I hate it when this happens...watch all the way to the end.

Wednesday Eve

It's only Tuesday and already my hair is on fire. 

That's not a bad thing.  It's just a thing.  This is the time of year when news directors who work on a calendar-year-budget try to predict the future and guess how much it will cost to run a newsroom for the next year.  I did not budget correctly in 2010 for two big events (Scott Roeder trial, Chiefs camp in St. Joe).  Both were predictable and I'm challenging myself to do better for 2011.

I'm also challenging myself as a leader to learn (and help my team to learn) how we can improve our response to distributing news and information on "the set, net and cell."  Not as easy as it sounds!

And then there's the personal stuff.  Somehow, I didn't pay close attention to how our company health insurance works.  Son Charlie is a full-time college student (in his fifth year; will graduate next May).  His birthday falls at the wrong time of the year and he got too old (age 23) for the Scripps coverage.  We were faced with a COBRA payment of $550 per month (not in the personal budget) through the end of the year.  I, for one, am happy that the health care reform bill will allow me to cover his medical expenses as of January 1, 2011.  And I'm thankful that the University of Tennessee has a health insurance alternative that costs just $350 for the fall semester that will take care of the minor emergencies.  It's not the best but hopefully Charlie can avoid a catastrophic health crisis for the next four months.

New topic.

So what about those Chiefs!?  I watched last night's game from beginning to end (and what the H happened with the KMBC signal for the first eight minutes?)  I looked for an explanation on their website and Facebook page.  Maybe I missed it?  The station got thrashed in the Twitter universe when the "technical difficulties" slide came up instead of the game.  I watched on ESPN2...and made a mental note that I'd always have a plan B and C if I had such a huge game to broadcast.  (Please, NFL and NBC, please?)

Life lessons.  Gotta love 'em!

4:30am

 I'm pretty sure they WERE planning an earlier start.  And our announcement forced them to announce the earlier start earlier than they planned.  :)

http://www.bottomlinecom.com/kcnews/kmbcnowstarting430.html

Thou shall not kill. No exceptions.

I have been doing this TV news thing for a long time and still have plenty to learn but not much prepared me for the past five days.

On Tuesday afternoon, around 2:30p, Steve Kaut asked me if I had heard from Nick Dutcher.  Nick worked on our assignment desk and by now, most people who read this blog know that he was found dead in his home by the police we sent there for a "welfare check."

We found out at 4:30pm that Nick was dead and just before the 5pm news, I gathered as many of the news team as were available and told them.  Four hours later, we were dealing with the shocking news that Nick had been murdered.

Wednesday and Thursday are a blur as my team tried to deal with the shock of losing a sweet, gentle co-worker who was loved by many and the ethical decision-making involved with covering the story. 

I told them I didn't have all the answers about what we should do and that I wanted us all to talk out our next steps.

Marissa Cleaver, Sloane Heller and Najahe Sherman were the faces of our initial stories but many more were involved behind the scenes.  I am grateful for the guidance and advice of my co-workers.

Somewhat surprising has been the offers of help from our competitors.  I am grateful for that support.

These are challenging times for NBC Action News.  We are up to it.  But we're very sad, too.

I've moved on from the initial sorrow and now I'm mad as hell at whoever is responsible.

Soccer mom

I watched every second of Saturday's World Cup match between the US and England with my laptop open and Tweetdeck bleating every second.  Funniest tweet was from some fellow who wondered if the game was being played on the back of a giant mosquito.  (Vuvuzelas)

I wasn't alone.  The ratings for ABC were the largest for a soccer game since 1994.  Nearly 13 million households.  And almost everybody I know watched the match in a bar, not at home, as I did.  (I am getting boring in my old age!)

"Since Thursday, fans have consumed more than one million hours of World Cup content on ESPN3.com, ESPN’s signature broadband network, which is available in 50 million homes."

The draw is made even more amazing to me as we await word of Tim Howard's ribs.  Broken?  Not?

Here in Kansas City, KMBC has to be happy.  The game garnered a 10.3 rating and averaged a 22 share.  Not too shabby.

By the way, I DO NOT AGREE that vuvuzelas should be banned, as this Gawker article suggests.  I've been watching soccer for almost twenty years and truly, the buzz becomes background noise after awhile.  I don't even hear it anymore.

Maybe that's another sign of my advanced age....

Katie, Bar the Door!

