Stay Classy, Bismarck

[michael hagerty]

To be a good anchor, you have to be a good reporter. This is what happens when your hire an entry level staffer. No one with any experience... OK, a few people with experience would have known better.

Bismarck is an entry-level market. In fact, it looks like it may not even be a Neilsen-rated market. Anyplace much below market #100 hires fresh out of college, and few stay more than a year (if that) before moving on to higher-paying jobs in bigger markets.

It's Market #151.

Yep. There it is. Thanks, Keith.

Point remains...this is the talent you get below (and increasingly above) market 100.

 

[azumanga]

“@ClementeAJ: Unfortunately KFYRTV has decided to let me go. Thank you to them and everyone in ND for the opportunity and everyone for the support.”

On that note, I just hope he was staying in an extended stay suite, and not been engaged in buying a house or getting into a lease.

 

[michael hagerty]

“@ClementeAJ: Unfortunately KFYRTV has decided to let me go. Thank you to them and everyone in ND for the opportunity and everyone for the support.”

On that note, I just hope he was staying in an extended stay suite, and not been engaged in buying a house or getting into a lease.

I read his twitter feed last night. He'd leased an apartment, just got cable....

 

[LKellerIII]

To be a good anchor, you have to be a good reporter. This is what happens when your hire an entry level staffer. No one with any experience... OK, a few people with experience would have known better.

Bismarck is an entry-level market. In fact, it looks like it may not even be a Neilsen-rated market. Anyplace much below market #100 hires fresh out of college, and few stay more than a year (if that) before moving on to higher-paying jobs in bigger markets.

It's Market #151.

Yep. There it is. Thanks, Keith.

Point remains...this is the talent you get below (and increasingly above) market 100.

I spend some time in Redding, California (population of the entire area, including surrounding towns probably a bit over 100,000). The few seconds of that Bismarck newscast reminded me of Redding TV news, with their young, intern-like, wooden, and inexperienced anchors. A number of well known anchors (notably Kate Kelley, who retired from KPIX) started in Redding, but I'm sure she wasn't great in her Redding days.

Redding is market # 128 - so a bit larger than Bismarck.

 

[michael hagerty]

Elizabeth Vargas from ABC News, Tony Kovaleski from the NBC station in San Francisco, Jodi Applegate (various NYC stations) and I all started at KTVN in Reno (market 132 at the time) within a few years of each other. We all were a lot closer to what you see on that Bismarck clip when we started than what we were when we left (all of us, separately, to KTVK in Phoenix, then market 20).

And it happens to pros. Sue Simmoms, #1 anchorwoman at #1 WNBC in #1 New York...under very similar circumstances, four or five years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYAMDhVT50I

She's still employed, and delivered the on-air apology herself. That probably would have been adequate punishment for young A.J.

 

[TheRob]

Profanity aside, I don't remember small-market anchors being that bad. I wonder if KFYR hires the first person willing to endure eight months of winter and $9/hour in salary.

 

[michael hagerty]

Profanity aside, I don't remember small-market anchors being that bad. I wonder if KFYR hires the first person willing to endure eight months of winter and $9/hour in salary.

Well, remember what happened seconds before. I don't know if he knew, but she certainly did, and I'll bet the director and producer were both screaming down the IFB (the earpiece both anchors wear so they can get cues and updates).

I took a look at the station's website. There's a surprising number of people (including the news director) who've been there a lot of years.

I really think the profanity was pre-recorded. The read before it didn't go that badly. But if it was take number 8 million and he was frustrated, it makes sense.

 

[BD Sullivan]

Another market/area that has a high turnover rate (as in newcomers getting just enough video to market themselves into a bigger city) is Charleston/Huntington/Wheeling.

 

[rnigma1]

Wasn't there a floor director? I did floor directing/camera op for a while and if the anchors were conversing with each other and I got the standby from the director, I shouted "STAND BY" loudly enough to get their attention. And the anchors usually clammed up and got ready for their cue.

 

[michael hagerty]

Wasn't there a floor director? I did floor directing/camera op for a while and if the anchors were conversing with each other and I got the standby from the director, I shouted "STAND BY" loudly enough to get their attention. And the anchors usually clammed up and got ready for their cue.

Floor directors are a lot less common since automated cameras. And if he pre-recorded that tease, it wouldn't have mattered.

 

[rnigma1]

The station where I worked still kept a floor director after installing a Parkervision/Ignite system.
And even if there was no floor director, the director or AP could have given them the standby over the IFB or talk-back.

I don't see how the profanity could have been canned. When one records a tease, it's SOP to play it back and check it before air. Unless that anchor really was that green.

 

[michael hagerty]

The station where I worked still kept a floor director after installing a Parkervision/Ignite system.
And even if there was no floor director, the director or AP could have given them the standby over the IFB or talk-back.

I don't see how the profanity could have been canned. When one records a tease, it's SOP to play it back and check it before air. Unless that anchor really was that green.

He was. He'd been at the station about a week. First TV gig.

Look at the video when the show open ends. His lips are moving, but they don't match the profanity. He appears to be quietly reading his first script aloud.

