Reporting on Local Television
News Since 1981
If there are things you need but can't find, please let us know
TV News Investigations: |
Subscribe to |
Collective Talent |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
||
In hopes of stimulating a clean-up and a preservation of
North Carolina's coastal environment, WRAL-TV General Manager John Greene started a
multi-faceted project in 1988.
 Changing the culture: A 24-Hour web
channel Web sales more than doubled in one year at WIBW-TV, Topeka. General Manager Jim Ogle shared with us the strategy that is working for his team. Winning
Strategies --- RTNDA 2008 Regional Website AwardsA cross-section of the winners from various market sizes and regions shared their insights on why their sites were selected. These were techniques that were helping them succeed.
|
The Killer Storm:
|
|||||
| Urgent Hurricane Hugo Advisory National Weather Service, Miami,FL Sep 21, 1989 Major hurricane Hugo moving towards the southeast U.S. coast. A hurricane warning is in effect from Fernandina Beach, Florida northward to Cape Lookout, North Carolina. ... A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions are expected to occur somewhere in the warning area within 24 hours and preparations should be rushed to completion. |
It was important advice: "preparations should be rushed to completion."
When Hugo came ashore during the night, at least 28 persons died. In the Caribbean, the hurricane had already left 33 known dead. It was a big storm which hit South Carolina and moved inland.
Homes were destroyed. Power was knocked out. People were stranded. Phones were gone. So was water.
News team fled studios on the water
At WCIV-TV in Mt. Pleasant, they shut down at 4 p.m. and evacuated
everybody, taking all the equipment which could be moved.
WCIV sat right near the water and executives knew it was going to be bad.
"This station took four feet of water!" said General Manager Stephen Brock.
"We took everything out of it we could move," he said. They
started at the top and took what they needed to broadcast: the switcher, frame storers,
weather gear, studio cameras --- as much as they could move before they had to abandon the
building.
"We also had to evacuate things which would get us back in operation," Brock
explained. They needed all the sales records, the commercial library, and the news archive
footage.
"We knew we were going to get water in here. Our meteorologist said we'd get a 17 foot storm surge one mile from here on the beaches. I believed him, and he was right. We evacuated as much as we could while we continued to operate. Then, we had to get our people out," said the general manager.
If they had stayed, people would've died, Brock said. The storm
surge hit the building so hard it bent the metal sides of it.
"It went through the building taking desks and furniture and putting them in
different offices, and tore off the door the back as it went out," he said.
The station was back on the air by Saturday at 11 a.m. using a satellite
truck and broadcasting from their transmitter, which was about 11 miles away.
"We've been trying to run without phones and without radios, and our people are doing
a damn good job," said Brock.
"It's been a logistical nightmare," he added.
A 40-foot mobile home was brought in to be the temporary home of the news department. The news set was re-built within the week and station executives hoped to be able to move their shows back into the studio as soon as possible.
The station also had damage to its STL receiver on the transmitting
tower and couldn't broadcast from the studio until that was fixed.
"On Sunday, I went out and found a storefront in a shopping center where our offices
are now located," said Brock.
As soon as they could, the station's executives began a damage assessment of their building to see if it could be salvaged. They ripped out acres of carpet and washed out the building with a hose. Although damage at WCIV was in the millions, Brock said they did all they could to minimize the loss."If we had tried to stay, we would not have survived it," he said.
Hurricane Hugo also generated a spirit of cooperation between some
broadcasters. WCIV was basically a victim of the storm, and while they are trying to cover
the news story, their executives are also faced with trying to re-build.
"WCSC has been terrific to us," said Brock.
WCSC and WCIV shared a tower and both had offices in the transmitter building.
"When they are not taking feeds from the Emergency Preparedness Center, they allow us
to tune up and take feeds," he explained.
"Early on the day of the storm, the General Manager of WTAT called
me and said he knew how vulnerable we were and he offered to help in whatever way he
could," said Brock.
However, WTAT lost the tower to the powerful hurricane.
Staying on as long as they possibly could
"I knew it was a strong storm, and I had seen the tape from Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands," said Mark Pimentel, News Director, WCBD-TV, Charleston.
