The Inbox....
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Time to see what is on your minds”
Email:
Hi Scott,
I hope you’re doing well.
I figure that it’s important to give a shout out to the local Texas news teams who, like first responders, utility crews, and grocery and restaurant workers, show how vital they are when disaster strikes. My go-to station here in San Antonio is KSAT, where the meteorologists, reporters, and digital team gave us plenty of warnings and advice in the days before the snow and ice storm and frigid temperatures hit, and kept on top of all information that we needed to get by during our hell week. I know that some of them stayed in a hotel near the station for several days as roads became impassable and who knows what happened in their own homes without electricity and/or water. They braved the bitter cold themselves as needed (and when safe) to report on road conditions, food and water distribution, a huge apartment building fire, and utility restoration progress. And they did it without making the story about them—go figure.
If all three of our local news stations were at a party, it’d go like this: Sinclair’s WOAI would be off in a corner by itself muttering conspiracy theories; Tegna’s KENS5 would be the loudmouth buffoon trying to draw attention to itself with vacuous stories and odd sound effects (catch a 5 or 6 pm broadcast sometime with the main people—you’ll cringe); and KSAT would command the room with intelligence and personality and a genuineness that the others sorely lack.
When my power was on (and it was off more than on for several days), I turned to KSAT immediately for updates about the city in crisis. If it weren’t available, I simply could not stomach the other options for “local” news.
BTW, as I type this it’s back up to 72 degrees.
Email:
Greetings, Scott!!!
As a fan of TV news and your awesome blog, I had to chime in regarding the story of the Miami news helicopter reporter that came dangerously close to an encounter with a drone. I work at a stadium and even during the offseason we have a system that detects any drone that penetrates a specific geofence barrier around the stadium.
What bothers me is the fact that the drone operator was not only brazen enough to fly the drone at double the regulated height and within range of an airport, but within striking distance (no pun intended) of a helicopter! We see news choppers fly over and we think they are going slow but they are actually moving twice as fast as most cars do and if that chopper had smacked into the drone that would have been like a goose hitting a plane as hard as a bullet impact and that would have been disastrous.
I remember a few years ago when WNBC's chopper went into a death spiral while covering a story in Brooklyn. It was the pilot's quick thinking and a lucky short burst of a restart of its engine that allowed that chopper to land on an apartment roof sideways yet everyone onboard walked away from it with minor injuries.
That same day, the KYW chopper in Philly was covering a story when suddenly an Imminent Collision Alert system went off and again the pilot wisely diverted. The tail camera actually caught what nearly hit Chopper 3: a Cessna flying WITH NO LIGHTS ON. They ultimately caught the pilot and arrested him, but again it took that alert to prevent a potential tragedy.
I hope that the pilot of that drone is found (which I assume can be done as there is a requirement to register it with the FAA) and prosecuted, banned from flying a drone ever again and made to apologize to the chopper crew for putting on such a stupid and unnecessary act.
Email:
Re: Heaters on the set at WBFF, Baltimore
No, no, no, hell no.. I'm calling preferential treatment on that one.
When I worked at one of Sinclair's stations, we anchors and reporters were expressly FORBIDDEN to use electric heaters plugged in beneath our desks.
A heater like that blew a circuit that shut off power to part of our newsroom.
It generated a couple of emails, one from our station operations manager, and another from Baltimore corporate: Portable electric heaters at desks are forbidden. Period.
They've either relaxed the rule or Sinclair's mothership station gets preferential treatment.
