WBZ Florida

[Scott Fybush]

>I know Scott wasn't trying to say exactly this but his earlier post
>pretty much said (paraphrasing here), "There's a dozen other people
>writing the news, Gary's just reading it." Sure, but that pretty much
>just reduces him to the level of one of those dreaded Sinclair weather
>guys in Hunt Valley, right? Doesn't matter whether he's lived in Reading
>for a bazillion years or not.

Not hardly. I don't know whether this is still the case, but when I was 
writing for mornings, Gary wrote his own "A" block (top/bottom of the hour 
to traffic at :03/:33) and I wrote his "B" block (:05-:08/:35-:38, give or 
take), though by the end of the morning enough material had been shuffled 
back and forth to fill or make up time that the distinction sort of 
evaporated. And in any case, Gary frequently rewrote my stuff and 
rearranged the order of stories chosen by the editor on duty; that's part 
of his prerogative as "managing editor" of the broadcast. By no means is he 
a talking head, whether he's sitting in the studio or in St. Augustine. 
What I meant to convey was the idea that even if Gary's in Florida for a 
week or two at a time, he's got a top-notch support staff back in Boston 
making sure that nothing gets missed as a result.

My issue with the dreaded Sinclair weather people (they're actually women, 
most of them) in Hunt Valley is that they have ZERO experience with 
Rochester weather. We have very complicated weather patterns here thanks to 
Lakes Ontario and Erie nearby, and as a result of the huge quantities of 
snow we get every winter, most Rochesterians are much less fazed by a 
forecast of, say, 6-12" overnight than people would be in most markets. 
(There is also - just as in the Boston market - a tremendous variation in 
snowfall and other storm conditions from one part of the market to another. 
"North of the Thruway" and "South of the Thruway" are very important 
distinctions here.) Being FROM here - or at least living here long enough 
to experience a few winters and see how the natives deal with them - makes 
a big difference in being able to accurately forecast what's on the way and 
to convey that information to locals in a useful way. Once you have that 
experience, though, I don't think it disappears just because you leave town 
for a week or two. But you have to get that experience first - and the 
weather folk at Hunt Valley have, for the most part, never even visited 
Rochester. (At the same time, weather is one of those things that I think 
does require proximity. As much as I respect some of our TV meteorologists 
in Rochester, there's no way they could call a big storm as accurately from 
State College or Hunt Valley or St. Augustine as they can looking out the 
window here in town.)

But what Gary does is somewhat different. It's been years - decades, even, 
maybe - since he's been out in the field reporting, or even spending much 
time gathering news from the studio. He's not "just reading" the news by 
any means, but his role is much more that of an intermediary than that of a 
primary newsgatherer. I'm much less troubled by the idea of Gary anchoring 
(unannounced) from Florida than I was when I first got to WBZ and saw one 
reporter heading out to the parking lot at 4:55 to do a 5 AM "live from" 
report from the cell phone in his car just outside the back door. I don't 
think the reporter in question was claiming to be anywhere in particular, 
but it seems to me that there IS still an expectation from listeners that 
reporters will be where they seem to be (whether that's in the studio in 
Boston or at the scene of a story.) I don't think there's that same 
expectation these days for an anchor. There certainly doesn't seem to be 
any sense of outrage here in Rochester that half of the only 10 PM 
broadcast TV news in town comes from Maryland, and that's never been a 
secret (it was reported, at least sketchily, in the local papers when they 
made the switch to News Central.)

Several people have asked what would happen if there's some huge story in 
Boston while Gary's in Florida. I can't speak for the current news 
management at WBZ, obviously, but I can hazard a reasonable guess from 
having worked with most of them: while Gary wouldn't disappear from the 
broadcast at that point, whichever other anchors are in the studio at the 
time (Deb Lawler and Jay McQuaide, primarily) would handle most of the 
anchoring duties; there would be a lot of use of channel 4 news audio; and 
if Gary's location in Florida became a relevant issue in terms of his 
ability to report what was going on, he'd say something about it on the air.

I can tell you exactly what would happen if a huge story broke while Gary 
was in Boston: he wouldn't leave his studio; he'd be in constant 
communication by text messaging and intercom with the editor on duty, and 
he'd be watching channel 4 on a screen in the corner to see what they're doing.

Now answer me this: unless the breaking story were actually taking place in 
the corner of the WBZ parking lot that Gary can see out the studio window 
(and it's neither a very big window nor very convenient to look out of 
while on the air), how is he any less connected when he's in Florida? He's 
got the same computer screens in front of him, the same full access to 
incoming audio (it all passes through the router system no matter what the 
source), and the same intercom connection to the editor's desk. The only 
thing he might not have in Florida is live channel 4 video, and it's 
certainly technically possible for him to have THAT as well - all it would 
take would be a DirecTV or Dish receiver with an account billed to Soldiers 
Field Road.

Either way, as an anchor Gary is ultimately by himself in a room with a lot 
of incoming text and audio information, and his job is to synthesize all of 
that so it makes sense to a listener in Boston. My contention is that all 
of Gary's experience makes it possible for him to do that job just as well 
- and with as much relevance and connection to Boston's audience - from 
somewhere other than Boston, at least for short periods of time. That's 
still not the same thing as the News Central sort of operation, where the 
idea is that the Hunt Valley anchors can do what they do without EVER 
setting foot in Rochester or Flint or Pittsburgh or Raleigh or Las Vegas or...

s