Oregon Media Insiders

So now that KOIN has a new news director, a new owner and a mandate for improved ratings and revenues - what's changed? The station is currently in fourth place with the only bright spot being the ratings at 11p which come courtesy of a big dose of help from CBS prime time. The demos may be a bit more favorable to KOIN but the overall lack of consistency, promotion, content and aggressiveness have taken a toll on the station's fortunes.

Just for kicks, I watched Katu's 4:30pm newscast for a quick round-up of the top stories and weather. Wow. First question: Does this show have a producer, or is it an bastard step-child of the 5? Confusing lead-ins, non-sensical stacking, unreferenced video, atrocious writing and stories that don't make sense; it looks like an under-staffed and resourced newscast that barely gets on the air.

A Steve Dunn newsroom tease was so poorly written I wanted to change the channel in frustration. Here's an opportunity to drive viewers to promotable stories in the 5pm newscast and they're working hard to send viewers to the competition.

Being a slow summer weeknight with little compelling local news, I was curious how the local news stations would handle the collapse of Interstate 35W in Minneapolis. The stretch of roadway, crosses the Mississippi River, and is a major thoroughfare between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Seven people were killed and scores injured as cars literally plunged 50 feet to the river below. The incident happened at 4:05pm pst which means 2/6/8 had almost seven hours to pull together some local coverage/reax/angles to this major national story that the cable news channels have been covering non-stop.

10P Fox: Not surprisingly, Fox 12 didn't lead with the bridge collapse story. Instead, poorly referenced surveillance video of a local robbery took top billing. When they finally did get to the collapse towards the end of the first block, they did it as a voice over into an investigative pkg fronted live on what local officials [ODOT] are looking at. If this is what Fox thinks 'investigative' journalism is all about, we're in trouble. The story starts out with people watching television coverage in a bar. Multiple meaningless local soundbites reacting to the tragedy including the ubiquitous, "I'm scared" bite from some woman who probably isn't scared about driving across bridges in Oregon but when pressed, said was she assumed the crew wanted to hear. Yeah, I'm scared too. This 'investigative' part of the story - and this is so sad - was nothing more than an ODOT spokesman saying there are lessons to be learned from the M/SP collapse. Really? Wow. Not one critical fact, not one revealing hint of real useful information. Here's a question: How often are Oregon bridges inspected - and how can the public find that information?

It's sad when the best KOIN can do for their lead story at noon is report on the robbery of a local credit union. Mike Donahue anchored the noon show and tossed to Tim Gordon who reported live from the scene of this not-worth-your-time-non-news-story.

What's so absurd and ridiculous about this live shot is the admonition by Donahue for local residents to 'lock their doors.' Come again? What we also learn is the suspect in the robbery never showed a weapon and proferred the no doubt freightened teller a note demanding cash. Well, at least we got a nice shot of a K9 on scene no doubt hunting down the scent of the suspect. Perhaps KOIN can borrow the dog so the inept newsroom staff can sniff down the scent of some real news. Seriously, is anyone paying attention? Does anyone care at this station? Guess not; and here's the 'kicker' - the viewers don't either.

I've just watched some KATU News and think Steve Dunn is one of the most annoying anchors in the market. What's with the constant tilting, shifting and head bobbing/turning when he's on camera? I find his anchoring to be uncomfortable to watch and his bobble-head delivery distracting. Anyone share the same sentiments?

Just a quick review of all four Portland station websites - all of them, with
the exception of KOIN.com, have the story of the Milwaukie toddler
killed. KOIN doesn't have any mention on their site. This all raises the
question of who is paying attention to updating the site.

An interesting find on the Wikipedia site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montecito_Broadcast_Group

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOIN

It's been a while since I've taken an interest in watching and critiquing a KOIN newscast - and being a bit bored tonight - thought I would give the Labor Day weekend, Sunday 11pm newscast a look-see. I hoped recent staff defections, declining morale, dismal ratings and a problematic news production automation system wouldn't impact the on-air product. While the weekend Sunday 11pm show wasn't an unqualified disaster; there is tremendous room for improvement and the overall product is below market standards. Let's go to the videotape...

-11pm Open with Ken Boddie is solo anchoring and the pre-show tease is about a local boating accident with injuries. The other stations have it too; though it's still a fluid and developing story, KOIN failed to give it any 'breaking news' treatment. Eric Taylor is live in North Portland along the river with a vo/sot which he delivers without enthusiasm. There is barely a reference to where he is - or more importantly - where the boating accident took place in relationship to where he is standing live. Eric does an non-demonstrative live shot which fails to set the scene. This was an opportunity for the station to highlight a fairly significant new story in a head-to-head situation with their competitors. It's treated with the similar ho hum-ness that most stories get on KOIN.

There needs to be more accountability of the Portland broadcast media to the viewers and listeners that tune in to locally produced broadcasts. Too often, we the viewers, give stations a 'pass' on bungled, sloppy, inaccurate and misguided news coverage. Instead of taking a stand, we continue to tune in each day and never say anything. The local television news in Portland is getting pretty bad and something has to be done about it. The community is not being served by the license holders and broadcasters have to be made accountable for their failure to invest in their product and deliver a quality community service.

Monday night in the middle of a long summer holiday weekend. I'm curious what kind of effort KOIN is going to put in to their 11pm newscast? I'm not expecting both anchors - Gianola and Day - to be on duty and I'm right; Kelley Day is off while Jeff Gianola solo anchors the 11pm newscast.

-There is a pre-show tease at the end of CSI: MIami that is read by Gianola. He tells us about a local Amtrak crash that has led to the deaths of four people. OK, I'm hooked. Despite the thoughtlessly edited pre-show video of the accident scene from the chopper - I'm sticking around. Too bad the really good video wasn't used. It would have given the pre-show tease much more polish. I'm prepared to be underwhelmed