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WHERE WAS 95.7 NEWS FOR THIS WEEKENDS CONVENTION? |
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Written by Alex J. Walling
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Monday, 13 February 2006 |
 News 95.7 radio blew it. News 95.7 had a great opportunity to showcase the Tory leadership convention this weekend and blew it, big time.
Where were they? As one media person told me, ‘you mean they were there’ at the convention?
Being in my news mode and wanting information on what was being called one of the closest political races ever, this past Saturday afternoon I hit the radio dial and started twisting and calling newsrooms.
I called several newsrooms to find out if they had a reporter or two at the convention and when the ‘coverage’ was to begin.
Have you tried to reach a radio newsroom on the weekend? Don’t bother, all your going to get is an answering machine?
News 95.7 (405-News) had a body in the newsroom and I spoke to a pleasant lady named Julie. She told me that the station was doing reports ‘every 20 minutes at 20-40 and on the hour’.
OK, better than nothing but when was the ‘wall to wall’ coverage going to take place?
Next I called the CBC (420-8311) and after listening to what seemed a very long time to a set of instructions (follow this, do that for staff directory, do nothing for general mailbox) I was told to hit #3 for the radio newsroom.
I did, and some person called Blair told me that at 3:05pm (following the national news) we would get the convention coverage.
I tuned into a few other radio stations and nothing but then it’s hard to be current when the announcer is on tape.
Then came the 20-40 and on the hour and so to News 95.7 I did go. How many ways can I spell or say disappointment?
It wasn’t that there wasn’t much coverage (there was very little) it was the fact, I expected more. Wasn’t this a great opportunity for this new radio station and maybe their first real opportunity, (other than a storm or so) to really shine.
Overall I like their format but it’s one thing to get all those features from Toronto (business news, entertainment news, this report, that report) but this was a real ‘ local meat and potatoes type of story’ that could have made a strong impact with listeners and advertisers and shown what ‘News Radio meant”.
Their radio ads keep telling me that ‘Info radio is the fastest growing format…’ maybe they mean with non-local information.
Just like I expect to see Steve Murphy (ATV) and Norma Lee (CBC) on these big shindigs I expected to hear Doug Reynolds and Jennifer MacDonald, the News 95.7 prime time morning anchor team, on the airwaves, and from the convention, live, counting me down to the selection of our new premiere.
That was not the case. If the radio operation that calls itself the ‘News station’ doesn’t deliver when there’s a story of this magnitude when does it? Or is it simply another station that may do something on a Monday-Friday basis.
Pity.
Why weren’t they there with more than one politically inexperienced reporter? Why such a minimal presence by the News station or are they all bluster and little substance? Let’s hope not.
Is it not a big deal when one gets named premiere? When was the last time some person went from a politician to premiere nearly overnight a la Rodney MacDonald? 10-20-30 years? Let’s not forgot that most of the time, the preem, is the province’s top newsmaker, year after year, after year.
I have come to expect very little from the other radio stations in the terms of news. Yes, I can get 5-10-15 even ‘20-in-a-row’songs but can’t get a report on the new premier of the province when he is elected by his party’s convention? What happened to public service by a radio station? These guys talk a great game at the CRTC hearings but deliver little once they get the license.
I find it interesting that some of these stations played up the recent federal election ‘big time’ but not this convention. The fact is the federal election guarantees wall to wall coverage on the TV networks while this is really a big local, since we are the capital, and provincial event.
By the way, the TV coverage wasn’t that great, a few reports here and there but no wall-to-wall as expected. Again CBC with Norma Lee and Marilla Stephenson of the Herald came out decently however I wish they had stayed on longer, interviewed more people, talked to those who were happy with the win and some who were crying when their candidate lost.
I know we couldn’t break into the Olympics after all it was only day one and we have so many Nova Scotian (1) at the games.
I’ve come to live with the fact that most radio stations are music laden and give very little in terms of information but that left us with CBC and News 95.7.
Maybe in another venue, on another topic News 95.7 will do well but this day they got killed and I don’t understand why? Where was the lead in, the preparation, the ‘behind the scenes on each candidate’? They could have recycled some of the material earlier this week. It was a very weak effort.
