By TRIPP FROLICHSTEIN / It is said you should never cuss around microphones because you never know if it will get on the air. Perhaps the same needs to be said when you write captions. You never know when it might be shown.
By TRIPP FROHLICHSTEIN / This is the story of a good idea gone bad. It is the story of a series of mistakes made by a television station. And it is the story of lessons learned by a school district. On Jan. 16, KSDK Channel 5 (the NBC affiliate in St. Louis) was investigating security at five different schools in the area. One of those schools was Kirkwood High School. The station’s undercover effort would result in a lockdown at the high school, angering students, staff and parents and ultimately forcing an apology from the station. The details of this story are pieced together from interviews and previous accounts; Channel 5 officials, when asked for an interview, said the station had no further comment.
BY TRIPP FROHLICHSTEIN / Many people now rely on the Web to get results on election nights. Such Web-savvy folks likely were frustrated with St. Louis’ local TV election-night website coverage.
St. Louis television station KMOV (Channel 4) did an extraordinary disservice to viewers on March 7. Anchor Sharon Reed read, in her usual dramatic style, this promo at 6:20 p.m.: “Tonight at 10, tainted beef on local store shelves. News 4 exposing a major alert that your family needs to know about before your next meal. Tonight at 10.” If it’s so important, tell us now … at dinnertime, no less. It was irresponsible at best. Yet this story that was so vital did not air until 10:07 p.m. and was just 22 seconds long.
This winter, the most-talked-about local news is the weather. It seems like every few days we have another storm of some type. This puts extra pressure on the local television stations who know that people are tuning in to see what it is going to do – and when.