But, he said what you see on tape from somewhere else and what you live through are two
different things. "What I just lived through was a hell of a lot worse than I ever
expected," he explained to us several days later.
Pimentel had been News Director only eight days when Hugo hit.
Three remote live locations were established, they became operations centers.
One was in the National Weather Service offices in North Charleston; another live van went
to Emergency Preparedness headquarters, which was the nerve center for information; and
the transmitter served as a third live location, where they set up a mini-studio.
A group of employees was also sent to a motel in North Charleston to weather the storm.
The news managers stockpiled two days of food and water at the remote locations.
"I bought about 40 gallons of water and stuck four gallons in each vehicle so there
was fresh water for the people in the field," he explained.
All staffers packed clothing for at least three days.
"We had a staff meeting where we gave people their assignments, and I told them they
were going to have to use their own judgment during the storm," he recalled. There
was going to be a point when they were no longer going to be able to communicate, and the
crews in the field were going to have to make their own decisions about when to pull back
to safe locations.
Remote Broadcasts
"The plan was to continue on the air at the station until 6:30 p.m.
"We did an hour long newscast from 5:30 to 6:30 to bring everyone up-to-date. At
6:30, we evacuated the television station," he said.
After the newscast, staffers dispersed in the four groups.
Shortly after 7 p.m., they went back on the air live from the emergency headquarters. They
took additional live shots from their weatherman at the National Weather Service where
there was live radar, and from an anchor at their transmitter.
"We hot-switched at the transmitter. We had planned this all in advance and had a
couple of tape playback machines at the transmitter, too," Pimentel explained.
It was about as rudimentary as you could get, he said. But, it didn't have to be pretty at
that point. No one cared if there were glitches between live shots. The important thing
was to deliver vital information from those locations.
Hugo Moves Ashore
The wind began picking up later in the evening as the storm moved in.
"At around 10 p.m., the winds were around 60 mph. We could no longer use the live van
at Emergency Preparedness. The van was rocking wildly in the parking lot," he said.
It was frightening inside the emergency headquarters, too. Officials told reporters the
building was made to withstand 100 mph winds.
"We were expecting Hugo to pack winds at 135 mph!" said Pimentel.
Although they could no longer broadcast live from headquarters, staffers were still able to deliver information by telephone to the transmitter for the anchor to read on the air. The focus then became the weather center and the live radar pictures of Hugo.
"By about 11:15, the winds were so strong --- up to about 100 mph --- we had to bring the mast down at the weather center. The roof was starting to rip off the center at that point," he said. However, they were still able to show live radar pictures just before the storm went ashore.
"Many people still had power at that point and there were areas which had not been
evacuated. We told them basically, 'Here it comes! Hold on!'"he said.
By 11:15, the only live shot they had left was at the transmitter. At 11:45, they were
knocked off the air when the generators at the transmitter flooded.
"There were seven people staying in the transmitter who leaned their bodies against the steel doors because the force of the wind was so strong the doors wouldn't stay shut. They actually leaned against the door for an hour and a half. Had they not done that, we would have been forced off the air earlier." said Pimentel.
Damage Was Widespread
"I was standing in an office at the emergency headquarters when the drop ceiling
fell in and the roof blew off!" said Pimentel. The people there moved into the
hallway and were "packed in like sardines" when the rain began falling on their
heads.
"All of us were humbled by the experience and wondered if we were going to live
through it. It was one of the scariest moments of my life," he said.
When the eye of the storm arrived, everyone left the emergency headquarters and went to
a brick shelter about 200 yards away.
"We all walked across a parking lot with downed trees and power lines," said
Pimentel. The wind and rain finally began to let up around 4:30 a.m. "The devastation
was incredible. We had to get chain saws and a backhoe just to get out of the parking lot
and onto the road," he said.
After the Storm
By 7 a.m., Pimentel linked up with his other news crews. They had managed to get power
back at the transmitter and sign on. By about 10 a.m., they were live again at the Weather
Service. They didn't know at that point who they were broadcasting to.
"If there are 10 only watching out there, it doesn't matter. If I'm helping somebody,
that's all that counts," he said.
At the station, the back of the newsroom was ripped off and four edit bays were
destroyed. So, the weather center became their base of operations. There was a
generator there and the weather center was also providing important information.
