Re: WTAG coverage of Fire

["John Andrews" <johna@comrex.com>]

Not to be an apologist for my former employer of 26 years, but I'd like to
make a couple of comments on this subject.

First, WTAG did totally blow it on the evening of Friday, December 3rd.  The
board op must have ignored all sorts of AP alarms and phone calls.  The news
director used to have a fire pager -- I have no idea whether this one does,
whether he ignored it, or whatever.  Everything finally hit the fan there in
the 10 PM hour, and they began to get some stuff on the air.  They should
not be excused for all of this.

Second, from that point on, they did an increasingly good job, in my
opinion.  I didn't get to listen much on Saturday, 12/4, but I am told that
they blew off the usual Metro 'casts (and they stayed blown off right
through this weekend), had people at the fire scene, and did things right
within the constraints of their syndication commitments.  I know by Sunday I
was hearing a LOT about the fire, and have ever since.  Even though they
were hampered by WSRS tying up their regular RPU system, they anchored
morning drive at the fire site for the whole week.  Day after day, they also
offered the only local opportunity for callers to express their feelings in
fairly unedited form.

That said, I think they did a good job, certainly the best in the city, of
turning around an initial bad blunder.  I was quite surprised that WXLO,
WORC and the two "Christian" stations would not break format to carry the
memorial service on Thursday.

Regarding all the comments about the constraints that "mega-ownership" has
placed on news and public affairs, I couldn't agree more.  WTAG (and WSRS)
are very different places than they were when I left a few years ago, and in
my opinion, mostly not for the better.  Not withstanding, those "too few"
employees did pull together very well after a bad start with this story.

But heck, I'm just an engineer...

John Andrews