Early on, TV stations were pretty calm and measured in their coverage of the G-20 today, although I have to imagine it's been a long time since WTAE had six live shots on the noon news.
No station broke into regular programming for an extended period of time until WPXI came on a little after 3 p.m., interrupting "Days of Our Lives" (to be rebroadcast tonight at 3 a.m.).
"Things are heating up out there," said Channel 11 anchor Peggy Finnegan. "Its hard to even
recognize your city now."
WPXI's Vince Sims was breathless running alongside protesters in Lawrenceville but it wasn't until KDKA came on about 10 minutes later that viewers heard reports of tear gas fired by police, as reported by KDKA's Andy Sheehan. When WTAE hit the air just before 3:30 there was no mention of the clash with police with all focus on the arrival of President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One at Pittsburgh International Airport.
A couple of early observations: Kudos to WPXI for having the good sense to block out the audio, which Finnegan explained was due to profanity being shouted.
Earlier I thought WTAE was smart when Marcie Cipriani showed a rooftop position along Penn Avenue from which to watch the protest parade. But the parade never made it that far and WTAE has been completely out of the loop on the tear gas canisters that were fired into the crowd of protesters. Finally, 20 minutes after going on the air, WTAE finally gets away from the Obama motorcade and gets to the tear gas news. To their credit, WTAE has now been the only station to show recorded video of tear gas and protesters rolling a dumpster.
Now KDKA has tear gas video, too, although KDKA's Jim Lokay tweeted it's not tear gas but smoke and vapor bombs.
The Post-Gazette's Sadie Gurman reports "The Daily Show" is here (I had been told by the show's publicist they were not coming):
The Daily Show's John Oliver is among the media gaggle that filled the streets during todays protests. He is blocking traffic right now doing interviews at Penn and 34th, wearing a black bandana while he speaks.
"Tear gas doesn't hurt as bad as I thought," Oliver said.
He is drawing a crowd as he spoof interviews protesters for a show he said will likey air next week.
That makes sense. Tonight's "Daily Show" tapes in the next few hours and I don't think they have live shot capablities. "Daily Show" is dark on Friday so next week seems the most likely time for a report to air. I'll try to find out when.
I'm finding coverage on KDKA and WPXI the most compelling. Channel 11 showed a guy carrying a faux Stanley Cup and chanting, "Let's go, Pens!"
"It's classic Pittsburgh," Finnegan said.
"Maybe it's a counter-protest to the protesters," added WPXI's David Johnson.
"I think it's a great way to defuse it," Finnegan said. "If it's successful, we'll use it again."
WPXI shows raw video from NBC News of gas fired at protesters.
KDKA's David Highfield reports a bizarrely quite standoff between protesters and police at the moment. (4:26 p.m.) "There are protesters I'm interviewing who are saying, 'Do you know where the rest of the group is?' They've fallen apart in terms of being a group."
Coverage has started to get repetitive. Not much new seems to be happening. Protesters making chalk pictures on the pavement. (4:34 p.m.)
WPXI's Finnegan: "You wonder how long they're going to let them sit on the ground and draw pictures."
SWAT team advances on protesters but it looks like there's more media and gawkers than protesters.
WTAE's live truck is trapped between riot police and protesters. Poor Tara Edwards, she's kind of caught in the middle, too. (4:55 p.m.) It is also giving the best images of a protester being hauled away. Wendy Bell lets us know Edwards is "the only live reporter" on the scene. Riot police being backed up, "We are being backed up as well." Edwards, sounding understandably concerned, gets separated from cameraman but it looks like police went past the WTAE live truck and cameraman and left them alone. Cameraman gets a shot of Edwards so we see she's OK. Not sure if that was intentional for folks in the WTAE control room but it was reassuring as a viewer.
It's clearly not the end of the world: WTAE is airing commercials in the 5 p.m. news. And there are weather reports.
Twice today Wendy Bell has used the term "money shot," which can have multiple meanings, one of which I don't think WTAE wants to be conjuring in the heads of its dirty-minded viewers.
Now (5:23 p.m.) it's KDKA's turn to be up close to the action as Andy Sheehan narrates the arrests of eight protesters.
