If it bleeds, it leads for WNEP
With the stories WNEP has run thus far, you may as well call it "Deathwatch 16." Take a look at the stories from Monday and Tuesday that involve death:
Five dead in Trevorton fire
Woman found dead in home
Investigation continues in fall death
Another deadly crash leads to extra enforcement
Charges filed in deadly crash
Victim of fall lives in Scranton
Deadly crash on Route 61
Man dies in fire
With the coverage WNEP gives to such things, you'd think people would be dropping left and right due to falls, fires, or car crashes. Of course, some stories can't be avoided, like the Trevorton apartment fire. And sometimes there are days where there is nothing else happening, so you have to stack your newscast with the information the State Police faxed to you.
Regardless, I don't understand WNEP's obsession with fires, car crashes, and deaths. Yes, it's great newscast filler, and it lets people know that The News Station was there to spray-and-shoot what happened. But WNEP has the resources and capabilities to dig up and cover better, more important stories. Why are they wasting their time by letting people know that some house out in the sticks caught fire, or that someone's car ran off the Cross Valley?
With the coverage WNEP gives to such things, you'd think people would be dropping left and right due to falls, fires, or car crashes. Of course, some stories can't be avoided, like the Trevorton apartment fire. And sometimes there are days where there is nothing else happening, so you have to stack your newscast with the information the State Police faxed to you.
Regardless, I don't understand WNEP's obsession with fires, car crashes, and deaths. Yes, it's great newscast filler, and it lets people know that The News Station was there to spray-and-shoot what happened. But WNEP has the resources and capabilities to dig up and cover better, more important stories. Why are they wasting their time by letting people know that some house out in the sticks caught fire, or that someone's car ran off the Cross Valley?
posted by Howard Beale at 11:27 AM
11 Comments:
These were all stories covered by the other station(s). Which ones would you like to ignore? Sorry. Death is news, and you can cover it without going tabloid. I saw most of the list, and it was a little more than what the fax machine spit out. I know you want to remain anonymous, but you're sounding like one of the members of the loser's club on 62 S. Franklin Street.
I also wish 16 would quit showing car accidents that seem to be in a newscast for no other reason than they got the pictures.
As for the fires, deaths, etc., the station covers a wide area. A fire in a small community can be big news to the people who live there. Keep in mind that a volunteer fire company is often the social center of town. People are interested in what the firefighters do.
Your suggestion that reporters find better stories is, unfortunately, a wish not likely to come true. Most reporters at 16 do TV well, but that doesn't mean they know how to uncover fraud at city hall much less the next Watergate. Maybe it's management not teaching, maybe it's too few people for too much work, but 16 seems to cover fewer stories per day than in the past. Have you noticed stories beaten to death by day reporters often get handed off to night shift for even more coverage?
It's even worse at 22 and 28 where they don't come close to what the 16 people accomplish.
16 covers fires and car crashes almost as much as this blog talks about them covering fires and car crashes.
Death is, unfortunately, news. And it, along with the usual car crashes and house fires, tends to be the primary focus of WNEP, and to a similar extent, WBRE and WYOU.
Let's take a page from the Mark Sowers playbook. Car crashes happen everyday. So do fires. With the exception of huge and/or deadly crashes/fires, what makes them newsworthy? Do the viewers honestly care that some schmuck burned his kitchen? Or that some idiot was driving too fast on I-81 and spun off the road? I'd wager no.
So why do we keep seeing it everyday? Maybe WNEP's reporters are busy digging up bigger stories. Maybe WNEP's producers are lazy. Maybe WNEP just wants to keep its photogs busy and send them on spray-and-shoot assignments.
All I'm saying here is there's more to the news in northeast and central PA than the usual fires, crashes, and deaths. All three stations should remember that.
Jeez, I wonder which of these posts were made by folks in the employ of the New York Times, they're so hard to pick out.
What about the cable networks? Their big stories seem to be The Runaway Bride and the missing girl in Aruba. I mean, who cares? Maybe the local networks can cover small town politics - yawn. What other news are they missing? I don't recall any local paper digging up much government corruption. Maybe it's a media conspiracy.
The reason you will NOT see many investigative reports is ALL the stations have many newscasts to fill.
Everyone's motto: fill first, worry about everything else later.
None of the locals has had an investigative team since, since, since, oh hell, let's face, they never really did. There was one exception, and his name is Bob Reynolds. For those not old enough to remember, Reynolds was one outstanding investigative reporter, fearless and undaunted, but for whatever reason, WNEP reeled him in and/or sat on him years ago. You can say I-Team, The Investigators, blah, blah, blah, all you want, but it rings hollow here, and in most other markets, too. The reason is mostly economics; stations don't have budgets that allow kicking loose a reporter and a shooter to take the days, and maybe weeks or months, necessary to unearth big stories. And there are big stories out there. There are federal investigations ongoing in this area, but nobody bird-dogs these stories.
Don't forget about Andy Mehalshick. Until he took over for Keith Martin, he was the best crime/police reporter in this market. I used to work alongside Mehalshick, and he had (probably still has) sources crawling in every police department and district attorney's office in the market. He'd usually get tipped off on a bust or investigation long before WNEP heard it on the scanner.
It's a shame Mehalshick isn't reporting anymore. Frankly, I think he's more valuable to WBRE as a reporter than an anchor.
Andy got himself in some difficult situations because he was too chummy with cops. When they screwed up and they had to get hammered, a certain reporter always took off in the other direction.
I ALSO WORKED WITH ANDY M AT WBRE. THE ONLY PLACE ANDY HAD SOURCES, WAS RATS ON THE STREET WHO HAD NO CREDIBILITY OR IN THE HAZLETON CITY HALL. THAT IS WHY ANDY WOULD BEGIN STORIES WITH "SOURCES TELL WBRE." ANYONE IN THE BUSINESS KNOWS, WITH THAT LEAD LINE YOU COULD HAVE MADE UP MOST OF WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAY, AND SINCE YOUR SUPPOSED SOURCE IS ANNONYMOUS, WHO WILL EVER KNOW. tHERE IS NO CREDIBILITY TO A NEWS STORY UNTIL THE FACTS ARE CHECKED AND DOUBLE CHECKED. ANDY TAKES THE EASY ROAD TO BREAK A STORY BY NOT NAMING THE SOURCE, WHEATHER THE FACTS ARE CORRECT OR NOT. A GOOD REPORTER BREAKS A NEWS ITEM WHEN THEY HAVE THE FACTS THEY NEED TO REPORT THE WHOLE STORY. ANDY HAS ALWAYS LACKED IN HIS ABILITY TO GET ALL THE FACTS, UNLESS LOU BARLETTA LEAKEDE THEM TO HIM. "AND THAT'S THE STORY."
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