equivalent of radio "sound" in TV is not pictures - it's "Live." ENG (electronic news gathering) is the worst thing that ever happened to TV news; an abuse and overuse of what could have been useful technology. Something happens. A crew goes and takes pictures, with a blow-dried Ken or Barbie in tow. The story is over but the crew and their talking head stay. Hours pass and it's 6:00 and the truck and crew are still there so Ken/Barbie can smile (or frown) depending on the script and say "Absolutely (Insert name of news reader here). I'm reporting live at ____________ where nothing is happening now but three hours ago somebody who wanted publicity and free air time staged a photo op." And guess what? They are still there at 11 pm. And somebody else is back there at 5 am in the next morning.
Paul Harvey doesn't do bulletins: So what? Most of the time it's used, "this just in" is hype. Radio news is filled with hype. Like "exclusive report" (the other station has the same story but not the same person doing the wrap). Or "as you heard first" (you it heard it here first if you were listening to us; if you were listening to them, you heard it there first). ABC used to make a big deal out of "firsts," which they had by virtue of doing news at five minutes before the hour.
Radio and TV don't cover news. Even if they wanted to, as you say, they don't have the time and resources to do real reporting - and they don't hire real reporters. It's all about the appearance of covering news. And the use of "Live" on TV or "sound" on radio is only - ONLY - to enhance the appearance of covering news, whether or not it adds to the story, whether or not it tells the story better. Most of the time it doesn't.
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Some of the exchanges have gotten heated and personal and for my part in that, I do apologize.
I don't think wanting to discuss these kinds of issues - and holding a different, even skeptical, viewpoint - qualifies as "grouchy." Although Groucho is one of my heroes.
I'll give you that. The ENG of TV that created the illusion of being live has been used and abused. We ourselves don't do that much anymore. The only cut-ins we do are on a "special report" basis. Like if we hear something on the scanner like a vehicle accident or a possible structure fire, we jot down the information we need to pass on to the listener, run into the studio and then cut in after the next song, play the stager and make a brief announcement along the lines of "if this is part of your commute, we ask that you allow yourself extra time or re-route your trip, and please do not go to the scene of the fire."
The only time we go out and report live from the scene is if it's a major vehicle accident (school bus, tanker truck, three or more vehicles) or a fire. We go out there and collect the sound, and because radio has that ability where you can break into normal programming with a news bulletin like this (TV won't do it...you'll get a crawl at best), we are VERY LIVE.
But by the same token, we use discretion and treat our subject matter with some degree of sensitivity...we don't sensationalize like some of the big boys.
We used to do 'firsts' when there was a competing station in town. Because we don't have that here, there's no need for it. But if we blow the lid off a major story like a plant closing that's going to put 3,000 out of work, you can bet your bottom dollar we're going to remind listeners that they heard it first on our station.
I will keep defending the use of soundbytes until I draw my last breath. It's essential in small market radio, especially among civic leaders. They have a responsibility to be accountable to those who elected them to serve. When they say something of importance, and a listener doesn't agree with it, they can tell that person "I heard what you said on the radio, and I don't agree with it..." then they have no basis to argue the matter with us. If we simply quote them, then they have leverage to deny it and maybe even go so far as to trash us in the local paper or some other medium. If its natural sound, and their voice, what grounds are there for them to say "I didn't say that." It's gospel.
I also have to comment on your statement regarding Katie Couric, and the overall place of women in the industry. Even before women were making an impact in the broadcasting business that they are now, I have found that the majority of women today who are in television were influenced not by what you see on TV today, but those who first broke ground in the business...Lesley Stahl, Barbara Walters, and Diane Sawyer. These were not blow-dried, Pepsodent twin beauty-queen clones, but women who were committed journalists, and some of them were physically attractive, but only because they knew they had to have a certain look for the camera. The point I'm making though, is that these women do their job every bit as well as their male counterparts.
As an example, when Lesley Stahl started covering the White House beat during the Reagan administration, every attempt that Larry Speakes made to beat her back, she got even closer. She wasn't afraid to call him on every B.S. attempt he made to convince her and the other correspondents of making news where there was none.
Don't get me wrong...there are SOME women (and men, let's not be sexist here) who have slept their way to the top. But you'll find that those are the minority, NOT the majority. In fact, I think that the industry is starting to move away from the beauty queen clones that I mentioned earlier. Here in Pittsburgh, we're starting to see anchors and reporters that are a little plainer than what we've been used to, but most of them are part-timers right now. One of the stations has a female anchor who is of a larger build (but still very attractive), but I've very rarely seen her flub a line and her anchoring skills are like few that I've seen.
At another station where I had worked just a few years ago, we got this recent graduate from Westminster College who was not just attractive, but she was in the trenches doing the real thing. She did work for the NBC affiliate in Youngstown, had an excellent delivery, and required very little training. I predicted that if we had her for a year, we'd be lucky. She gave us just that before she moved on to the Twin Tiers in New York and is now in Reading. She'll go far, and her looks have little to do with it...she's one of the many people out there who are trying to get by on merit.
. Yes, you can use some of my comments in your newsletter. I'm quite flattered at the request. I fancy myself more of a radio person, rather than a PD, GM, ND, GSM, or any other abbreviation. So I try to be impartial on all fronts.