When a storm of historic proportions pushes up the east coast and includes Central New York in its path it is time for all hands on deck in the newsroom. We are fortunate tonight in our region that we are measuring power outages in the low thousands. We are fortunate that our streets are not flooded. We are fortunate that winds have not torn apart our property. Our fellow New Yorkers downstate are not nearly as fortunate.
We had multiple orders of food delivered to the newsroom today. That’s always a measure of the potential magnitude of a television news story. Pizza for lunch. Pasta and salad for dinner. The news team needed all the calories it could get. Far more we being spent than we’re being consumed. We added newscasts and cut-ins. We added weather segments. We Facebooked, Tweeted and Youtubed. We updated the website and broadcast on three or four stations. The bases were covered.
Matt Stevens and Lewis Karpel are going into their third day in New York City come the morning. They have been on the edge of the storm surge and flood waters on the southern tip of Manhattan. Katie Corrado and Quindell Williams held on through driving winds on the shore of Lake Ontario in Oswego. Laura Hand and Andy Wolf, Dora Sheidell and Brian Erb. Jim Kenyon and Alex Dunbar. Brandon Roth. They were all out in the field covering the storm.
Producers Nate Crossett, Alice Maggiore, Jacquie Adams, Ken Chapman put together quality newscasts under the guidance of News Director Rae Fulkerson with the help of Megan Coleman, Michael Benny and me.
There are other names that I don’t intend to omit. Directors, editors and other technical experts that delivered live pictures from multiple locations. We informed the public. We gave them the latest details. We alerted them to potential danger in our backyard. We were fortunate to not have worse news to report for Central New York. Central New York was also fortunate to have a team of professionals like this working hard to bring them the news.
Any questions or comment please forward them to mattsmemo@CNYcentral.com. I may even use some of your thoughts on NBC 3 News at 5:00, the 10:00 News on CW6 or on CNYcentral.com.
The opinions expressed in this blog are the sole responsibility of the author and are not reflective of the views or opinons of the station or Barrington Broadcasting.
