WBFO Has Imploded

[TheBigA]

Do you and CTListener opine and complain on this board, or is it just me?

It's just you.

 

[TheBigA]

So, the only question to be asked right now is "why was no attempt to cover the storm in alternative fashion not evidenced on the air?"

I'm sure Mr. Pergament will ask the question next week and will write a very detailed story about it in the Buffalo News.

 

[tvnut]

Point well-taken, tvnut.

I’m not sure my “help” would be considered, but I certainly plan to inquire with the two with whom I’m friends. Neither individual works at the stations, but merely hold Trustee positions.

Do you and CTListener opine and complain on this board, or is it just me?

Of course, there’s certainly no requirement to read my “dissertation.” Admittedly, not written with respect to today’s attention spans, as my children and colleagues have often pointed out (laugh).

You may agree or disagree, but is that not what a discussion board is about?

I find healthy discussion to be an engagement of thought, and I do happen to have passion for things of this sort. If you find that objectionable, I’m sorry to offend your sensibilities and encourage you to scroll past my posts with no offence taken.

While I am familiar with the operation through various channels over many years, I have no direct affiliation with it and I certainly didn’t mean to imply that I do. These two individuals happen to be friends. As well, they aren’t carrying microphones and filing stories, to be sure. They might simply pat me on the head and tell me to bug out.

I simply was quite surprised and disappointed to see such a major lapse.

Seems my comments are disagreeable to you. Your on-point comment that I should take my opinions to them, is certainly quite fair, reasonable and appreciated.

May I respectfully ask you and CTListener for your actual learned thoughts on the matter at hand?

Who assumes I’m a “he?” (humour)

No offense was taken, nor do I disagree. It was just so detailed, I thought you had inside knowledge. I'm a big believer in severe storm coverage, whether winter or summer. We have it in great volume in Chicago on both radio and TV. Good luck when you chat with your pals. Have a great – and snowless as much as possible – new year.

 

[Tower590]

As I said before, "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."

An evaluation has to start with "who was in command" at the time the storm was building up and what did they do to prepare? Someone, was responsible. If that person was unavailable because they were on a Summer cruise to Antarctica, who was their delegate?

Someone had to have been responsible for a decision to kill the national feed and go local... and why didn't they do that?

If a station does not have a captain, then there is an internal management problem. Whether they could have fed audio from other locations or tried to seek alternate origination facilities is all logistics that affect implementing a management decision as to how to cover the storm.

So, the only question to be asked right now is "why was an attempt to cover the storm in alternative fashion not evidenced on the air?"

Bingo!!!

 

[CTListener]

With regard to my expectations for storm coverage -- as a listener with a background in print, not radio -- I admit that the local NPR affiliate is not where I think of looking for information first. Back in Connecticut, my home for 40 years until late 2021, if my internet service was out, I'd dust off the portable radio and check out WTIC(AM). After that ... I don't know. Maybe I'd scan the AM and FM dials and see if anyone else was saying anything about the weather. Maybe I'd call friends and co-workers (I had a landline right to the end.) and check with them. Or maybe I'd just light a few candles, walk around with a flashlight and look out the window once in a while.

If I wouldn't think of NPR first in urban Connecticut, I wouldn't think of it at all here in rural Vermont. The local stations are WVPR in Windsor and WNCH in Norwich, but "local" programming on both comes from Colchester, near Burlington, on the other side of the state, and weather here seldom resembles weather there. News programming on WVPR, outside of the national morning and afternoon shows, consists of thoughtful political coverage and feature stories about quirky Vermont history, people and places, not breaking weather news. WNCH broadcasts no news at all, just classical music 24/7 on weekdays and various other genres along with classical on weekends, much of it from those Burlington-area studios. So when we have a storm brewing, I stock up on food and emergency supplies in the preceding days, then just stay home and wait out the weather. Maybe I'll turn on the radio and listen to WNCH, or one of the country stations. Maybe I'll just head to bed. It's not a particularly exciting lifestyle, and I have no desire to complicate it any more than necessary by worrying about nature. Sorry, Vermont Public Radio. I didn't care about what you were doing when the storm was going on, and I'm not going to blame you for not being there to provide information that I wouldn't have any need for in the first place, given that I was not driving or otherwise placing myself in danger.

