TV
and Politics:
Win The Election
Raise your political and campaign coverage to a level beyond the
usual. Successful news managers explain how they created winning projects.
How To Achieve
Winning Political Coverage
by Randy Covington
Here are specific suggestions from a manager with great experience. Former TV news
director Randy Covington is now on the faculty of the University of South Carolina
School of Journalism. As a top broadcast executive, he led coverage of many, many
campaigns, election nights, and conventions for WBZ-TV, Boston; WIS-TV, Columbia;
and, KYW-TV, Philadelphia.
Interactive
Political Web Site Launched By ABC O&Os
Your Web site is the perfect vehicle for extensive material that can be accessed by your
viewers when and if they have an interest in the campaigns. KGO-TV created a site
including: five-minute candidate videos, answers to voter questions and campaign financing
information.
Give Viewers A
Voice: The People Speak
Widespread dissatisfaction with elected officials and voters' anger marked the 1992
election. The managers at WIXT-TV, Syracuse, developed a project to tap into that
sense of disenfranchisement.
Gauge Reaction of Voters
Measuring how people were responding was a big part of covering President Clinton's
economic proposals. Interactive technology, focus groups, and a Truth Team
were utilized.
Pick Debate
Winners Instantaneously
If you can learn something about which candidate viewers feel did the best in a debate you
will be offering information beyond a simple summarization of their carefully rehearsed
statements. Here are projects that are alternatives to the usual mix of campaign
officials, professors, and man-on-the-street interviews for debate reactions.
Regular
Expanded Coverage Can Be Interesting
A minimum of five minutes of political coverage aired each night on the Hearst-Argyle
stations in 2000. Their Web sites offered extensive additional material.
Their goal was to provide useful, important information to viewers and at the same time
make it interesting.
Online Polling
Provides Cost-Effective Content
Online polling has come a long way from the interactive questions many stations have on
their Web sites. KGO-TV, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in online polling and regularly
uses it to produce important and unique hard news. The technique was explained by News
Director Kevin Keeshan.
TV
Polling Picks Up Last Minute Shifts
Large blocks of voters were not firmly locked on either candidacy when George Bush and
Robert Dole fought for the Republican presidential nomination in New Hampshire in 1988.
Frequent media polling allowed the public to know what the political insiders knew from
their own private tracking: Bush would squeak out a last minute win.
Photographed With Girlfriend,
Governor Threatens TV Reporter
Mississippi's governor had presented himself as a moral conservative, a member --- with
his wife --- of Galloway United Methodist Church in Jackson, and a citizen very upset with
President Clinton's sexual scandal. The image was sent spinning when the governor returned
from a trip to France. It was all explained by Dennis Smith, the News Director of WLBT-TV,
Jackson.
The Hart Scandal:
Questions Concerned Media Ethics, Candidate's Character
A former senator with a good chance of being elected president and a woman from Florida
stepped out of his Washington townhouse on a Friday night. A week later, Gary Hart's
campaign for president was over. Polls showed his support was slipping and financial
resources were in danger of drying up. As news of other affairs developed, comedian Johnny
Carson joked that Hart couldn't be president --- "He wouldn't have time."
Rather Vs. Bush:
The Art of Live Political Interviews
Live interviews can be a risky business. This time, the media was the big story. Did CBS
news anchor Dan Rather go too far --- was he too confrontational --- in his interview with
Vice President Bush? Bush fought back.
Covering
the Convention:
Security, Logistics in Boston
The planning that went into preparing for the Democratic National Convention in Boston in
2004 holds lessons that can be applied to other major events where disruptions and
violence are possible. Here are insights and advice from the news directors at Boston's
top-rated news stations who explained how they planned to keep their news crews safe and
still get the full story of the convention and any disturbances.
Stay On Top Of
Security Threats
 Chemical
plants: Easy targets, poorly guarded
Chemical plants could become weapons of mass destruction. Major weaknesses in the security
were exposed by WLS-TV, Chicago.
