It’s possible that you are answering your own questions as to why this was an epic failure?
1. Of course, planning must take place beforehand, INDEED. Everyone knew a storm of massive proportions was arriving several days before it happened. Not a soul could do this? They likely have a bigger staff than WBEN.
By "in advance" I meant months and years with the appropriate budgeting, planning, installation and training. I did not mean, "oh, a storm is coming so we gotta' put something together". For most of the needs, that is too late.
2. I don’t know of any news station that doesn’t have the ability to broadcast from anywhere. It’s 2022. This has been the case for many years. I’m aware of a station in Buffalo that even provides live programming for a station in the Florida Keys. 680 News reporters and anchors in Toronto can take to the air in Montreal or Vancouver if need be.
Yes, but the systems, "synchronized software" and things like passwords and access permissions need to be done in advance. In every case you mention, a system was in place long before it was needed.
3. WBFO has state of the art equipment. Their reporters send back audio all the time. Even all the religious stations are fed from elsewhere. We have a broadcaster in Guelph that does live customized updates and cut ins for their company on several stations in Ontario. As well, there are religious stations in tiny towns that broadcast to and from Buffalo every day. If they can’t feed their transmitter from elsewhere, that’s an engineering failure.
Again, the software and connectivity have to be set up in advance and the people who are available to do reports or live broadcasts from home or another location need to have systems in place in advance.
4. If the staff wasn’t trained on the equipment, that is a fail, as well. Why weren’t they trained if that were the case?
That is my point. You need the equipment, installation at possible needed locations or on portable devices like laptops or even cellphones, and training.... and training refreshers and updates.
5. If their previous news director who commented here and her/his staff could do this sort of thing from their homes 12 years ago, of course they could do it now.
Not necessarily. Tech has changed immensely in 12 years, with nearly all stations moving from analog audio moving through wires to digital audio moving through optical systems. If they either did not yet update, or did not train on an update, it is as good as not having the system at all.
6. As far as “We only need one station,” WBEN, to broadcast is concerned, 90% of listening is done on FM. How much of a share does WBEN have of just that piddly 10% of the listeners?
Last I checked, radios have a thing called a "dial" and people can look quite easily for a station that is covering news. There is no need to have every station covering this kind of event, particularly since the staff at most stations is neither trained nor qualified to do anything except take calls with "how much snow is in your driveway now?" type conversations.
If the transmitter didn’t work, they have other options, such as continuing to broadcast on line or putting their vital programming on one of their FM stations. They put the WGR Sabres game on WBEN when there was a Bills conflict.
In this case, we are talking about a station that did not have another "sister" station. It's an NPR station, and what we don't know is what prevented them from going "all in" to cover this storm. It may be as simple as "nobody was in town and available to set things in motion" to some kind of facilities issue like "no power at the studios and the genny would not start".
7. If # 6 were true, then why do listeners support WBFO, and I assume there is at least some public funding for public radio in the States? Do they do this solely for NPR?
The station is probably not supported by listeners for its breaking news coverage but for its breadth of national NPR product as well as local origination.
8. I assume those who look for reasons to excuse such an epic failure, think of radio as an automated music service. A local news station is not at all the same as a voice-tracked playlist. So, if that’s the case, who needs radio? Satellite and Spotify are way better because they don’t run 20 minutes of commercials.
This was not a "breaking news" station. It's a local NPR affiliate which appears to have been either ill-prepared for a huge weather event on a weekend or which had internal technical or staffpower issues that impeded doing anything significant. Until we know "the rest of the story" it is hard to place blame on anyone.
9. I also assume those who don’t think it’s a big deal, never worked for a radio or TV news organization. When you work at one, it goes without saying, you are basically like a first responder when a disaster happens. This is a job for journalists, not DJs. Perhaps people with a radio news background could chime in?
Not every station is prepared for "first response". In fact, knowing this the EAS is set up to activate even if many stations are unmanned at night and on weekends... while most have no newspeople on the staff qualified to do anything original anyway.
10. How did WBEN get their staff to work and broadcast? Somehow they did.
They are obviously better prepared. And whatever system they had, it worked.
11. Has WBFO even made a statement on why they didn’t cover this story of life and limb?
Perhaps they are trying to figure out what went wrong. And that means not blaming past failures but looking on how to make sure this is not repeated. Of course, this is a storm not seen for nearly a half-century so they may simply have been overwhelmed.
12. This also isn’t about putting any reporters in harm’s way. You can gather information and make calls and put things together from the safety and comfort of your own home. You have internet, as well. You don’t have to stand in a snowbank with a whiteout and 100 kph winds to provide vital information for the community.
Again, we don't know why the station could not do this. It may have been an inability to connect "outsiders" with the studio, or issues at the studio that prevented live broadcasts. Or something else entirely. We don't yet know.
Someone decided a storm that killed 40 people wasn’t important. And if some catastrophe struck where they couldn’t get a feed, did they not have a strategic alliance in place with a TV station to run audio minus commercials or the Buffalo News to partner? CBC and NPR stations in cities across our countries do. I was in Northern California during the fires and the NPR station was running the audio from a commercial TV station that was providing commercial-free coverage. Presumably the NPR station studios had burned.
Again. Again. We don't know why things like this were not done. Obviously, human error, lack of operating equipment, lack of training, unavailable staff and similar things come to mind but we don't know yet what the reason was.
Why hasn’t WBFO made a statement saying what happened? No one was reachable for comment nor returned calls! Others, unrelated to the station have said there was a pipe that gave out elsewhere in the building. That is not an excuse for a station that had no trouble being on the air.
The station may have been on autopilot. I've been in stations that were evacuated due to bombs, fire alarms, hostage-taking guerrillas, earthquake damage and hurricanes and the like where the automation was running and "lights were on but nobody was home".
And reporters are most certainly equipped to report or they wouldn’t be reporters. No one would have to leave their home.
Not if they can't get "into" the system. It's unknown what happened, so this is just conjecture now.
Who is their news director now? What did she or he do?
If systems were down, the simple answer is "nothing".
I see no excuse and one has not been presented by anyone but people on the board that make excuses for them. If WBEN didn’t cover the story, there would be outrage. Of course that anger might also have to do with WBEN employing some ridiculous right wing program hosts.
Storms have nothing to do with the political philosophy of talk hosts. Let's not get off on a tangent when the simple question is, "what happened that prevented them from doing storm coverage when many think that such a station should have immediately focused on that issue?"