"We set up two live vans, and that became the TV station for the day," he
explained.
The WCBD news crew edited a full half-hour show with eight packages that first day. On
Saturday, they made the move from the remote locations back to their station.
"It took six or seven hours to get everybody out of where they were and back in the
station," he said. At 3 p.m. Saturday, that day, they ran an hour-long newscast from
their own building --- the first show from their own studios since Hugo came ashore.
Hugo moves inland
After Hugo smashed Charleston, it moved northward and inland. It ripped the Florence and Columbia areas before moving up through the Carolinas to Charlotte.
"We've been through hurricanes before, but not ones which maintained their intensity for as long as Hugo did," said Jim Griffin, News Director of WBTW-TV, Florence. They were used to hurricanes hitting and then going out to sea again --- in other words, coming up, hitting, and striking a glancing blow. But, this was different. "Hugo came straight at us, and went right through us," Griffin said.
When the storm hit, WBTW was only off the air for about an hour.
"We have hundreds of gallons of fuel on hand for the generator at all times,"
Griffin told us.
In a 36-hour period, they aired 72 cut-ins.
People must be warned of the danger, regardless of accusations of
"alarmism."
"We have had stories where people said they had ridden hurricanes through before and
they were going to ride this one through as well. Now, they're saying they'll never try to
ride another one through," Griffin said.
About an hour before the storm surge, WBTW talked with a man on the coast via telephone
who said he was going to ride it out. "An hour later, we called him back. By the time
we got him on the air, he said, 'I was going to ride it out. But, after what I'm seeing
now, I'm leaving as soon as I hang up the phone!"
They watched it go from a category one hurricane to a category four in just a couple of
hours before it hit shore.
"You can't be timid about warning people. I'd rather be called an alarmist, than to
come up short," said Griffin.
The station happened to have extra personnel on hand. They were getting ready to start
to new news programs. They were going to have rehearsals for a morning and mid-day show.
"Those employees provided much of the extra coverage we needed at the Beach,"
Griffin said.
WBTW lost a $40,000 satellite dish in Florence. Fortunately, they did not sustain
significant damage at a just completed a full- production studio in Myrtle Beach.
The station still had its old facility which was further inland, and a microwave was set
up there.
Griffin said the day after the hurricane went through, people tried to get down to the
coast.
"We had people tell us they were sitting in their cars and the radio stations were
out, and the only thing they could do was tune us in on their Watchman,'" he said.
The managers at WPDE-TV, Florence prepared by stockpiling gasoline and other needed supplies.
They knew live pictures of the coast would be an important element of their
coverage. A technical crew put a portable microwave unit on the 21st floor of a
beachfront hotel. It sent back a live picture as the hurricane moved ashore.
"We had the last pictures at night and the first pictures in the morning down the
beach," said News Director Tim Kenny.
They obtained guidewires for their live trucks and tied the masts down.
"If it hadn't been for that, we'd have been out of business," said Kenny.
One truck was positioned within 30 feet of the ocean at Myrtle Beach.
"We kept it up until about 10 o'clock at night and then moved it further inland until
about 11 p.m. when we had to shut down," he said. They had to have five people at the
truck to help keep tension on the guidewires as they lowered the mast.
He put extra people in the station's Myrtle Beach bureau and staffed it until about 1 p.m. When the winds became so strong the building began resonating, they evacuated to a hotel about one- half mile inland.
"I wasn't expecting this," Kenny admitted. He had been through Hurricane Diana, which was a category one storm, but Hugo was a category four.
"At one point, we were afraid we were going to lose the bureau. When the building
started resonating, I began worrying where I was going to put all our people if we had to
get them out of town," he said.
He had 15 people there, and it was a serious responsibility. They eventually evacuated
further inland to motel rooms they had reserved.
When Kenny made the assignments for coverage, he told his staff to be flexible. His advice: "Don't yell at your co-workers when no one answers the two-way or when you can't get a call through. Be light on your feet and expect changes." He said tensions were so high, he saw a crew from another station get into a fistfight on the beach.