Investigative reporter Chuck Goudie made an analogy everyone could grasp: "Just as al
Qaeda hijackers transformed jetliners into flying bombs on 9-11, federal authorities are
alarmed at how easily a terrorist could transform your neighborhood chemical plant into a
weapon of mass destruction." archives/0249.htm
Security
hazard: Unguarded small airports
Small airfields have a lack of safeguards. Open gates. No guards. No fences. Airplanes ---
including substantial charter craft --- within easy reach. It could be an opportunity for
a terrorist disaster. This was investigated by WABC-TV, New York.
archives/0408.htm
Stolen
from the military: bomb ingredients, weapons
The American military is unable to stop the continuing theft of its C-4 explosives,
weapons and more. This was explained by WRAL-TV, Raleigh. archives/9637.htm
Potential
terrorists are crossing the border with Mexico
People from countries on the Terror Watch List are entering the U.S. illegally from
Mexico, and the government appears to be doing little about it. Waves of people were shown
by KVOA-TV, Tucson. archives/0436.htm
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Reporting the Assassination of
President John F. Kennedy
 
November 22, 1963
KTVT-TV News
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President John Kennedy traveled to Texas in late 1963, preparing for his re-election
campaign. The trip ended with one of the biggest crimes in American history.
What really happened that day is still debated.
Shocked and surprised by the murder, newspeople tried to keep functioning and reporting to
the American people. |
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Initially, the visit was routine
NBC correspondent Robert MacNeil rode in the press bus seven vehicles behind the
president's open limousine. The motorcade was moving towards a luncheon location. The
crowds appeared generally friendly. It was monotonous.
He told his story in his book The Right Place
at the Right Time.
 MacNeil was drowsy. His thoughts drifted in
a very unusual direction as the bus rolled along.
He later recalled, "I found myself wondering what I would do if someone shot him. How
would I get to a phone? A reporter is constantly forcing himself to think ahead, not only
about what the story may be, but how he can cover it and how to communicate it back to his
office."
He came out of his daydream when he realized something had happened outside.
MacNeil got off the bus to see whether someone had fired a weapon. It appeared that police
officers were chasing someone. He ran in that direction, but discovered that he was wrong.
The officers were not pursuing anyone. It was part of the overall confusion as the
president's limousine sped away.
He turned to search for a telephone to reach NBC News in New York. He ran toward the Texas
Book Depository. A young man was walking out. Others later suggested that it was possible
that the man was the apparent assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. MacNeil asked the man where the
phones were, and they passed.
The reporter fed a brief bulletin saying three shots had been fired, but it was not
known if they were directed at the president.
Back outside, a police officer told him the president had been shot in the head.
The press bus had moved on, leaving MacNeil separated, alone and on foot. There were no
taxis in sight. Public safety vehicles were everywhere. He paid a civilian to drive toward
the medical center. They arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital about the same time that
the bus did.
"I played it very carefully with NBC,
cautioning them not to say more than we knew, putting in phrases like 'we do not know the
exact extent of his injuries.'
"It seemed to me totally irresponsible to say that the president of the United States
was dead unless you knew it for certain." |
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Robert MacNeil
The Right Place at the Right Time |
He was back at the source of information.
"I looked into the limousine. The roses from Mrs. Kennedy's bouquet were scattered in
the bloody back seat," he wrote later.
The pool reporter said he had seen the president carried in on a stretcher, bleeding and
apparently unconscious. The corridor by the ER was jammed with reporters, Secret Service,
White House staffers, and the hospital personnel.
In a small waiting room, MacNeil found three pay phones that no one had noticed.
"I got through to New York, while the News on the Hour was on the air. They told me
to stand by for a cue then 'talk as long as you like.' I got a switch from Peter Hackes in
Washington and told them what I had to that point," he explained.
MacNeil was very careful about what he fed New York. There had been no official
confirmation that the president had died.
"A priest, Father Huber, came out and said he had delivered the last rites to the
president. Bob Pierrepoint of CBS and I talked to him together. We both understood him to
say, under our repeated questions, that the president was not dead when he administered
the rites," he wrote.
It wasn't long before the reporters were called to a nurses' classroom.
With great difficulty in controlling his voice, a White House spokesman announced,
"President John F. Kennedy died at approximately one o'clock Central Standard Time of
a gunshot wound in the brain."