 

[Tower590]

No offense was taken, nor do I disagree. It was just so detailed, I thought you had inside knowledge. I'm a big believer in severe storm coverage, whether winter or summer. We have it in great volume in Chicago on both radio and TV. Good luck when you chat with your pals. Have a great – and snowless as much as possible – new year.

Thank you for your thoughtful and gracious response.

Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year!

 

[Tower590]

With regard to my expectations for storm coverage -- as a listener with a background in print, not radio -- I admit that the local NPR affiliate is not where I think of looking for information first. Back in Connecticut, my home for 40 years until late 2021, if my internet service was out, I'd dust off the portable radio and check out WTIC(AM). After that ... I don't know. Maybe I'd scan the AM and FM dials and see if anyone else was saying anything about the weather. Maybe I'd call friends and co-workers (I had a landline right to the end.) and check with them. Or maybe I'd just light a few candles, walk around with a flashlight and look out the window once in a while.

If I wouldn't think of NPR first in urban Connecticut, I wouldn't think of it at all here in rural Vermont. The local stations are WVPR in Windsor and WNCH in Norwich, but "local" programming on both comes from Colchester, near Burlington, on the other side of the state, and weather here seldom resembles weather there. News programming on WVPR, outside of the national morning and afternoon shows, consists of thoughtful political coverage and feature stories about quirky Vermont history, people and places, not breaking weather news. WNCH broadcasts no news at all, just classical music 24/7 on weekdays and various other genres along with classical on weekends, much of it from those Burlington-area studios. So when we have a storm brewing, I stock up on food and emergency supplies in the preceding days, then just stay home and wait out the weather. Maybe I'll turn on the radio and listen to WNCH, or one of the country stations. Maybe I'll just head to bed. It's not a particularly exciting lifestyle, and I have no desire to complicate it any more than necessary by worrying about nature. Sorry, Vermont Public Radio. I didn't care about what you were doing when the storm was going on, and I'm not going to blame you for not being there to provide information that I wouldn't have any need for in the first place, given that I was not driving or otherwise placing myself in danger.

Dear CTListener.

Thank you for engaging your thoughts on the topic.

If you’re not from Buffalo or Niagara, I would share that WBFO has historically been a very involved news organization, not only with long-form programs, in-depth features and local issue-driven coverage, but it also has had a robust local news staff, which notably covered important spot news, as well.

The weather coverage had been top notch and dependable.

Their local information package was up-to-the-minute, as evidenced when they were on the spot shortly after the shots were fired at the Tops supermarket and for days thereafter, as they worked tirelessly to try to make any sense in what happened.

The sizable Buffalo market and its many (uncredited) Ontario listeners, have been well-served for many years by WBFO’s many local reporters and award-winning local news coverage. It is not been the stereotypical Birkenstock NPR outpost.

This regrettable fumble was not only a surprise to me, but to many others, as well. Perhaps why I used the word “shocked,” which evoked chortles.

Something is awry at the institution, and the silence from within along with the disingenuous (and arguably untruthful) response from the “spokesperson” speak alarming volumes.

The silence is deafening.

Thank you again. Have a most Happy New Year in your beautiful New England portion of the States.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Someone had to have been responsible for a decision to kill the national feed and go local... and why didn't they do that?

Perhaps an alternate question as well:

Someone had to have been responsible for making a decision to call in newsroom staff to work on a holiday, probably at enhanced pay (time-and-a-half or double-time)

 

[davideduardo]

Perhaps an alternate question as well:

Someone had to have been responsible for making a decision to call in newsroom staff to work on a holiday, probably at enhanced pay (time-and-a-half or double-time)

And behind that question is another situation. It is all to frequent today to have station management that has no knowledge at all of technical operations.

Most commercial station managers came up through sales. Many in non-commercial radio in top positions have their biggest strength in fund raising.

We all know that people who don't understand technology often avoid confrontation with that fact. In home situations, people don't know the difference between a router and a modem, for example. But often they pretend to know more than they do; these are also the folks who have a cable company DVR but for years have been unable to get it to record even the evening news.

At radio stations, management technical ignorance and inability to accept that fact can prevent planning, budgeting, capital expense provision and work hours being assigned or allocated.