Towns far from the coast were hit hard
Wind gusts reached 90 mph as far inland (175 miles) as Charlotte, North Carolina. The winds downed trees and power lines, and caused massive disruption.
"It's the worst inland damage in years from a hurricane," said Ken Middleton, News Director of WCNC-TV in Charlotte. Ninety percent of the city was without power and all the stations were off the air at one time or another.
The Charlotte stations had sent several dozen people to the coast. But, by Saturday night had to recall many of them to cover the story at home.
An old radio tower collapsed onto WSOC-TV. Fortunately, it fell on a portion of the building which was unoccupied during the early morning hours and no one was injured. However, it did extensive damage.
At WCNC, personnel had to evacuate their building the day after the hurricane because a
radio tower adjacent to the television station had been damaged and threatened to
collapse.
Downed trees blocked entrances and exits to WCNC and an engineer had to chop an opening
before anyone could enter or leave the station.
Hugo arrived earlier than predicted in Charlotte and some staffers were at home when
the storm hit in the early morning hours.
"Some of our people couldn't get out of their driveways because of downed
trees," said Middleton.
Because many phone lines were down, news people had to find other ways to communicate with each other. WCNC's main number was not working, but they had direct lines out of the newsroom which were still operable. For reporters in the field and important news sources, the station gave out pager numbers. People could call the pager, and the staffers would call them back on one of the working phone lines.
For employees who had phone service but no electricity, the station made wake-up calls in the days following the hurricane or sent messengers to pick them up if they were stranded at home.
Primitive Conditions
"The one thing we learned was television doesn't have to be fancy to be
effective," said Bill Foy, News Director of WBTV, Charlotte.
Although his station didn't have power and was operating off a generator, they kept
communicating.>BR> "We got a lot of information out that Friday morning after
the storm hit. You don't need fancy graphics and satellite shots to reassure people,"
Foy said. They put reporters onset to de-brief them about what they'd seen, and after
about four hours, they were able to playback videotape.
"We thought that was great! We were up and running then," he said.
"The good news for us was the phones continued to work. We were able to get the Mayor
up and get over to the station for a live interview," he said.
However, when the power was out, their computer system was down, too.
"We had to pull out the typewriters!" said Foy. Fortunately, they had the
foresight to order extra ribbons before the storm and had kept 6 or 7 typewriters tucked
away in a closet.
"When the computer system came back up, that was the biggest relief of all. We gave a
collective sigh when that happened," said Foy.
Radio Simulcasts
WSOC simulcast its newscast on the network of 17 radio stations which it
had organized a few months earlier. WBTV simulcast on powerful WBT-AM and their FM
station. In Florence, WBTW managers offered their broadcasts to any radio station which
wanted to carry them. Also, WBTW faxed lists of all the school closings to area stations
to be aired on radio.
"We faxed them the information, rather than to try to make them gather the
information themselves by making all the phone calls," Griffin explained.
All agreed, the simulcasts were an extremely valuable way to get information out to people who didn't have power.
Re-Playing Video In Specials
Most of the station executives planned specials once power was completely restored to
their viewing areas.
"With the power out, a large part of your viewing audience hasn't been able to see
your coverage," said WIS-TV's News Director Scott Parks.
"We are sitting inside the station watching all these pictures roll in and all the
stories being told by people who survived the storm. But, over a 4-, 5-, or 6-day period,
a large part of your audience hasn't seen it," he pointed out. He felt it was
important to come back and "scrape it all up into one pile and show people what
happened from start to finish."
WSOC and WPDE released their storm coverage on VHS tape for viewers to purchase. WSOC earmarked the proceeds for the Red Cross relief fund. The tape was distributed by Winn Dixie food stores.
"We have gotten more calls than I can count about the VHS tape," said WSOC News Director Dick Moore. "People are actually calling in telling the station what they want to see included in the tape. The appetite is enormous for the pictures,sounds and presence along the coast and back here in Charlotte," Moore stressed.
Legacy of
Katrina: Plan For The Very Worst
The broadcasters who endured the storm offer advice on how to be ready for a
natural emergency that is much worse than has been planned for.