MacNeil said, "Bob Pierrepoint broke for the door and I followed. We raced all the
way back around the outside of the building to the emergency section. I was gasping for
breath as I grabbed the phone receiver and did the announcement that Kennedy was
officially dead."
Working the phones got the story
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CBS correspondent Dan Rather had been waiting for a film drop along the motorcade
route. He saw in the distance something seemed to be wrong.
He recalled it in his book, The Camera
Never Blinks. |
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| "Among the first lessons I learned in
journalism, as taught by Hugh Cunningham at Sam Houston State, had been: No story is worth
a damn unless you can get it out." |
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Dan Rather
The Camera Never Blinks |
He ran the five blocks back to the CBS bureau at station KRLD-TV. On the
police scanners, it appeared Parkland hospital was the focus of some action.
Instantly, he looked up the number and dialed it. The switchboard was jammed, but he
got through to an operator who was clearly busy.
"I found myself blurting out that I was a reporter and don't hang up on me. I got
that out right away. She cut me off and said, 'The President has been shot. I don't know
anything else.' I repeated myself. 'Please don't hang up. You say the President has been
shot. Are you certain of that?' She said, 'That's what I've been told. I don't know
anything else,'" he wrote.
He asked her to connect him to a physician, and a man who said he was a physician came on
the line.
The man told Rather, "The President has been brought in and it is my understanding
that he's dead. But, I'm not the person to talk to about it."
The doctor hung up.
Rather shouted out in the newsroom, "He's been shot!" He did not say the
president had been killed.
He called the hospital again and he reached a priest.
With a matter-of-factness that stunned Rather, the priest said, "Yes, the President
has been shot and he is dead."
"Are you certain of that?"
"Yes, unfortunately, I am."
Bulletin aired before announcement
The News Director of KRLD, Eddie Barker, had spoken with the chief of staff of
Parkland, at the location where the President was supposed to give a speech. The doctor
said Kennedy had been shot and was dead.
Soon, Rather was on several phone lines at the same time. One went to Barker. Another
was to CBS radio in New York. The news director repeated what the hospital official had
told him.
When Barker said again that he had been told the President was dead, Rather said,
"Yes, yes. That's what I hear, too. That he's dead." Someone on the phone said,
"What was that?"
Rather thought it was Barker speaking. He responded, "I said that's my information,
too. That he's dead."
Actually, the other voice was in New York.
The radio network went to its standby procedure. CBS's Alan Jackson announced the
president was dead. The Star Spangled Banner was played.
Rather shouted to New York that he had not authorized a bulletin or any other kind of
report.
CBS radio had run the tragic story --- accidentally but accurately --- minutes ahead of
the other networks. The editors in New York weren't sure who had authorized it.
At the anchor desk, containing emotions
 The CBS news bulletin
slide came up suddenly during an afternoon soap opera, As The World Turns, at 1:40 p.m.
EST. Anchorman Walter Cronkite read the stunning news off camera. In Texas, three shots
had been fired at President Kennedy's motorcade.
The news team in New York moved cautiously. Details were few from the hospital.
Cronkite filled with what they knew until the bulletin cleared the wires.
"From Dallas, Texas, the flash --- apparently official --- President Kennedy died at
1 p.m. Central Standard Time an hour ago ..," he ad-libbed.
In his book, A Reporter's
Life, Cronkite remembered, "The words stuck in my throat. A sob wanted to replace
them. A gulp or two quashed the sob, which metamorphosed into tears forming in the corners
of my eyes. I fought back the emotion and regained my professionalism, but it was touch
and go there for a few seconds before I could continue."
| "We are much like doctors and nurses
and firemen and police. In the midst of tragedy, our professional drive takes over and
dominates our emotions. We move almost like automatons to get the job done. The time for
an emotional reaction must wait." |
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Walter Cronkite
A Reporter's Life |
Cronkite stayed at the anchor desk for about six hours. Correspondent
Charles Collingwood came on to temporarily replace him.
The shock sank in.
He went to his office to call his wife Betsy.
