Nobody To Cover The News, Or Those Who Cover It
Written Feb. 19, 2008 by Sean Ross in Content + Terrestrial Radio with 2 Comments
In today's Chicago Sun-Times, longtime radio columnist Robert Feder looks at how that market's radio stations responded to last week's shooting at Northern Illinois University. Feder praises the job done by WBBM, WGN, and suburban WERV (the River) and its OM Matt DuBiel, but he notes that Talk outlet WLS both chose to "bail out" of coverage at 7 p.m. to air a taped Sean Hannity program then ran on-air promos "bragging about its coverage."
Seeing Feder's column this morning reminded me that the recap of how local media covered a major news event, particularly a tragedy, used to be fairly standard within journalism. Now, it's rare to hear a music station break for anything other than tragedy, it's common to find national talk programming when you're looking for local information, and it's less common to see this sort of story about how the news was covered.
While Feder has a 10-to-15 year start on many of his colleagues, it was gratifying during the '90s to see daily newspaper coverage of radio proliferate in many markets. Much of the coverage, of course, was frustrating -- people who clearly didn't like radio in the first place and were now determined to make PDs pay for their failure to play enough (insert name of obscure critical favorite here). But the increased coverage also reinforced the notion of radio as a major medium and if broadcasters didn't take sufficient advantage of it, you can't blame the messenger.
So with newspapers, facing their own financial travails, continue to thin their workforces, you have to wonder what's going to happen to media coverage, and radio in particular. Writers who cover radio as a beat -- even the avenging angel rock critics -- generally have a better, more informed take on the industry. They are less likely to repeat the truisms about the business that are not necessarily true (e.g., "In response to the massive inroads made by Satellite Radio, panicked broadcasters have retreated from their lowest common denominator programming of playing the hits every half-hour"). They are also more likely to figure out that the man living on the billboard that said, "I need a job," didn't just coincidentally become a station's new morning man.
And more coverage of radio means that there will be continuing scrutiny, some of it perhaps unwelcome by others, of how radio covers the news or fails to. Radio's importance during a crisis continues to be one of broadcasters' talking points whenever radio's importance in listeners' lives is challenged. If radio is performing well, we need that story told. If radio is not, we need to be able to address it. It is distressing to think that one day there may be nobody to cover the news, and nobody who knows that it isn't being covered except for the people looking for information.
Reader Comments
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Robert Feder is, and has been for some time, one of the top radio columnists in the country. His writing is clear, timely and always meticulously researched. He’s also not afraid to take a stand on important issues surrounding the radio business, something many columnists tend to avoid. Plus no radio columnist is more entertaining at reflecting the feedback readers send his way.
On Feb. 19, 2007, a Jefferson County, WV deputy sheriff was shot three times, resulting in a seven-hour standoff that ended in the death of the shooter. The station I work for (WRNR-AM)covered the event live on the scene via cell phone. We broke into all our syndicated programming whenever events warrented. When it looked like the SWAT was poised to strike, we stayed with the story until well after its conclusion. No one in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia heard Dr. Laura that afternoon. BTW - the deputy survived, was promoted and is back on active duty, including his shift as a volunteer firefighter. Where would America be without our heroes?