Katrina: How They Lived Through It And Kept Serving Their Public
Hurricane Katrina Drives Online Usage To New Plateaus
Covering Hurricane Katrina's Aftermath
Hurricane Rita:
Evacuation chaos lessons
The evacuation of two million people from Houston and Galveston as
Hurricane Rita threatened the Texas coast showed just how chaotic a mass evacuation of a
major city could be.
"When people are scared, they tend to make hasty, ill-informed decisions. We set out
early on to make sure the tone and tenor of our coverage was right," said Executive
News Director Keith Connors of KHOU-TV.
Preparing for Gilbert:
Hurricane on the Texas Gulf Coast
Planning ahead is the key to the entire coverage. Everything from stockpiles
of extra water to secure microwave locations must be set in advance.
Gilbert was an extraordinarily powerful storm that hit in 1988.
Here's how news managers got ready for it.
Hurricane Floyd, Extensive Flooding Presented Newsgathering Challenges Afterward
First Hurricane Dennis battered the Outer Banks and portions of the
mid-Atlantic not once, but twice in 1999. Then, Hurricane Floyd
threatened the region with its high winds. Although it had dropped from the powerful
Category 4 it was as it approached, it was a huge hurricane as it made
landfall.
Floyd dumped an extraordinary amount of rain on eastern North Carolina. Flooding was
at record levels, and the rivers and bays stayed full for days afterward.
For days, news operations presented extended on air coverage of the aftermath.
Many roads were impassable. Power was out. Life was disrupted. Public health was
endangered.
Hurricane Hugo: Killer Storm
September 10-22, 1989: Hurricane Hugo generated a 20-foot storm tide in South
Carolina. Hugo battered Charlotte, North Carolina (which is about 175 miles inland), with
gusts to near 100 mph, downing trees and power lines and causing massive disruption.
Hurricane
Isabel: Expanded Coverage,
Simulcasts, Call-ins, Fundraisers
When Isabel came ashore on the Outer Banks in 2003, it was only a Category 2 hurricane,
but the large storm still did extensive damage and left millions of people without power.
The storm surge pushed up nine feet of water in areas along the Atlantic and Chesapeake
Bay. Baltimore officials say some areas got the kind of surge experts predicted they'd get
in a Category 4 or 5 storm that was a direct hit.
Here is how broadcasters prepared for and recovered from Isabel.
TV Ahead of Weather Service Predicting
Charley's Path
Meteorologists at broadcast and cable news operations in Florida saw a change in Hurricane
Charley's track several hours before the National Hurricane Center modified its forecast.
Evacuations and warnings are often based on the weather service's advice.
The television teams tried to warn of the hazard without criticizing the
Hurricane Center's slower response.
Latest edition
of Investigative Reporters Handbook is available
The newest version of this indispensable reference includes
examples investigative reporting and easy to find Internet address lists to help in
computer-assisted investigations.
Copyright 2008, Standish Publishing Company. This material is for your personal use as a subscriber, and may not be reproduced or transmitted to other parties of any kind.
The Rundown has reported weekly on local television news, programming, and community service projects since 1981. This material now fills a massive hard copy archive of 7,000 pages --- easily the largest record of hometown television's activities. Key articles are available in our online archives.
Hurricane!
The news executives and staffers who were there explained how they served
their viewers, and survived.
When A Flooding Disaster Strikes:
Who's in Charge?
In Sacramento, KCRA-TV news documented serious weaknesses in the emergency response
system in the state. Here's how they executed this major project.
Marathon Coverage
of San Antonio Floods
Thirty inches of rain fell on South Texas. Rivers flooded over their banks. Homes were
destroyed. Thousands of people had to flee.
News organizations covered the story and provided vital survival information as the water
threatened day after day.
Covering Live
the Big Snow Storms
The
Blizzard of 1993
Television news operations battled the snow, cold and wind to report on power outages,
highway hazards and the storm's impact.
TV's
Early Warning of Tornado Saved Many Lives
In 1999 in Oklahoma, 43 people died and more than 1,500 homes were destroyed. The
toll would've been much higher without TV's warnings.