I'm not saying this is the case here... but those of us who have considerable technical experience know that radio is full of upper and middle management that is unable to consistently do the right things in the engineering area. So the fact that technology exists does not mean every station is equipped, trained and ready to use it.

A famous emergency case is found in Minot in the Dakotas... a train derailed, spilling toxic gunk. The local stations were on the air, but automated. The EAS system was working, but the people in government authorized to activate it were not well trained and they could/would/did not activate. The stations, which could not initiate an EAS alert anyway as they are not authorized, were blamed for having no staff on duty.

As I said before, the key element is finding out who either decided not to authorize emergency staffing or was not available with no backup plan that could have worked even with the studios out of commission.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Whew! This has been quite a discussion! I suspect that the answer is simpler. It was a holiday weekend, and nobody was scheduled to be at the station. When the Morning Edition crew left, the automation took over. By the time anyone realized that this was an extraordinary storm, unlike any of those we've seen since the Blizzard of '77, it was too late. There was nobody in the building minding the store.

WBFO wasn't the only Buffalo station in that situation. Most of the commercial stations played merrily on with their automation. Once the storm began Friday morning, you simply couldn't get to the station to change the course of events. In many cases, the people who may have been able to remotely access systems were busy fighting their own battles with power or other storm-related issues, including family issues. NOBODY was going anywhere between Friday morning and sometime on Sunday.

WBEN had their staff in the building. They did a commendable job of largely putting their political views aside for a couple of days and doing a real service for the people of WNY. Once the storm began, they weren't going anywhere either, and they acted like the well-seasoned broadcast professionals that most of them are.

Local TV also offered timely coverage, but for the most part it wasn't wall-to-wall. Once again, staff in the building put in a lot of hours because they couldn't leave, and nobody could get there to relieve them. They did use on-scene reporters who were in the same locations for the bulk of the storm. They also weren't going anywhere once the blizzard started.

Overall, I suspect that everything would have been different if the storm didn't begin on a holiday weekend when no on-site staff was scheduled. Perhaps the biggest lesson WNYPB needs to learn is that the building should NEVER be unattended. A single competent staffer on-site could have made a world of different, not just from a broadcasting perspective, but also may have been able to reduce the damage that came from a major failure of their plumbing system. They're also not the only broadcasters in town who need to pay attention to that idea.

One more thing. This could be a glimpse into just how effectively broadcast radio in general is prepared to respond to a major disaster, and not just in the Buffalo market. BTW, there was also little or no warning via cell phone for this storm. That's also something that needs to be looked at, and again, in a much larger context.

 

[tbolt909]

Perhaps an alternate question as well:

Someone had to have been responsible for making a decision to call in newsroom staff to work on a holiday, probably at enhanced pay (time-and-a-half or double-time)

Weather conditions and travel bans would have made it problematic for any staff to get to the station. It's been noted that the studio was flooded anyway. David pointed out that no one may have been available (or knew how) to gain remote access.

I'm not sure what the benefit of "round the clock" storm coverage would have provided anyway. People knew about the forecast days in advance. How many times can you tell people "Don't travel in a Blizzard"? Since it was a holiday weekend, most people should have been prepared to shelter in place at home...

 

[davideduardo]

Whew! This has been quite a discussion! I suspect that the answer is simpler. It was a holiday weekend, and nobody was scheduled to be at the station. When the Morning Edition crew left, the automation took over. By the time anyone realized that this was an extraordinary storm, unlike any of those we've seen since the Blizzard of '77, it was too late. There was nobody in the building minding the store.

But there has to be backup staff for emergencies. The question is whether there was a failure in the chain of command or a poorly called decision.

WBFO wasn't the only Buffalo station in that situation. Most of the commercial stations played merrily on with their automation. Once the storm began Friday morning, you simply couldn't get to the station to change the course of events. In many cases, the people who may have been able to remotely access systems were busy fighting their own battles with power or other storm-related issues, including family issues. NOBODY was going anywhere between Friday morning and sometime on Sunday.

That is possible, but the question raised here is whether the station could have operated remotely from other locations, including home locations which some have assumed were used during the pandemic.s who were in the same locations for the bulk of the storm.