I love this video.  I love the Rizzo kid.  I love the speech.  When the youngster talks about the Russian hockey team, I mentally replace that country with the call letters of my opponents--KMBC, WDAF and KCTV.

The February book has only a few more days left.  We put our focus on the evening newscasts and I'm pleased with how it's played out, so far.  I'll miss Vancouver but I think that in almost every instance, our news team put its best effort out there and it will be interesting to see how our local news ratings play out when programming goes back to normal.

The Olympics are over and soon we'll find out what is real and what is a halo from the winter games. 

No matter what happens, we can never, ever give up.

Staring Down the Challenge of Breaking News

Sometimes you're good.  Sometimes you're lucky.  We had a combination of both Sunday afternoon when a snow squall hit the Metro (not unexpected).  Our weather team had been saying all week that there would be snow on Valentine's Day.

I was already headed to the station when Caroline Rooney called me to say that a multi-car crash on I-70 had shut down the interstate.  Could we fly the helicopter?  Of course I said yes.

My trip to 4720 Oak Street had nothing to do with severe weather.  My intention of mischief will be fodder for another day but as I headed north on I-35 shortly after 1pm, I realized the road was somewhat slick.  By the time I got to the station, Caroline was in full breaking news mode.  She had already sent a reporter/photographer and live truck to the scene.  She had called Captain Gregg Bourdon and was awaiting his decision about the safety of putting the chopper in the air.

My partners-in-crime, Booke Givens and her daughters, worked our magic on a favorite co-worker's office and Caroline worked the assignment desk. 

When I saw the chopper video feed of the chain-reaction crashes on I-70 we decided to do the unthinkable--break into the NBC matinee coverage of the Olympics.

Wanna see the video that both CNN and NBC couldn't wait to get their hands on?  Here it is.

Some background.  I always love being at the helm of breaking news when I know another station really can't break in without a great deal of angst (NCAA basketball, the Oscars, etc).

So here's karma...the angst of breaking news decision-making because it's the Olympics!

With Tom, Phil and Jennifer in the control room and Mark in front of the camera, we jumped in over a Costas studio interview.  We stayed on until we felt we had warned people of the danger and showed the amazing video from Skytracker.  We didn't miss any Olympic events and we got off the air right at 3pm.

The remainder of the afternoon coverage was breaking news alerts, streaming video on the web and crawls over programming.  Larry Seward and Beth Vaughn were live at 5pm from two of the crash scenes.


Only one person called to complain.

Whew.

KMBC broke into their afternoon movie about an hour after we did.  I didn't see anybody else jump into the fray before evening newscasts but maybe I missed something?

This afternoon's exercise was perfect for the delicate dance that is breaking news.  I think we nailed it.

KMBC, WDAF, KCTV Roeder "Coverage?"

From: Phillip, Peggy
Sent: Fri Jan 29 19:37:18 2010
Subject: Great job!
I just want to take a moment to commend the hard-working Wichita crew of Tim, Dale, Lindsay and Matt.
Covering news far from the home base is never easy. Whatever can go wrong, will. Stuff breaks. Things change. Or they don't.
Here's one thing that's a given: The brainiac managers back at the station (well, me) always have crazy ideas for just how much can and should be done (I did and I was wrong).
Our team got up early every day, gave up a big chunk of their weekends and worked very long hours ... (Live every weekday at 6am and every night at 6pm with more sprinkled in between).
They tweeted, they posted, they edited, they fed. They never missed a live hit, they were up and in front of the camera in time with mic checks and roll cues submitted.
Our Wichita coverage was simply stellar from start to finish. I can't think of a thing I'd change.

That's a piece of a memo I sent to our team Friday evening.
 
There were only two local news departments that chose to cover the Scott Roeder trial completely.  The one at the newspaper and KSHB.  The other stations generally took a live feed from the courtroom and relied on others to do the work.
 
And now that the verdict is two days old, I'm still trying to figure out why our competitors didn't cover it gavel-to-gavel with a crew in Wichita.

Was it because the crime happened three-and-a-half hours away?  A perception that Scott Roeder wasn't really a local?  Abortion isn't a hot topic anymore?  There was too much going on here in KC?  Preparing for the February sweeps?  Too costly?

My guess is a combination of the last two. 

I think we made the right decision.  Yes, we spent some money on hotel rooms, satellite time and overtime. 

The story is too big to ignore or do a half-assed job of coverage.

Just sayin' is all...