WSB Radio & TV Coverage of Barrow Co High School Shooting

[BarryATL]

I spent most of today (Wed) in the car so I was listening to coverage on 95.5 to start with. The male anchor kept talking over and interrupting the female news anchor. The field people really had nothing to say other than I am here and people are waking to the school. The anchors kept saying they could not confirm facts so they could not release them although CNN & ABC were releasing details through alerts 30 to 45 minutes before 95.5.

So, I got frustrated and opened the Channel 2 app. to mostly listen. They had more reporters but were doing more of the same. No local contacts to get the behind the scene facts. WSB-TV was on average 10+ minutes behind their own networks, ABC & CNN, in releasing new facts. WSB-TV was attributing the facts to their network. Has WSB-TV gotten rid of so much of their older talent that the networks have better connections in Atlanta then the local station?

Back to 95.5. Their own electronic media team was running 10 minutes behind releasing facts than TV and on-the-air 95.5 was ten minutes behind their own electronic media team.

Both stations had a presence the scene, but they had no depth. WSB-TV was depending on ABC & CNN to do their shoe leather news gathering. WSB-TV's reporters just seemed to keep asking people walking by how they felt and saying "how horrible this must be for you".

The 9PM news conference on 95.5 was terrible. The news anchor kept jumping in every three or four sentences to let us know "this is live news coverage from.... with..." She was talking so much that we could not hear the questions and sometimes she was talking over the main speaker. It sounded amateurish and not something I expect from the caliber station that WSB Radio purports to be.

I have been needing to fent to someone about this all day. None of my friends would care, so I have been looking forward to getting home and putting my frustrations here when I know other care as much as I do.

 

[KeithE4]

I watched the WSB-TV 6 PM broadcast online, and they had nothing new. They had the shooter's name, age, that he was a student at the high school, and that he'll likely be charged and tried as an adult, but almost nothing about his background (one student said he "sat in the back of the class." which is irrelevant). Nothing about anyone talking to his parents -- in fact, they were never even mentioned. I wonder if they were allowed to update anything unless the cops gave them the OK. I don't know Georgia law concerning such things.

 

[TheBigA]

This is the basic problem with the 24 hour news cycle. There isn't enough actual news to fill 24 hours. It's just repetition of what they know, which usually isn't much. That's the case everywhere, not just WSB. On the one hand, there's no point in doing live coverage unless you have something to say. On the other, people are tuning in at all times wanting to know what happened, so you need to fill them in. But nobody has anything until the police give it to them, and they don't do that on a one-to-one basis. They hold a press conference when they're ready. Until then, the reporters just have to fill time.

 

[BoboKnight]

Has WSB-TV gotten rid of so much of their older talent that the networks have better connections in Atlanta then the local station?

What you describe is normal in breaking news situations like Wednesday’s shootings. Almost all the news during the first several hours is broken by national reporters on the law enforcement/DOJ beat.

My theory, is they have the contacts at the top levels of the DOJ and FBI (who obviously were aware of the situation since Biden and Harris were briefed). It’s a fairly normal day for their contacts. They have time to talk to the media. Meanwhile, the local news sources are “drinking from a firehouse” and simply don’t have time to talk to the media.

On Thursday, I believe WSB was first to report that the dad bought the gun for the son and had other exclusives. I’d imagine they’ll have more now that things have slowed down a little bit for their sources.