My bet is he recorded the tease that came before the show open. It was probably multiple takes. He swore after, forgetting to turn off the mic. If he put them far enough behind deadline cutting that track, it could be that the control room rolled the video and the audio separately, not having time to edit the tease together. At that point, all they had to do was not pot the audio down and it's on the air.

 

[TheRob]

Even though we have automation, we still use a floor director. When I worked in small-market TV, we did not have a floor director separate from the camera operators. I doubt KFYR does either.

According to his Twitter account, he was trying to pronounce the name of the London marathon winner's name, which is the "K" you hear before the profanity. I think he said those words live, not in a pre-recorded tease, even though the lip sync in the video is a bit off the mark.

 

[OldNumber7]

Profanity aside, I don't remember small-market anchors being that bad. I wonder if KFYR hires the first person willing to endure eight months of winter and $9/hour in salary.

Well, remember what happened seconds before. I don't know if he knew, but she certainly did, and I'll bet the director and producer were both screaming down the IFB (the earpiece both anchors wear so they can get cues and updates).

I took a look at the station's website. There's a surprising number of people (including the news director) who've been there a lot of years.

I really think the profanity was pre-recorded. The read before it didn't go that badly. But if it was take number 8 million and he was frustrated, it makes sense.

Aside from the swearing, the 90 second clip I saw showed a LOT wrong with the newscast, especially if many folks there have been there a while.
Here's just some of the ****-ups I caught:
1) The opening tease is BAD, to paraphrase: "Local group takes to the ice for the disabled; five dead in an avalanche." Talk about putting a downer on things.
2) The anchors have NO poise, whether or not they were rattled by what happened. They had no chemistry, and whose bright idea was it to have the guy give his bio at the top of the news? And why couldnt they speak in sentences? "I'm kinda used to, you know, being from the East Coast." Great, always tell your viewers you are a stranger in their town.
3) The first two stories (the only two I saw) were not written in broadcast style. And the order made no sense (local fatal accident followed by London Marathon).
4) The chyron for the first story said in small print almost everything the guy was reading. The London story made nonspecific references to Boston without a phrase giving the context.

Bad copy, bad leads, bad chyron work, bad teases, bad anchors. The News Director, IMHO, has a lot to answer for.

 

[michael hagerty]

Profanity aside, I don't remember small-market anchors being that bad. I wonder if KFYR hires the first person willing to endure eight months of winter and $9/hour in salary.

Well, remember what happened seconds before. I don't know if he knew, but she certainly did, and I'll bet the director and producer were both screaming down the IFB (the earpiece both anchors wear so they can get cues and updates).

I took a look at the station's website. There's a surprising number of people (including the news director) who've been there a lot of years.

I really think the profanity was pre-recorded. The read before it didn't go that badly. But if it was take number 8 million and he was frustrated, it makes sense.

Aside from the swearing, the 90 second clip I saw showed a LOT wrong with the newscast, especially if many folks there have been there a while.
Here's just some of the ****-ups I caught:
1) The opening tease is BAD, to paraphrase: "Local group takes to the ice for the disabled; five dead in an avalanche." Talk about putting a downer on things.
2) The anchors have NO poise, whether or not they were rattled by what happened. They had no chemistry, and whose bright idea was it to have the guy give his bio at the top of the news? And why couldnt they speak in sentences? "I'm kinda used to, you know, being from the East Coast." Great, always tell your viewers you are a stranger in their town.
3) The first two stories (the only two I saw) were not written in broadcast style. And the order made no sense (local fatal accident followed by London Marathon).
4) The chyron for the first story said in small print almost everything the guy was reading. The London story made nonspecific references to Boston without a phrase giving the context.

Bad copy, bad leads, bad chyron work, bad teases, bad anchors. The News Director, IMHO, has a lot to answer for.

The problem is a lot of small markets have people who've stuck around...but they all work weekdays. The newsroom ends up staffed by the least experienced people on the weekend.

All your points of what's wrong are dead on. Makes me wonder if the anchors themselves produce the newscast. I doubt even a straight-out-of-school producer would make those errors.

 

[jh]

All your points of what's wrong are dead on. Makes me wonder if the anchors themselves produce the newscast. I doubt even a straight-out-of-school producer would make those errors.

I imagine they produced it themselves. TV in small markets gets by with few people these days. We have a local station with a 2-hour early AM newscast (5-7am weekdays), there are three people in the building... the director, the anchor, and the meteorologist. No camera operators, no floor manager, no producer.

 

[michael hagerty]

Some more digging shows that Van Tieu, the co-anchor, is from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and until recently worked as an Associate Producer for Piers Morgan's show on CNN.

 

[michael hagerty]

And I was wrong about it being a pre-recorded thing.

AJ has tweeted that he was pre-reading a script, came across London Marathon winner Tsegaye Kebede's name, struggled with it and said the two words, not knowing the show had begun and his mic was open.

 

[1069_KIFR]

The clip made a segment on Letterman tonight in a bit called, "Welcome Aboard, AJ!"

 

[michael hagerty]

The clip made a segment on Letterman tonight in a bit called, "Welcome Aboard, AJ!"

Apparently, the Top 10 list focused on it, too.