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Port of Providence Fire - BEST COVERAGE

S

Skynet74

Last Night Oil Tankers were struck by lightning and exploded in Providence. So here is my take on local News coverage of the event. WPRI had the best images. They seemed to be the closest to the fire and easily provided the most impressive Video.

WJAR had the best overall coverage which included Gene Valecenti letting us listen in Live to an Emergency News conference concerning the event. Gene then proceeded to hand the phone to Mayor Cicilline for a spontaneous Live interview with Anchor Patrice Wood. Props to Gene for his quick thinking. Both stations should be proud of their coverage as they entended their 11PM News coverage. WJAR until 12:40 AM and WPRI until 12:52 AM. Bonus Points to WPRI for keeping the coverage going the longest. Not a lot longer but it's still 12 more minutes than WJAR gave us.

Unfortunately WLNE appeared to be on vacation as usual. They aired Nightline but then came back a half hour later for a few minutes with a fire update. They didn't even show any VIDEO! Just an anchor at the desk talking about it. I guess all the photographers went to bed. Then they just returned to Jimmy Kimmel as usual. Their coverage failed miserably in comparison to NBC 10 and CBS 12. No surprise there. Maybe WLNE should just hang it up and broadcast cartoons for now on.
 
Thanks for the compliments towards Channel 12. Gene was doing his live reports right next to the camera that I was manning for WPRI's live coverage. I don't like to toot my own horn, but the great images of the fire came from Yours Truly. I was able to get video from Allens Avenue (near some diner) of the balls of fire shooting up in the air. Then, I went down to a small extension of Oxford Street (that goes towards the river) and got more fire images from that "shoreline" type area. When originally driving to the scene, I saw the fire from I-95 near the Hospital exit and I thought I was in Hollywood. As many fires I have covered over the years, I never saw anything like what I saw tonight. The video that was aired with the fire and the lightning in the background is something that you would only see in the movies. But it was real tonight, and happened right here in Rhode Island. It was an amazing sight, and fortunately there were no reported injuries.

In fairness towards Channel 6, they did have photographers out there. I spoke with two of them during the course of the night. However, I don't understand why they couldn't get any video of the fire on the air. The only reason Channels 12 and 10 were able to do live shots was because they were on the air via satellite...and not microwave. Channel 6 does not have a satellite truck...Channels 10 and 12 do. That's the only reason Channel 6 wasn't able to provide live coverage from the scene. However, they were perfectly capable of driving tapes back to the station and getting the video on the air. If you raise a microwave mast during a thunderstorm, you are asking to be killed. If lightning strikes the mast, you are as good as dead. As photographers learn in this business...Look Up and Live. If there were no thunderstorms, I'm sure Channel 6 would have been doing live shots.

I'm surprised you were the first one to come on here and complain about Channel 6. Did you change your name to Ethan Lopez?!?!?! Usually, he's the one to criticize them before anyone else!
 
You were responsible for that video Shawn? Awsome job!!! Definitely the best. As for my comments regarding WLNE, I don't think I'm being unfair. They could have done much better. I don't know how I beat Ethan to the punch either. I hope he didn't get hit by lightning last night. ;D
 
Thanks for the compliments. I appreciate it. We should credit Brian, Dan, and J.P. for their work also. They were also at the fire scene...shooting video of the extreme flames, gathering interviews, etc. Audrey and Joan at the fire scene...Walt in the newsroom...along with Steve and Karen in the studio...all providing live information.

Yes, I do agree that Channel 6 could have done a better job. They could have at least had tapes driven back to the station, since they were unable to use their microwave trucks...because of the lightning.

I haven't seen Ethan post here in a while. I think the last time he went on a tangent about Channel 6 was during the Dan Biechele sentencing.
 
I almost never watch the Providence news, but I just so happened to last night.

WPRI-12 seemed to have almost an all-star list of people on the phone, including Don Carcieri, David Cicilline, and representatives from the Rhode Island emergency management office and the Firefighters union. They also seemed to have the best variety of shots as well. Also, I didn't catch WPRI airing any commercial breaks during the entire newscast. However, WJAR-10 also had great coverage as well. The impromptu interview with Cicilline came across quite nicely; WJAR also went commercial-free after 11:35PM. WJAR also had Gary Lay covering how the lighting likely hit; a nice detail in my opinion. I couldn't pick up WLNE-6, but from the station's notority for their lack of coverage, I'm not surprised that there was minimal coverage.

An interesting lack of coverage by the Boston stations, only WCVB-5 aired several seconds of footage around 11:20PM.
 
IIIII'MMMMMM BAAAAACCCKKKK!!!!!

