July may be an interesting month to monitor WAGA’s news. The station is slowly making a major technological change that will affect how its edited news packages are created and presented on TV. It represents a significant learning curve for the staff. And it drags WAGA into the 21st century, the last Atlanta station to [...]
Archive for June, 2008
27 Jun
The price of news
The AJC announced today it’s jacking up its per-newspaper daily price from 50 to 75 cents. A bland, four-sentence announcement appeared on today’s front page: On Monday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will cost 75 cents for our readers purchasing a single copy newspaper published Monday through Saturday. This change marks the first increase in our single [...]
27 Jun
“Interview the judge, please.”
Yesterday, a Fulton County jury convicted Chiman Rai of hiring a hit man to kill his daughter-in-law. A gaggle of TV reporters– local and national– has spent more than a week covering Rai’s capital murder trial. In their honor, here’s a list of some of the silliest questions they’ve been asked by their producers and [...]
26 Jun
2008 Emmys
Saturday was a good day for a TV reporter named John Le. He’s a feature reporter at WLOS in Asheville NC. Saturday, Le won three Southeast Regional Emmy awards. Le single-handedly captured more Emmys than the entire staff of WGCL or WXIA. It was also a good day for Tony Thomas, a general assignment reporter [...]
24 Jun
Rehab for Savage
Former WSB news anchor Warren Savage avoided trial on cocaine charges after completing a drug treatment program, according to the AJC. Savage walked away from his morning anchor job after he’d repeatedly failed to show up for his 2:30am shift. His colleagues at WSB frequently had to roust him from his slumber to get him [...]
23 Jun
Fred Powers
We just cracked a beer and toasted Fred Powers, the WGCL reporter who died after a long struggle with a rare form of cancer. Powers had just begun to gain some traction in the market with a signature schtick that nobody in Atlanta had tried before or has attempted since. This is from Rodney Ho’s [...]
23 Jun
Restaurant Report Card
It is the oddest, sloppiest and most schizoid TV news franchise in town. WGCL foists its “restaurant report card” on viewers once a week, and the results are almost always at once horrifying and laughable. The franchise promises the best and worst of Atlanta restaurants. We don’t know how Adam Murphy selects the best. Last [...]
20 Jun
“And the number one threat to America…”
The graphic leading into Ross Cavitt’s live shot on WSB Thursday at six said “Bear on the Loose.” The story was about a black bear, documented with a cell phone camera, trotting through an East Cobb parking lot. Cavitt ended his live shot by advising viewers: “If you see this bear… go the other way.” [...]
19 Jun
Whiplash
Julie Wolfe was on TV three times during her night shift Wednesday at WXIA. George Franco, same thing at WAGA. Both may have gone home with a bit of whiplash, a chronic condition among local TV reporters. Wolfe began with a drive to Peachtree City, where the “backpack journalist” shot and reported an enterprise story [...]
17 Jun
Meet the new boss
That didn’t take long. We have unconfirmed reports WGCL hired an old-school news hound named Steve Schwaid to run its sputtering newsroom. Schwaid has been with NBC since 2001. Bloggers at TV Spy describe him as a guy with a heavy hand and little patience. This guy is a rare, smart, savvy, and damn good [...]
Recent Comments