Local TV News Directors Speak to the Atlanta Press Club

Local TV News Directors Ellen Crooke, WXIA; Budd McEntee, WAGA; Marian Pittman, WSB and Steve Schwaid, WGCL spoke at an Atlanta Press Club Newsmaker Luncheon on June 9, 2009.

See How The Local News Sausage Is Made

TV Guide network does reality TV by following the news-making process at a Savannah, Georgia TV station. What better place to find lunatic behavior without having to go to a mental health facility! From SavannahNow.com:

In a role reversal of sorts, WJCL/Fox 28 employees have the cameras turned on them for TV Guide network’s “Making News: Savannah Style,” a 13-episode docu-reality series about the backstage successes and failures of the local dual-news station.

Viewers will see how reporters, anchors and behind-the-scenes folks deal with everything it takes to put on multiple live daily broadcasts.

The show will premiere 8 p.m. Wednesday on the TV Guide channel.

All staff members appear on the show, but the featured characters — deemed The Magnificent Seven by TV Guide — are news director Michael Sullivan, Jason Davis (cops), Wendy McNew (former military/education reporter), Stephanie Simoni (current education reporter), Jennifer Beale (entertainment reporter), Frank Sulkowski (sports director) and Danielle Powell (former 6 p.m. broadcast producer).

Currently, WJCL is the lowest-rated ABC affiliate in the nation. It is linked to the local Fox affiliate, Fox 28, which is also a low-rated station.

Alert Media Again! Channel 2 Discovers Interwebs Are Interactive!

Bless their pitiful, clueless little hearts. Surely they can hear the sound of my snickering alone down there at Death Star 2 (WSB-TV). Wonder when they’ll figure out their viewership is too retarded to read this? Let alone operate a camera or make an edit.

But don’t blame the passive, dumbed-down, fat slob viewer. It’s not all their fault entirely, no matter what a Libertarian might harangue you with.

The local news base, typically known as the “viewer,” has been fed a brain-numbing diet of roadkill and ghetto crimes for so many years now, don’t panic if their deadly passive viewership, historically un-inspired to action by the ridiculous nature and format of most local news coverage they’ve been dealt in life, does not begin to embrace citizen journalism overnight.

They first must begin a long, tedious media recovery process… returning carefully to the light of engaging and engaged media in increments… slowly, slowly, slowly.