I wanted to post on here last night, but I wasn't going to risk it due to the weather. I was extremely appalled by 6's so-called coverage of the fire. They didn't even mention it at 11. Once again, they had a rare chance to shine and they didn't. What I found the most upsetting was that no other station, not even WCVB, used any of 6's footage. I was about to call them and tell them, "Hey, you know there's a tanker fire in your city?" And why don't they have a satellite truck?

I really hate to see a money-strapped station trying to make an effort, because in their case, there is no effort. The kind of news 6 does is contemporary/environmental/lifestlye reporting. Segments on motherly advice, neighbors, medical advice, lobsters, wines, etc. For a time, I thought they totally dropped the regular hard news. I swear, they'd win an Emmy for their news specialties. But it's not working. It's not getting them any more ratings, in fact, they're probably losing viewers. It's a sad thing. Nobody wants to watch 6's reports. What they want is regular news. The shootings, the fires, the murders, breaking up-to-the-minute information. If WLNE wants to continue to go the way they're going, they why are they even still on the air? They outta just die and rott in hell if they're not going to change. I'd love to see an image makeover, but they're never gonna get the money. So why bother continuing? They could at least try to ante up their breaking news operation. But why am I saying this. They're not going to do anything.
 
Ethan --

I understand your passion about WLNE. I was in your shoes about 20 years ago. I was a college student in Providence and, similar to today, WJAR was #1 and WPRI was #2. WTEV has just changed its call letter to WLNE and built its current facility in Downtown Providence. In the mid-80, WLNE tried their best to be a hard news station with a great newsteam: Dave Layman, Ann Conway, Ken Bell, and John Ghiorse. This team really tried to outhustle everyone -- even Dave or Ann would go to a story between the 6pm and 11pm news.

At the time, they still had a newsroom in New Bedford and had their Massachusetts reporter, Barbara Meagher, reporting live from there each night (with a story and a couple of minutes of Massachusetts news). This was arguably the best newscast that WLNE has put on. However, they still remained a solid #3 in the ratings.

Even if WLNE's news budget were doubled tomorrow, they would remain mired in third place. Trust me, I've been rooting for them for years.
 
That's alright. Obviously if it hasn't changed for 20 years, it's not going to change now or later. As long as a station has a good image, then they're still in. Look at CBS4 in Boston. 3rd place but still an Emmy-winning image. Nothing logical can be done to bring ABC6 out of 3rd Place, but that doesn't mean all their operations should be any less of high quality, 21st century standards. I've said over and over again what I want to see at 6. But they have no money and are never going to get any money. And it seems like they're not going to get off the pot and cease their crappy good-news special projects unit in favor of hard-hitting breaking news and exclusive 24/7 coverage. The rich, 10 and 12, get richer and the poor get poorer. So that's why I say you gave it a shot, it didn't work, so sign-off. It's painful to still see 6 on the air.
 
Well, they would have more money to devote to news if they hadn't hired Walter Cryan back. Did they really think that Walter was going to attract that many more viewers?

Obviously, something drastic needs to happen. I always wondered if WLNE pared their newscasts back to 6pm and 11pm only and focused more on SE Massachusetts, then they might have more viewers than they do today. It's too bad they closed their New Bedford facilities.
 
It's sad to see that Channel 6 has tried their best all these years only to always be stuck in last place no matter what they do. I've said this before...... and I am increasingly serious about it each day. Hire some Bikini Weather girls and give people a reason to tune in. WLNE has actually got to shock the public into noticing them. Give people something to talk about. Then maybe they will have a chance.
 
Forget it. Nothing logical can happen to bring 6 to the light. Nothing is possible. I'm sorry to say it, but just hang up the mics and shut down. Or if it's possible, change your image. I hate the boring graphics. I hate the doesn't-even-sound-like StarTrak music. And conflabit, I hate the way they cover the news, not their crap brand of fantasy news. You may forever be 3rd place but that doesn't mean to not care about anything. But why am I talking? Nothing's going to change. So why don't they just give up?
 
It's really too bad that people in Rhode Island feel that we would be better off with two stations giving us news rather than three.The less stations you have, the smaller chance you have for diverse news and opinions. As it is, the Projo controls the the newspaper market and much of the opinions in this state. I believe that is was wrong for ABC 6 not to cover the fire, they should have run tape back and forth. With that said, however, it was midnight and the story was not turning into a major development. I am sure very few people were watching to begin with. I think ABC 6 does a great job with their special series reports, they found a niche. I also think they finally found the right anchor for the morning, John DeLuca. I'm a fan of the new 6 questions segment.
FInally I must add that NBC 10 coverage of the fire was right out of SNL. Gene is a total professional, but the performance from Patrice Wood and Brian Crandle was just plain awful. Now I know why they work in market 51.
 