Warning
System Calls People In Path of Hurricanes, Tornados
Television stations in Tornado Alley have found success with an automated weather alert
system that notifies people by telephone or e-mail. WeatherCall is a pre-recorded weather
warning for flash floods, severe thunderstorms, tornado and hurricane warnings. It's
worked well for Randy Dixon, News Director of KATV-TV, Little Rock and Carlton Houston,
News Director of KTUL-TV, Tulsa.
Earthquake
of '89:
TV Provides Vital Details
It was the biggest earthquake to hit California since 1906. A double-decker freeway
collapsed upon itself. A roaring fire covered a city block. A section of the Bay
Bridge collapsed.
Emergency
Preparedness: Make Sure Systems Don't Fail
Here is how broadcasters prepared for the big earthquake in San Francisco, and what
they learned when the building shook and the power went off.
Seattle Earthquake:
TV Newsrooms Were Ready
A mid-morning earthquake surprised the Seattle area. The shaking was captured on
videotape several places as photographers or fixed cameras were rolling when it began.
Station executives had planned for such an emergency, and the planning worked well.
Drought and the Challenge of Covering
the Western Forest Fires
Three million acres burned before the peak of the fire season.
The techniques the news managers used in Colorado and Arizona could be applied to many
other large scale emergencies where thousands of people are impacted by a threat that
keeps shifting and growing.
UM
Weather Forecasts
This site provides access to thousands of forecasts, images, and a large collection of
weather links.
Latest
Storm Information
National Hurricane Center
updates and path projections.
Today's
Dangerous Weather
Latest briefing from disastercenter.com
Tampa
Bay Hurricane Guide
Comprehensive advice and
information from WTSP-TV,
St. Petersburg Times.
Red Cross
Hurricane Advice
Storm Event Database
The world's largest active archive
of weather data, according to NCDC.
Hurricane
Floyd background
at disastercenter.com
Reports, photos, maps.
St.
Petersburg Times
Hurricane Gallery
Here are photographs and articles
that show just how powerful
hurricanes can be.
Help Viewers Cope With
An Earthquake
Reporting on an earthquake just after the building has shaken, with clocks falling off the
wall and regular electrical and phone service disrupted, takes a newsroom team prepared in
advance to respond fully.
Resources
The Perfect Storm
The Halloween 1991 northeaster was a storm of enormous intensity.
The fishing boat Andrea Gail sank carrying its six-man crew with it. An Air National
Guardsman died when his rescue helicopter had to ditch in the raging seas after it ran out
of fuel while trying to aid a sailboat.
The story was told in the non-fiction Perfect
Storm by Sebastian Junger.
Rip Currents
Some 80% of rescues by lifeguards at America's surf beaches are due to persons being
caught in rip currents.
Stockton Coastal Research
New Jersey beaches documented at length by a project at Richard Stockton College.
Schoolhouse Outrage:
Filthy Bathrooms
Schools in Southern California were checked to see how sanitary --- or unsanitary --- the
bathrooms were. KCBS-TV investigators spent three months and visited
more than 50 buildings, some of them more than once. Many bathrooms were locked or
unavailable to students. Many were missing essential supplies.
Roughed Up At Recess: Violence On The
Playground
Teachers stood by doing nothing while bullies beat up other children on the school
playgrounds. News team members at WITI-TV, Milwaukee were surprised that it was so
blatant and out of control. They
followed up with a project that offered solutions for parents and educators.
Room 104:
The Overcrowding Crisis
By focusing on students and teachers, an initially boring subject was brought to life.
Viewers could see how children are shortchanged when the instructor is simply lucky to
keep control, never mind teaching and helping individuals having problems. This was a
duPont winner for WABC-TV, New York.
Juvenile
sexual offenders attending schools
Not only are juvenile sexual offenders attending schools, often the school officials don't
know it. The offender changes schools, but his record may not follow him. In St.
Louis, KSDK-TV investigated.
Public
Safety Workers Face On The Job Hazards
Many people who keep the public safe have been injured or sickened because of workplace
accidents or exposure to harmful substances.
Free 45-page Report
Hostage
Crises:
Do You Let Gunmen Control Your Air?
When an upset, armed individual is threatening to kill
someone, the police commanders supervising the emergency response and the news executives
in charge of covering the confrontation have many sensitive decisions.
Here's how broadcast executives have dealt with these dangerous emergencies.
