RBR+TVBR INFOCUS
With “stay-at-home” declarations and coronavirus-infected tallies changing by the hour, safely covering the news presents numerous potential challenges for a TV news organization.
Local news organizations are handling the situation in various ways. At CBS O&O KCAL-9 in Los Angeles, an evening weather specialist was offering reports from her home. Up the road in San Luis Obispo, Calif., The E.W. Scripps Co.’s KSBY-6, an NBC affiliate, saw reporters and anchors practicing “social distancing” in lieu of staying at home.
For TEGNA stations, including such “hot zone” properties as KGW-8 in Portland, Ore., and WGRZ-2 in Buffalo, VP/News Ellen Crooke is the “woman on the front lines,” coordinating all of the efforts companywide as the company headquartered in Northern Virginia seeks to keep as many away from their respective stations as possible.
As TEGNA spokesperson Anne Bentley notes, the company’s news staff is working remotely as much as possible, with “innovative ways” to accomplishing the task.
“We are having as many people outside of the station as possible,” she says.
With that, there is much inter-station collaboration on best practices. “People are sharing diagrams and saying, ‘This is how you do it.'”
Bentley credits the tight-knit station organization, overseen by Crooke, who has overseen TEGNA’s news operations since 2014. Her resume includes stints as VP/News for WXIA-TV “11 Alive” in Atlanta, and at WGRZ.
“Our guidelines are what we believe are the strictest in the local news organizations, and we are doing it across our 49 newsrooms, serving 52 stations,” Crooke says. “All it takes is one person in the newsroom to put us in a compromising situation.”
To start, crews in the field are not coming in the building. They are not sharing vehicles. They are not doing any one-on-one interviews. “All is being done via Skype or Facetime,” Crooke says.
Should there be an exception, the interview must be conducted outside, and from a six-feet distance, she adds.
Meanwhile, shared equipment is to be completely cleaned in-between use.
On March 19, “social distancing” went a step further for TEGNA’s stations.
“We further increased our safety guidelines to limit the number of news and production employees at stations to only what is necessary to put on newscasts,” state the latest COVID-19 guidelines. “This is for the safety of the employees who will need to continue work to keep our newscasts on the air.”
As of this morning, managers and producers are remote, as are the anchors, except one per shift. Weather, assignment desk needs — are all also remote.
“That’s the way to keep our community safer,” Crooke says.
Thursday morning, March 19, was when the push to get as many people working remotely really went out.
Some stations are moving faster than others to adjust.
In Portland, Me., NEWS CENTER MAINE News Director Mike Redding was preparing for a crisis well before many of his peers. Redding has a lot of relatives in Italy, and he started preparing for coronavirus nearly four weeks ago, Crooke says.
Then, there was the quick transition to working remotely from the agile news team at KHOU-TV in Houston. That’s the TV station that lost its building to massive flooding tied to Hurricane Harvey in 2018.
Meanwhile, Crooke cites WKYC-TV in Cleveland Director of Technology Adam Kenyon for setting up the station in military precision.
Before becoming News Operations Manager in December 2016, Kenyon was a Chinook Company Commander for the U.S. Army based out of Fort Campbell, Ky. Before that, he was a Platoon Leader, with experience in Afghanistan.
Kenyon used that experience to develop a safety plan for WKYC. This was shared with all stations to follow. “We’ve learned a lot from him,” Crooke says.
Then, there is the WKYC marketing department, which put a reel of the station logo on TV monitors behind all appearing on air from makeshift home studios.
It provides guidance for those in small markets who may not believe they have the resources to do the same and could be struggling with proper “social distancing” of news team talent as the COVID-19 pandemic only worsens.
“If you had asked me two weeks ago if this was possible, I don’t think I would have known the ingenuity, smarts and tenacity of our news team,” Crooke says. “There are many apps related to our live digital equipment that they can use. Good lighting, a good backdrop and a good microphone are required. Using Zoom, we have producers doing things from outside of the office. It may look different, and it does not require a lot of cost. It requires a lot of good innovation.”
TEGNA is sharing its best practices with others, with specific goals for newscast expectations, field crews, building use and interviews.
“There was a time when we were all so competitive and keeping our ideas to ourselves,” says Crooke. “Now we are all sharing our ideas. All of that competition is out the window. This is about serving our country.”
What are other broadcast TV companies doing to ensure the safety of their news staff. What about the equipment suppliers TV stations rely on, in particular as the post-spectrum auction repack process continues into Phase 9 and Phase 10? The RBR+TVBR Spring 2020 Special Edition, a print publication, will offer details.
