I got an e-mail from a reader complaining about the Bailey school shooting coverage:
"...last night... Channel 13 interrupted a "Lost" re-cap for a fairly useless press conference. For one thing, this was an outlying community whose name I can't recall because I don't have today's Gazette handy. For another, the event was over by this time with the gunman dead. The officials speaking could not identify the gunman nor the teen hostage he had killed.
The press conference was 15 minutes of repeated "We can't say; the investigation is ongoing."...
Can you explain what the local news stations consider important in general and what their thinking was in this instance? It really seems to me, tragic as the loss of life might be, that this story could have waited for the 10:00 news report."To which, I replied:Personally, I tend to be pretty tolerant of television news excess -- better to have them fighting for breaking news than sitting around running features on albino squirrels (actually news story from the other day). In this case, I'm sure the argument they'd make is that viewers were so aware of and invested in this story, the press conference was worth breaking in for. These school stories are always going to be big local news, but especially in Colorado where Columbine is always hanging in the air.
Having said that, breaking in to cover a news conference at which nothing happened is really irritating. It happened just the other day with the John Mark Karr thing. Should TV stations
break just so they won't be scooped on the off chance something new is revealed? I'm sure that's their motivation, but it doesn't happen too often at press conferences.
So, what do y'all think?UPDATE: Interesting counterpoint this morning, when the sheriff held another press conference and did break a little news-- that the killer had left a suicide note. It happened during the normal news cycle, but something to consider...
posted by AndyW @ 9/28/2006 04:02:00 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
I really don't understand why Lost needed to be interrupted. There was nothing urgent, and little value in getting the news update out right at that moment - couldn't it have waited until the regular evening news? I was looking forward to the show, and was irritated by the interuption given the content.
i agree with your comments there. but if its a serious "breaking news story" like lets say. my family is in there at that high school. i or others tv viewers would like to be informed.instead of a stupid movie or show and thats where krdo tv wanted to do there. to inform the public like u and me. the tv stations have to get in there and report the matter.
I might be mistaken here but KRDO TV didn't know exactly what was going to be said at the press conference. If it was something new and a big story people would be complaining that they didn't interrupt the Lost recap show. Besides, it was a recap show and not a new one. There was nothing on that show that couldn't have been found out on-line somewhere.
From past experience, a lot of times you don't know what new info is gonna be released at a news conference. Since past news conferences from the sheriff contained useful info, I would take the next one live.
I was actually surprised that some local stations took it, remembering how local cable subscribers had to persuade Adelphia to carry more of the Denver stations, when so little breaking news was carried initially about the Hayman Fire, which affected many more people than the Bailey shooting.
yet, again. Its up to the news director discretion of how the local news here operates. lets say kktv -11put on don and betty sexy 1st. I did see koaa tv crawl and news 13 or newschannel 13 later that all three tv stations came on. and rob Q and david nancarrow came on in bailey. then something was up there. and of course not to let out krdo there, m zellinger piece at five.Didnt see fox 21 news there though..
update: my kktv on ch141 adelph/comcast still sucks .i guess i wont watch it .ill read a reat book from the library downtown.
Stay on subject anonymous, on your digital signal, have someone look and fix it, the lost people lost because they missed the 2 minute review, get over it, a town is grieving, a 16 year olds life is lost because of some fool who had a suicide wish and was to chicken to handle it himself. My sympathy to the families who will need to take years to get over the stupidity of the event at the school and on behalf of the local tv stations, sorry you missed out on your lost review. May that be the only problem you face in life.
It's very sad a 16-year old died. But why should I be forced to watch? If I want to see the latest, I'll watch the news when it's on. Unless it happened in our community, I don't think it warrants break-ins all the time. Too often TV stations get so competitive (they all want to be the first on with the info) they forget they're breaking in for something not relevant or timely, etc.
A simple solution is for the stations to run a crawl with the new information (in this case, none). Then everyone wins.
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