Re: AM radio does live news!!!

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@erols.com>]

I remember covering Hurricane "Bob" (that WAS the 1989 hurricane, right?)
at CAP.  Opened up the lines at 7 PM and went non-stop to morning drive. 
Even at 3 AM the 4 lines were lit (a big rarity at any time....)  I got
comments on that years later from 'things listeners remember better than
the host' category.  To tie in 2 listener calls with  an info call from
Public Safety at times of day when people had learned not to rely on local
radio was a neat thing to be able to do.  I can recall, as a kid in the
60s, seeing a car crash, etc., and dialing over to a local station and
actually hearing something about it on the air within an hour or two. 
Would listeners respond to a renewed effort from a local signal?  Even alot
of part-timers,  keeping the FTEs down, and fees for report call-ins
off-hours? 
- ----------
> From: Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
> To: Mark Shneyder <mshbc@bu.edu>
> Cc: boston-radio-interest@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu
> Subject: AM radio does live news!!!
> Date: Tuesday, April 01, 1997 1:36 PM
> 
> Mark wrote:
> >
> >During the 8 o'clock newscast on WBZ tonight, Metro Network's Jack Hart
> >signed off with a long goodbye(to WBZ listeners, staffers,
sponsors,etc).
> >This was Metro's last traffic update on 'BZ. The next traffic update
will
> >come from Shadow(probably sometime around midnite, after the end of
> >NCAA game...)
> 
> What was really amusing was hearing live on the hour news on WBZ all
night
> because of the snow storm.  I called Don Huff in the newsroom and we
> kibbitzed about it--normally, Bob Raleigh just rips and reads overnight,
I
> guess... our power went out in Quincy due to the storm, so there I was
> huddled around some candles, listening to my transistor-- reminded me of
the
> 'old days' when people turned to radio for news and information, and
> depended on them.  Were any of you around during "Hurricane Carol"--
without
> transistor radios, we would all have been totally cut off from life
because
> the power was out for days...  Anyway, too bad radio has by and large
given
> up its news commitment.  Yes, reading the storm center closings in
boring,
> but Don was doing real news-- calling various power companies for
> actualities, interviewing people about how the storm had affected them...
ah
> the good old days when radio did that all the time...  sigh...   
> 

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