Overall, I suspect that everything would have been different if the storm didn't begin on a holiday weekend when no on-site staff was scheduled. Perhaps the biggest lesson WNYPB needs to learn is that the building should NEVER be unattended. A single competent staffer on-site could have made a world of different, not just from a broadcasting perspective, but also may have been able to reduce the damage that came from a major failure of their plumbing system. They're also not the only broadcasters in town who need to pay attention to that idea.

And, as suggested, if the facility is flooded, as it was, are there no backup plans for such emergencies? Anything from blizzards to floods to fires or even some kind of police evacuation can force a station to originate somewhere else.

One more thing. This could be a glimpse into just how effectively broadcast radio in general is prepared to respond to a major disaster, and not just in the Buffalo market. BTW, there was also little or no warning via cell phone for this storm. That's also something that needs to be looked at, and again, in a much larger context.

Yes, this should be a made into a case study for preparedness for stations that have a news and information position in their market.

 

[davideduardo]

Weather conditions and travel bans would have made it problematic for any staff to get to the station. It's been noted that the studio was flooded anyway. David pointed out that no one may have been available (or knew how) to gain remote access.

I'm not sure what the benefit of "round the clock" storm coverage would have provided anyway. People knew about the forecast days in advance. How many times can you tell people "Don't travel in a Blizzard"? Since it was a holiday weekend, most people should have been prepared to shelter in place at home...

And your point that, once the storm began, it was too late to "call in" staff, is quite valid. Either management failed to consider that the storm warnings might require staffing to be ready in advance or they did not want to make the expense when, perhaps, it would end up not being needed.

 

[TheBigA]

Something is awry at the institution, and the silence from within along with the disingenuous (and arguably untruthful) response from the “spokesperson” speak alarming volumes.

The silence is deafening.

Nothing is "awry." Most businesses are closed between December 24 and tomorrow. As I said in my previous post, Alan Pergament started this story, and I expect he will follow up on it. He will get an explanation at some point this week.

 

[Roch989]

This might be one of the most redundant discussions of 2022. Repeated assumptions and repeated excuses. To summarize here and hopefully Alan Pergament does a follow up, and that finally puts it to bed.

There are two verified people in the know who worked at WBFO (and others who may work there now) who have explained things right here, but we still have people who either don’t read, don’t know, don’t live here and didn’t hear it or “experts” making desperate and really stupid excuses (for some strange reason) for things we already know did and didn’t happen. There are also two other people who I know who work there now who TOLD ME what happened and requested to remain anonymous out of fear. One said the environment there is “toxic” and there have been lots of changes.

Stop the insanity.

Here’s what we do know:

WBFO is generally a very good local news station that covers big local weather events and big local news stories whether or not on weekend, holiday, at night or during weekdays.
During this storm where 40 people died, they didn’t cover it on-air or online or on social media.

WBFO has a big news staff. They intentionally went into “shut down” mode for the holidays and had no plan for the storm despite knowing that it was coming. Everyone knew the storm was coming for a week.
BEFORE the holiday even arrived, the storm was hitting full force. It was NO surprise to anyone there. Preparation time was like what you have for a hurricane, not a tornado.

For four days, WBFO didn’t provide information on the storm and just ran the NPR network feed, local promos and donor announcements.

The people who do know and currently work at or worked at the station say that you can easily broadcast from home and that you can feed the transmitter with their equipment. Their engineers can do that from anywhere.

People know how to do this. The chief engineer lives in Buffalo and was here for the holidays. He knows how to connect a feed to any of their three separate transmitter sites remotely or from the stations. They also have backups. There are several engineers that can also do it simply with their phones from anywhere. Don’t blame the engineers. They understand the mission.

They have a number of very good engineers, so if for some reason, even the longtimers who do know how to get on the air, all of the sudden “forgot” how to broadcast from their houses, which they did all through Covid and some still do, someone could touch the button that gives them full remote control.

The reporters ARE equipped and don’t need to go to the station to do their jobs and as far as “safety” goes can do everything from inside their homes.

I know two people who work there now that said the pipe burst didn’t come until well after the storm hit and that it didn’t have anything to do with a whether or not they could have broadcast from home or anywhere. They just didn’t do it even though the reports are equipped to do it.

New overall “leadership doesn’t understand news at all” (according to one reporter on the inside) and “that would be okay if (news boss) was experienced, but she is isn’t either” and she is new to the role. Don’t blame the reporters.