Well I learned something very important from this event. Never to rely on ABC 6 when my life is at stake. If that smoke had turned out to be Toxic as it drifted over my house, I would have been as good as dead. Watching Jimmy Kimmel one minute and laying on my floor in a coma the next. I don't care how bad you think Patrice Wood and Brian Crandle were. It was still a hundred times better than what WLNE did.
 
I couldn't have said it better myself. Seriously, 6 is just wasting airtime. They need to pack it up and cease news operations if they plan on staying where they're at right now. Do they do the things they do on purpose? Do they care about the news or not? Their special reports are not what the people want. Haven't they figured it out? They've tried everything and nothing worked. Just die and rot in hell!
 
The special reports get the same exact ratings as when they did the same content as 10 and 12. As I said above I think it was a huge mistake for ABC 6 to not cover the fire and I think that they are at a large disadvantage without a satellite truck. I do not, however, think it is time to shut down shop. That's just foolish. The newscast they do put on is very professional and they have two gems in Mark Searles and April O'Dell. The station has made a decision to not produce a traditional local newscast. In some ways their newscasts are closer to a newsmagazine like Chronicle. You just can no longer compare them to 10 or 12 and I wish they would promote themselves that way instead of confusing viewers such as Ethan who turn to them for breaking news events.
 
what they need to do is be sold. have an owner that will put money into the newsroom, buy new equipment, new sets, hell a whole new studio would be nice. what helped wpri above everything else was the money that was put into their newsroom.
 
It's proven time and time again that you need to watch Channel 12 for breaking news. I'm not saying this just because I'm an employee of LIN Television. However, WPRI has proven more than once (the May ratings prove it) that Channel 10 is following the coat tails of Channel 12. Channel 12 set the "breaking news" precedent in this market over four years ago...the graphics, the music, etc. Channel 10 followed suit with the flashier-than-usual graphics, "opens" for every story like 12 does, the list goes on. Channel 10 does beat Channel 12 on some stories, but over the recent weeks, it's been the other way around.

Channel 10 doesn't assign Gene to cover those kinds of "breaking news" stories. He puts himself on the story. I think it's just an overblown ego problem. Gene is an anchor. Folks like Crandall are the field reporters. Let the field reporters do their job, and the anchor should be in studio, doing their job.
 
Well I feel perfectly comfortable relying on both WPRI and WJAR for Breaking News. I know that both stations will be there to cover anything important that happens in Southern New England. Whenever tuned into those two stations I know that I will never miss anything happening in my neighborhood. However I think a Bomb could go off in the city and Channel 6 wouldn't even cover it.

I agree that WLNE needs to be sold to someone who will pump money into them. They are at a distinct disadvantage right now. No satellite truck , No Common sense. Can't even drive tapes back to the station in a quick manner. I don't know what else to say about them. They just arn't on the ball.

We could fast forward 20 years into the future and they will probably have the same problems. I would Love nothing more than for ABC to buy these guys and run WLNE like a Network. It would be awsome to see Channel 6 becaome such a good station that they just bury Channels 10 and 12 in the ratings. So YES>>>>> I am definitely rooting for the underdog. That would be an incredible thing to see. Perhaps just a dream..... but how awsome would that be?

But for now...... they should just take a break, regroup , organize , come up with a totally new plan and then return when they can at least make it look like they are trying.
 
I'm not confused. I turn to 6 because I'm waiting for the day that they shatter the competition with their ultimate breaking news coverage. But that day is not going to happen because the 6 staff is just chillaxin in the newsroom playing paddleball while 12, and even 10, once again, informs us of all area breaking news like there's no tomorrow. 6 doesn't do anything, agree? What I saw on Tuesday night was gut-wrenching. They went on with the newscast as if nothing was going on. The least they could have done was tell us that there was a tanker fire at the Port of Providence and that they had crews on the scene and will bring the latest updates as they become available. You know, they don't deserve to operate that Rhode Island News Channel. The reason I used to harrass 6 with my crap was because I was and still am tired of their dull image and want to see a new one. Don't the rest of you want to see a new image on ABC6? Would y'all like to see hard-hitting graphics and the best-sounding music out there, instead of the crap they have now? They may never be on top, but a good image and upgraded news operation is all they need to get good recognition.
 
Yes Ethan. I would like to see ABC6 change. New set, new graphics, new music, better coverage. I would love to see all of that. Unfortunately they seem to spend the little money they get in all the wrong places. Walter Cryan is great, but he didn't result in a change of viewing habits. They would have been much better off spending that money on a new set and updated music. That is something that may have helped a lot more. Hopefully at some point they will learn from these mistakes they make.
 
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