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The Elephant In The Room With News 92

J

johndavis

You have a AP report estimating the cost of cities policing the Occupy protests. You want to localize it.

Do you:

a. Call or visit HPD to ask them if they've had to deploy extra resources to Tranquility Park?
b. Visit Tranquility Park and get comment from local Occupy organizers?
c. Do a phone interview with the Harris County GOP?

If you're News 92, you pick C. And that's the Elephant in the room with their political reporting. It's all single sourced, and their sources on political stories are overwhelmingly right wing. For a station that's claiming to be "centrist" and "zero spin" the stories don't back it up.

They may be as exciting to listen to as the sound of paint drying, but I don't hear single sourced stories on KUHF. They'll make the second phone call and get a counterpoint. That's called journalism.
 
I don't know when you were listening, but I'm pretty sure I heard choice A last week, a discussion with a HPD representative.
 
stan said:
I don't know when you were listening, but I'm pretty sure I heard choice A last week, a discussion with a HPD representative.
Click to expand...

Choice C aired this morning. A would be the better story.
 
Why is a phone call / interview to the Harris County GOP even relevant? Seems like another attempt to compare the Occupy people to the Tea Party, which was always a stretch for the media a few weeks ago, anyway. The Occupy movement, isn't much of a movement anymore. It's last month's news story. The biggest news stories of the weekend - the Whitehouse Christmas tree being delivered - Black Friday mayhem. Responsible journalism doesn't continue to fuel a story for the sake of having something to talk or write about. It's knowing when to move on to the next story.
 
Did anyone think options A & B could not be arranged before the 'deadline' required by the ND? Not everyone is available all the time. Sure, reaching the Occupy folks is different but would it require a physical trip out there to call back in? If so, maybe they had their hands full at the time. One station where I worked, stories developed over time and other sources were aired as their comments came available. Sure the GOP was not the best source, but perhaps we should be sure it was 'choice' or if it was their only option at that time.

Still, if this was a choice, these comments might really help them to focus on what they learned long ago instead of the way news has been done in more recent years. Habits are always hard to break and your contact book reflects this. Let's wait and see how they evolve. It is so early on, I bet there are so many bugs in the system it would make an exterminator salivate.
 
The "No Spin" motto should be posted in the cubicle of every news gatherer there, and in the studio in full view of the anchors. So far it's fodder for promos and that's it, so much so that they often border on Fox News: "we report distort, you decide we've decided for you" (alright, that's a cheap shot, but hopefully it illustrates a point).

johndavis said:
Choice C aired this morning. A would be the better story.
Click to expand...

I agree with the original observation and I'm also aware that sources which would give balance to a story often aren't available, but sometimes it's best to scrap the comments and simply report the story. After 9 AM especially, listening at length to Houston's FM News Station becomes tedious for me, and frankly disappointing so far.
 
You are correct. Holding a story is not a bad idea when the best sources might not be available.

I was rather shocked by the 'no spin' addition to the 100% News liner. It seems to be pretty useless to include 'no spin' in the liner. How about "News on your schedule...all day, all night, every day. News when you want it on 92 News FM"
 
I really want News 92 to succeed. They don't sound right-wing to me, at all. That said, here's my unsolicited programming advice: Make it MOVE a bit. It's fine to have a story about the Galveston bla-bla city council or whatever, but don't let the yokel down there talk for a FULL MINUTE! Chop him up into bytes, if you must run the story. And with that tight a story cycle, better rewrite...a lot! Some anchors seem better at that than others. Oh yeah, what's with the levels? Some actualities are barely audible, and even two people in the same booth sound very different. Different mics, eq, something. Finally, what's with Soul Traffic in the afternoon? Broadcast journalism ought to start out with proper accent-free English.
 
I didn't hear the story in the original post. But the fact that "C" was even an option means their "no spin" line is BS. The county GOP means absolutely nothing in that context, thus their journalism credibility is zero!

Am also in agreement about how the presentation drags on and on. There needs to be production values, shorter stories, etc. They pushed back their sign on a few times, they've been on the air for a week or so and still sound much too stilted, windy and boring. It's early on in the process, but failure to correct the basic broadcasting side of all news now could hamper their success.

The people running this station know better.
 
One more thing. If this is supposed to be a "local" news station, why is there no "local" content on their website (except traffic and weather links)? Even KTRH has a couple of local stories and an Astros poll. I'm certainly not one to shill for Clear Channel, and find their misguided strategic attempt to blunt 92 FM pathetic and sad. The people in charge there simply do not take the news portion of their station seriously.

That being said, the strategy from FM 92 is as much of a joke. They trumpet "local NEWS" and fall short not only on air, but fall far short on their own website. Perhaps it's a con. Perhaps they really didn't put enough thought into how they would handle all the aspects of delivering on the promise. We are all taught to under promise and over perform. Marketing experts always tell us that there is only one chance to make a first impression. Radio One must have been absent those days.
 
smartestguyintheroom said:
I didn't hear the story in the original post. But the fact that "C" was even an option means their "no spin" line is BS. The county GOP means absolutely nothing in that context, thus their journalism credibility is zero!