The spokeswoman covered it up by implying they couldn’t cover the storm because of the pipe burst and about the “safety” or the reporters and their equipment.

The truth. They had no plans to cover the storm. They simply made a major mistake and made up an excuse to cover. The reporters aren’t happy because it makes them look like they’re not proactive, out of touch, unwilling to work and don’t care.

The news people who don’t wish to be identified said this would not have happened under previous news directors or off-hours delegates they once assigned during nights, weekends and all holidays, and this would have not happened (not the pipe burst) but no coverage if Don Boswell was still there.

So retire the excuses:

“Most businesses are closed between December 24 and tomorrow.” WBFO is a NEWS station not just “some business” and ran an NPR feed for four days straight and did nothing on line or on social! Somehow WBEN wasn’t “closed” for more than a week when 40 people died.”

“This is Buffalo. People know how to deal with snow and were at home anyway.”

“Maybe nobody was trained.”

“Maybe they couldn’t get in touch with anyone.”

“It could be the reporters didn’t know they should cover it.”

“Maybe they couldn’t work because they didn’t want to pay overtime.”

“Maybe nobody knows how to broadcast from home.”

“Maybe they couldn’t reach the reporters.”

“Maybe it was unsafe to go to the station because of the pipe.” They didn’t have to go in to do it!!! Again and Again!

“Maybe they didn’t know the storm was coming/or was going to be bad.”

“WBEN covered it, so they didn’t really need to.”

“NPR stations (in podunk towns) in other parts of country don’t do local news, so it’s no big deal. NPR stations local news is only offbeat and environmental stories.”

Okay…

They have new leadership and new managers that are inexperienced. They made a bad mistake. They know it. They learned their lesson. I’m sure it won’t happen again.

Move on!

 

[tbolt909]

To ROCH 989 --

OK, so the station chose not to cover the storm during the Christmas Eve/Day weekend. Most Non Radio people probably didn't care and won't remember anyway. Some folks are complaining because CNN was reporting on the death toll days later (as it somehow makes Buffalo look bad yet again). It seems like there is no middle ground on what the right approach should be.

You say anonymous staffers told you the environment is toxic. I would wager the same toxicity exists at Audacy. None of that matters. WBFO made their decision and perhaps it was wrong. I still submit that "round the clock" storm coverage would have been overkill and not useful...

 

[Roch989]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

They are obviously better prepared. And whatever system they had, it worked.

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.

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.

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.

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".

Not if they can't get "into" the system. It's unknown what happened, so this is just conjecture now.

If systems were down, the simple answer is "nothing".

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?"

Actually, Buffalo is a dairy market and he’s right.

The ratings, even for storms, really are affected by the political philosophy of talk shows. Ask anyone in Rochester (also a diary market) about WHAM or in Buffalo about WBEN and they will say they are “conservative talk radio,” “right wing,” “pro Trump” and sometimes exaggerations like “Nazi talk,”
“Angry White Men,” or they will say “good talk,” “fair,” “talk radio,” “talk shows” or often the hosts’ names and put entries into the reporting section.

You will see people literally writing in the comments section of Nielsen Diaries that a respondent listens to WBEN for news, but that they refuse to listen to WBEN for talk shows. Then in the listening reporting section, the very same listener will not write any listening to WBEN or WHAM. You see it every book. Even though these stations are listened to every day, some diary keepers will mention they listen but record no listening in the entry section!

We have Bob Lonsberry in Rochester and WBEN has Tom Bauerle over in Buffalo. Some hate them and some love them. And for all the good and bad, these two kind of define the whole image of the stations and overshadow whatever else the stations do for better and worse.

Unlike in a PPM market, listeners can vote against you with diaries. It is very common in our polarizing times.

The poster above calls them “ridiculous right wing shows,” but to just be unbiased and keep it to facts, we do know that in diary markets, talk actually does connect to the other parts of a station including news and weather. He’s right about it even though I wouldn’t state it that way.

 

[TheBigA]

“Most businesses are closed between December 24 and tomorrow.” WBFO is a NEWS station not just “some business” and ran an NPR feed for four days straight and did nothing on line or on social!

