Thursday, August 16, 2007
We work on a few dozen stories on any given day here. With all the follow-ups, day of stories and things we are trying to gather information to see if it might be newsworthy we stay busy. We constantly ask our reporters, producers, anchors, photographers and viewers to send us story ideas.
As those come in we try and fact check everything we can…some stories take more work than others and often times stories never see the light of day. Other stories you don’t have that kind of time example:
Yesterday we heard a lot of chatter on the scanners about an incident but couldn’t get more details so here we were staring at a tiny little scanner. This is information you NEVER go on the air with. While police and fire departments all have frequencies on a scanner things can happen and what someone thinks they see or hear are not necessarily fact. After more than hour of making calls and crews running all over town trying to figure out what was happening we had nothing and ‘conversation’ on the scanner was gone. The best I can put together was somebody somewhere was having a training drill.
Had we simply reported what we heard madness would have ensued. So often people get frustrated because they have a story idea and don’t understand why we don’t go on the air and say John Doe said “blah, blah, blah.” Yesterday was a great example of why we don’t rush to report anything. It is our responsibility to report all the information to the viewer.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/16 at 08:34 PM
Monday, August 13, 2007
It is unwritten rule of the assignment desk… never complain it is to hot. The reason… I am going to tell you now.
We are inside in the air conditioning all day or at least a good portion of it. From here we are calling photographers and reporters and sending them all over the great outdoors. Hard to complain when you’re in a climate controlled 78 degrees to people who are working in the hot sun and 104 degrees.
A lot of people forget news folks have to work outside. When temperatures get that high the news is the heat and we go where the news is. We often forget about the many others who work outside but somehow never think to thank them. So this is to all the people who brave the sweltering temperatures. My thanks to you for what you do and I promise you won’t hear me complain about the heat…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/13 at 07:32 PM
Sunday, August 12, 2007
I am wondering how you are surviving admist the heat and high temps?
I encourage you to post your hot weather stories in my comments section. You can upload video of you and your friends managed hot weather by going to http://www.nbc17.com. There you will also be able to upload pictures, video and even see how everyone else in the Triangle has been managing the hot and sticky weather.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/12 at 07:23 AM
Saturday, August 11, 2007
What happens when multiple stories break all at the same time? You move as many different crews to as many of the different breaking stories, as possible.
Friday night we had an action packed night of news. Things got busy very early on in the evening and stayed busy through the 11pm newscast.
First, we had a church in Vance County go up in flames. It appears to have been struck by lightning although as of the writing of this blog entry that has not been confirmed.
The second story that developed a short time later was the weather damage in Goldsboro, NC. As heavy rain and winds moved through the southern region of our viewing market we immediately began receiving tips and callers from people, like you, who witnessed what many of you described as a “funnel like formation.” The NWS has yet to say if it’s an actual tornado or not. Usually, these things end up being a microburst. I won’t begin to explain a microburst. I know who can though…Wes, our Chief Meterologist.
With both the stories developing we simply make some quick decisions and set a new plan in motion. This means we have to consider what crews are unassigned? Who is already the closest to the breaking news location(s)? Can we afford to give up the present story or stories that that reporter/photographer is/are on?
How do we answer all the above questions? All the managers and producers for the tv and web come together at the multimedia content coordination center and get debriefed. From there, rapid decisions are made and crews are notified of the changes.
The whole process takes mere minutes and in some cases….seconds to set a new plan for covering all the breaking news stories into motion.
KUDOS: David, Brad, Kerry, Sergio and Fred for a great hustle last night.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11 at 07:20 AM
Monday, August 06, 2007
It is amazing what some people do all in the name of a newscast.
Click here to find out.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/06 at 09:54 AM
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