Am also in agreement about how the presentation drags on and on. There needs to be production values, shorter stories, etc. They pushed back their sign on a few times, they've been on the air for a week or so and still sound much too stilted, windy and boring. It's early on in the process, but failure to correct the basic broadcasting side of all news now could hamper their success.

The people running this station know better.
Click to expand...


Hold it! In the 1st place, go back and read John's starting post. Those were the options HE presented. He never stated that it was News 92's options. How do we know they didn't contact someone from the Democrat party? Perhaps they did not want to comment or were not reachable at that time. We really don't know how many options that they explored. This was John's suggestion based on what he heard. John works for Cox (at least he was the last time I heard), not for Radio One. I work for Salem and not Radio One. Neither one of us know how many options they really explored. 2ndly, why is the GOP not a credible source for a comment? Again they MAY have used what they had at that time to get the story on the air. That does NOT make them a unreliable source.

News 92 is a work in progress. They are going to spend their time fine tuning on their presentation. They are not going have a knee jerk reaction to criticism and change just to appease anyone. I have confidence that it will improve. I only hope that Radio One will give them the time they need to let it grow.

If anyone really wants to know the how and why, call them.


 
Chuck Tiller said:
Hold it! In the 1st place, go back and read John's starting post. Those were the options HE presented. He never stated that it was News 92's options.
Click to expand...

I'm looking at this from a journalistic perspective.

You are doing a story that involves Occupy protesters and HPD.

Why would you call ANY county political party for comment on that story, be they Republican, Democratic, Green, or otherwise?

My opinions are my own and do not represent anyone else.
 
Inasmuch as the "Occupy" protest movement is, by and large, made up of Democrats, liberals and outright far-left Marxists, I say it makes perfect sense to ask for comment from people on the other side of that political divide.

You seem to be saying the "Occupy" protests aren't political. If they're not political, what are they?

The "Occupiers" speak for the Left, and the Republicans speak for the Right. I call that balanced reporting.
 
From what I've heard from the Occupiers, they don't know or understand what they believe. But, from a purely journalistic perspective, continuing to cover a non-story when you're already struggling for relevant material about it is just filling up time on your newscast. Stop wasting time on a subject nobody cares about anymore, put a reporter on the street and go find the next big story. There's plenty of other current news stories out there. Hell, Herman Cain is, singlehandedly, providing them with a bucketload of new content every week. And Rick Perry is still giving them new material.
 
Irrespective of what the Occupiers believe, or which side of the political divide they're on, this conversation is about how News 92 covered what they were doing.

It is far from being a "non-story", as suggested by mrbeasley. It is part of what is going on everywhere in this country, because it is a reflection of our muddled national political and economic climate. As incoherent as the Occupiers seem to be, they are a symptom of that muddle.

Having said all that, it is probably true that they are getting more attention than they deserve. If I were a news director, I would have my reporters looking for other "more coherent" symptoms of our national political and economic muddle.

As for mrbeasley's suggestions, the national political adventures of Herman Cain and Rick Perry are national stories, not local. I've always thought it's a waste of a local station's valuable time and a duplication of effort to cover national stories that are already covered thoroughly by the national network that comes on at the top of every hour. But that's just me.
 
I have to agree with you Filo. They really do need to put some local feelers out and sniff out the stories we don't hear. I can get all the national news I want from any number of sources, all day long.

Unfortunately, radio seems to have taken the easy way out. Instead of sending their own reporters out to cover local news; they wait for the newspaper or TV people to decide what the most important stories are. Then they jump on those.

The Occupy movement in Houston was a local story worthy of coverage. But, I don't remember that any radio stations actually went in and covered it. TV even gave it short shrift. I suppose that was because it didn't get out of hand like it did in other markets. And it could be the apathy (that muddle you referred to) of Hoouston listeners / viewers. Nothing surprises us much in this market.

As we heard from Dan Rather, at Sam Houston, once upon a time, a good journalist doesn't just cover the story. They have to convince us why we should care.
 
***Instead of sending their own reporters out to cover local news; they wait for the newspaper or TV people to decide what the most important stories are.***

That is nothing new in Houston TV and radio. I know from personal experience that from the 70s through the 90s news directors at KTRH and other radio stations would cut stories out of the morning papers and pass them out to those in the newsroom with the word "Reaction?" penciled at the top. "Enterprise journalism" was a foreign concept. Nobody had the time, or didn't want to bother with it.

Over that same period, I could read the morning paper and point out to my wife which stories we could count on seeing on the evening local TV news. I was rarely wrong. And they still do it.
 
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