I made that comment in response to a post asking why station management hasn't explained anything beyond what they told Pergament. The office staff is different from the news staff. If you go to the website, it also says the offices are closed because of the burst pipe. The news department opened a file on the storm "Winter Storm Elliot", and online coverage began Monday 12/26. Also lots of posts on their Twitter site starting Monday December 26. Updates on roads and the airport. Lots of pictures. So other than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the coverage was what you'd expect.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1607469557567954952

 

[Roch989]

To ROCH 989 --

OK, so the station chose not to cover the storm during the Christmas Eve/Day weekend. Most Non Radio people probably didn't care and won't remember anyway. Some folks are complaining because CNN was reporting on the death toll days later (as it somehow makes Buffalo look bad yet again). It seems like there is no middle ground on what the right approach should be.

You say anonymous staffers told you the environment is toxic. I would wager the same toxicity exists at Audacy. None of that matters. WBFO made their decision and perhaps it was wrong. I still submit that "round the clock" storm coverage would have been overkill and not useful...

“Non-radio people” actually ARE the ones who fill out diaries and they are based on RECALL. It is absolutely about what they “remember!!!”

Look, I’m not arguing with you. You may not be aware of some things. That’s fine.

I’m just presenting facts that others are making assumptions about and shaping as fans, competitors, ex-employees, current employees, radio enthusiasts, managers and anyone else that needs to possibly push their agenda. As it relates to them, I happen to only be a radio lover in their case, but am privy to what happened from people who where directly involved. So what can I tell ya?

It wasn’t just “Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.” It was 12/22-12/25, which is 4 days of nothing and and not just 2, and they had nothing on line or on social either. If you don’t like the facts, I can’t help you. Just trying to correct things that people are assuming or making up. Some people over in Buffalo seem to have a chip on their shoulder because 40 people dying in a storm will make “Buffalo look bad.” News is news. Deal with it.

You are right, although I NEVER said Audacy wasn’t toxic. You did. That company is falling apart and where is there stock now? I guess you could call it toxic there too, though no one said it was, but you.

The WBFO comments on it being “toxic” came from inside and it was from someone who was mad that news reporters were left dangling and that the leader didn’t do anything to support them, make any statement and no one would stand up for them for days. They left reporters dangling and made engineering look like they couldn’t do anything about it. Managers hid and didn’t respond, and the one who did as a spokesperson, apparently wasn’t exactly truthful about the reason the story wasn’t covered. I’m just the messenger.

Don’t blame the news department, the equipment or engineering.

I never said WBFO must have “round the clock" storm coverage. You commented that they didn’t need it.

I only said “they didn’t have any coverage” for 4 days, period. That’s fact. Not an opinion.

“It would have been overkill and not useful” for them to cover it 24 hrs.

If they did it, I can’t say it would have been “overkill” or not, because I don’t do anything for 24 hours a day. Overkill? Who knows. That’s up to them, not you or me. I have no opinion and I don’t know how many people listen at night. Maybe lots do, or maybe they scale back? Who knows? That’s up to them.

In the end, maybe it doesn’t matter either way, but people here need to get facts straight and not shade the truth and twist it to their liking.

If they didn’t want to cover it, it’s their call. Just tell the truth.

It seems pretty simple.

They could have stated “our reporting staff was off this week for the holidays, our regular news coverage is about government, social issues and other important issue-driven stories and we defer to the numerous storm and weather sources in our community for over the air and on-line storm updates.”

That would nip it in the bud and shut everyone down, but they didn’t and still haven’t done it.

Simple.

 

[Roch989]

I made that comment in response to a post asking why station management hasn't explained anything beyond what they told Pergament. The office staff is different from the news staff. If you go to the website, it also says the offices are closed because of the burst pipe. The news department opened a file on the storm "Winter Storm Elliot", and online coverage began Monday 12/26. Also lots of posts on their Twitter site starting Monday December 26. Updates on roads and the airport. Lots of pictures. So other than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the coverage was what you'd expect.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1607469557567954952

I saw that too. An NFTA tweet, which WBFO retweeted more than an hour later when Monday afternoon finally rolled around. On top of things. Excellent!

The storm was Thursday - Sunday.

Congratulations to them for being back to work and retweeting an NFTA tweet on Monday afternoon. Solid work. “What you would expect,”

You made a convincing point. Well done!!! 😁.

You should replace their flack! 😅