Breaking news doesn’t come with a bow around it. Breaking news doesn’t happen on any schedule. It doesn’t appear in the newsroom with a set of instructions, a step-by-step guide to how it ought to be covered. There’s no diagram that’s points out what will happen next. It might start with some chatter on the […]
Breaking news doesn’t come with a bow around it. Breaking news doesn’t happen on any schedule.
It doesn’t appear in the newsroom with a set of instructions, a step-by-step guide to how it ought to be covered.
There’s no diagram that’s points out what will happen next.
It might start with some chatter on the police scanner. Or maybe a tip from a source. Perhaps a viewer calls an alert.
However it starts, how or when it will end is usually unknown.
So local TV newsrooms have to marshal their forces accordingly. A reporter and photographer here, a satellite truck there, a live truck on standby.
Too much of a reaction in one direction can often lead to not enough resources if the direction should change.
At 10:22 one morning in Sacramento, Calif., a police officer approaches a couple sitting in a parked car.
Four hours later, two policemen have been shot dead, another is seriously wounded as is a citizen who refused to allow his vehicle to be carjacked.
After a massive man-hunt, including evacuating a school, the couple was arrested hiding out in a quiet residential neighborhood.
And how KCRA, the market’s Hearst-owned NBC affiliate, responded to all this earned it a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Breaking News coverage.
The station also won the regional Murrow award for Overall News Excellence.
As part of its coverage, KCRA laid out a timeline of events, showed live press conferences from the police and sheriff’s departments, got an interview with the carjack victim, and the woman whose owned house where the alleged shooter was captured.
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