He wrote, "I needed an intimate moment to share emotions. Millions of Americans were
doing the same."
The phone lines were filled. When one became clear, he picked it up. But before he could
call out, an incoming one popped up.
A woman said, "Hello, hello, hello. Is this CBS?"
Cronkite said that it was.
"I want to complain of your having Walter Cronkite on the air at a time like this,
crying his crocodile tears when we all know he hated Jack Kennedy."
The anchorman was in no mood for this.
He told her, "Mrs. Llewellyn-Arbuthnot, you are speaking to Walter Cronkite, and you,
madam, are a damned idiot."
He wrote, "If she had a retort to that definitive statement, it is known only to
herself and God. By the time she delivered it, my phone had long since been returned to
its cradle."
Extended coverage went on through the president's funeral services three days
after the shooting. NBC-TV carried live the dramatic shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by
nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Copyright 2007, 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.
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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.
Important Investigations
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.
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.
Prisoners:
Escaping and Not Pursued, Inmates Housed at Secret Locations
Two investigations showed how important it is keep track of how corrections officials are
--- or are not --- doing their jobs.
Intelligence
Report Breaks News Every Day
WLS-TV, Chicago showcases investigative stories on a daily basis. Many news executives
have been working to get their investigative units on air more frequently.
Into Child Porn?
No Problem, Have A Nice Day
Most men who are arrested in Wisconsin for Internet sex crimes do not go to prison. Three
years of cases were analyzed by WITI-TV, Milwaukee.
Airport
Restaurants: What's on the Plate?
For your airport meal: Spoiled food and big rats. There was a lot to reveal when
restaurants were visited by investigators from WAGA-TV, Atlanta.
It's Hard To
File A Complaint Against Police In South Florida
Only 3 of 38 departments had complaint forms available when undercover checks were run by
investigators at WFOR-TV, Miami.
Don't Count On A
Siren To Warn You Of A Tornado
Serious problems with tornado warning sirens were revealed by investigators at WTHR-TV,
Indianapolis.
Teachers With
Records Are In The Classroom
The backgrounds of more than 50,000 school employees were checked by news investigators at
WOAI-TV, San Antonio.
Help May Not
Arrive In Time: Enhanced 911 and Fire Response Lapses
Investigators at two Ohio stations looked at problems in the emergency response systems
that could delay first responders from reaching the scene quickly.
Airport Security
Breaches: Stolen Credentials, Marshals At Risk
ID badges and uniform items belonging to Transportation Security Administration employees
have vanished. The No Fly list is flawed. Air marshals say they are placed at risk by
official procedures.
DUI
Investigations Reveal A Stubborn, Dangerous Problem
Two major projects examined where the system is breaking down in Cleveland.
Investigations:
Gun Rights, FEMA Checks, Dirty Rags, Good Pictures
Several locally originated investigations connected with viewers.
Toxic Trains:
Dangerous Cargo Moves Everywhere
Hazardous materials are being shipped by railroad through cities. A terrorist attack on a
single car carrying chlorine could kill as many as 100,000 people.
Air Marshals Say
System Must Be Fixed
Policies and procedures put the marshals and the flying public at risk.
Safety Concern
For Travellers: Beware Of Airport Floors
There is potentially harmful bacteria on the floors where travellers remove their shoes as
they go through airport security. Investigators at KGTV-TV, San Diego, took samples, sent
them to a lab, and found an unhealthy situation.
Target Chicago:
How Drugs Drive Destruction
A major project at WMAQ-TV included a DEA partnership, young addicts on camera, and a
tie-in to a museum exhibit.
Interactive
Political Web Site Launched By ABC O&Os
KGO-TV created a site that included five-minute candidate video statements, campaign
finances, and answers to voter questions.
High School
Project Attracts Teens and Their Parents
Armed with video cameras and permission to tell it all, ten seniors explain what really
goes on in a yearlong project for WCAU-TV, Philadelphia.
Exposing
Outrageous Perks: Workers Take Cuts, Execs Fly High
Auto industry chiefs are travelling in company jets while jobs are slashed and pay and
benefits are reduced. WXYZ-TV, Detroit.
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.
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