Those reports at 20-40 and on the hour had as much content as pabulum or a hollow chocolate bar. Why even bother to send a reporter who is going to ‘break in’ for three minutes an hour when CBC has live coverage?
I felt bad for the reporter because she was out of her league. It’s one thing to assign a veteran (Rick Grant, Jim Nunn, etc) to cover something as the one person team, but to send someone that has very little political knowledge and is by herself expected to ‘carry the station’ was not an astute move and maybe unfair to the reporter.
A one-minute ‘update’ on CJ, KIXX, KOOL etc I can take but a shallow report on a station that almost hourly claims to be ‘The News’ leader, the sports leader, the weather leader, the traffic report leader’, is another matter. We expected more, a lot more.
These reports interspersed with all that American college basketball stuff (does anyone really care about the SEC conference or that Texas A&M is in a shoot out with the Hoggies, or is it Razorbacks’) is for the birds. If you’re going to carry a major story then scrap that darn Yankee baloney that 99.9999999% of us don’t know or don’t care. Makes me wonder if a lot of ‘lip service’ was paid to this potentially very big news event.
As egregious in their performance that 95.7 was, the CBC especially their Information Morning anchor and veteran political warhorse, Don (I’m into my umpteenth convention) Connolly and his guests were scintillating.
Connolly started at 3:05pm and lasted until around 4:30pm and came back for the second vote and stayed until the wrap-up after Rodney MacDonald was elected. In fact one of his reporters (Jessome) beat a few of the TV guys in talking to MacDonald after his win. It must be that Cape Breton connection. For those who may have forgotten Jessome is a strong reporter. He was the one who covered diligently the McDonald murder/massacres in 1992. He is a strong and veteran pro and it showed.
Talk about big guns in the broadcast booth. In addition to Connolly, who probably has interviewed every candidate tons of times (and maybe more in the case of Neil Leblanc) had for the first part of the show Ralph Surrette. Is there a better, stronger, more experienced and respected provincial political reporter? I don’t think so.
Then on the floor, unlike News 95.7, he didn’t have one neophyte reporter but a team of veteran newshounds with the different candidates. Jean Laroche who follows the legislature as well as anyone else and maybe the only radio legislative reporter in the city, was with Neil Leblanc, someone he covered for years when Leblanc was the finance minister.
Then Jennifer Henderson who’s been around for a few years and knows her way around politicians was with Bill Black and Phonse Jessome had fellow Cape Bretoner, Rodney MacDonald.
It was great to hear these guys go from one to the other, back to Connolly, over to Surrette, down the floor and more.
As I said, the CBC radio effort made News 95.7 look bush league. And I don’t use that word often, but this time it is appropriate. News 95.7 is supposed to be the competition to CBC. Not this weekend. Maybe those in charge of this new station forgot that CBC in this part of the country may have the best info program as headed by Connolly and they do storms (Juan, White Juan, the Boxing Day Mess, and politics) as well as any in this country.
When CBC came back for the second and final vote (I had given up on 95.7) they lost Surrette to some other media, French radio or TV I believe, but as a stand in they had Jane Purvis. What a replacement? She is a former journalist, managing editor (both daily papers), former health minister (even though she smoked a ton) and works in the premiere office and knows her way around a microphone and convention.
It made for terrific radio coverage from CBC.
They say that the new premier won this very close race because of a lot of organization. News 95.7 could perhaps learn from the premier to be, because they seemed and sounded as if they had not put much thought or effort into this.
All those flashy radio promos (“If your reading it its history…etc) and all those great TV ads, mean nothing if you can’t come through when there is a real need for news and we are talking news not from the USA (ESPN sports that this part of the world really doesn’t care about) or Toronto but how about here in Halifax, the provincial capital and home to a recent major convention.
Three minutes of cut-ins per hour, from an inexperienced reporter (I will bet tons of coffee that she never covered a political convention before) does not a favourable NEWS impression make.
I would have brought in Tom Young who I think would have done a terrific job (given a few days to prepare) to handle the floor while Doug Reynolds could have given Connolly and CBC a run for your ears. But that regrettably was not the case.
As they say in sports…it was a slam dunk, white wash, shut out, or game, set and match for Connolly, Jessome and Company.
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