Marty Griffin says protesters heading toward Carnegie Mellon University.
KDKA's Alison Morris has been moving around and is now on Baum Boulevard between Liberty and Moorwood. Evidently protesters have moved that way.
WTAE and WPXI just had liver images of President Obama arriving at Phipps. KDKA was in a taped report.
How did WPXI get that chopper shot of Phipps when news helicopters are not allowed to fly? Turns out they recorded it earlier and accidentally put a live bug on it. Oops.
Good for WTAE and WPXI for going to national news at 6:30 p.m, especially since NBC's Brian Williams is broadcasting from Pittsburgh.
Williams' lede: The city has been "virtually emptied out. ... The Downtown section of this city is desolate -- no people, cars, buses, boats or planes overhead. This is big-event security in our post-9/11 age."
Audio troubles on "Nightly": Can hear protesters but not Williams for a minute. A protester nearby is rambling through a bullhorn, trying to disrupt the broadcast.
On ABC, Jake Tapper is reporting from Pittsburgh despite plans earlier this week that he wouldn't make it due to his wife's pregnancy. (Although now that I look, that tidbit got edited out of my story earlier this week.)
ABC's Bianna Golodryga interviewed Mayor Ravenstahl atop Mount Washington and interviewed a woman who bought a very nice house for $147,000, hitting all the pro-Pittsburgh talking points and wrapping up by saying, "Hometown pride now on display in front of the world."
It just hit me: Helicopters are constantly flying over my East End neighborhood near Phipps tonight -- that has to be terrible for the movie that's shooting a few blocks away. TV/film productions always have to stop for aircraft noise. Guess they'll be looping dialogue in all the scenes shot this evening!
NBC's turn to pimp Pittsburgh. Reporter Anne Thompson in a report titled "Extreme Makeover": "Its image forged in the messy, gritty business of steel. One writer called it 'hell with the lid off." How many times can I hear the same narrative today? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see/hear Pittsburgh get the good press it deserves, but I wish it didn't involve all the same cliches.
Williams signs off: "On behalf of our protester here with the bullhorn, I'm Brian Williams."
Was so busy flipping among local channels this afternoon, I missed this on CNN.
Interesting, WPXI is allowing "Jeopardy!" to air. Sort of surprised since Post-Gazette is reporting tear gas smoke bombs deployed in Oakland. WTAE is only local station live but they're recapping stuff that happened earlier and so far have not been live in Oakland. Why? (7:05 p.m.)
Oh, lame: Andrew Stockey talks about the protester with the bullhorn who disrupted "NBC Nightly News" but he refuses to say the name of the rival network and only says a "network newscast."
Wow, WTAE never went to Oakland for live coverage of protester-police clashes. What a missed opportunity to get a leg up on rival stations. (7:30 p.m.) Here's a link to a Post-Gazette report about what's going on.
KDKA has come back with a 7:30 p.m. special report. Let's see if they ignore Oakland. I'm not expecting live coverage on WQED's "On Q." They don't have a live truck.
KDKA has Alison Morris on Baum Blvd. still. Maybe they couldn't get their live trucks into Oakland because of street closures? Trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but even if they can't get there you'd think they'd have reporters there reporting by phone. (7:36 p.m.)
Nope, instead KDKA has Marty Griffin telling us he has family with a restaurant in Bloomfield.
God bless our affiliates for beginning prime-time with regular programming. Let's hope nothing happens that warrants breaking in. And let's hope local stations don't do any unnecessary break-ins. (8 p.m.)
Just finished tomorrow's column generally giving local stations good marks for not going overboard and then I hear this KDKA promo: "A terrifying night in the city as rowdy
protesters become violent." Sigh. KDKA promo writer(s), why do you make it so easy to hold your station in contempt?
11 p.m.: Finally, local stations take notice of what's been going on in Oakland since before 7 p.m., especially now that it's turned more violent. WPXI shows vapor cannisters fired; Vince Sims on the scene. Harold Hayes there for KDKA. Jon Greiner on the scene for WTAE.
"It escalated just in the past half-hour," Hayes says.
Going to bed now. Hope not much damage gets done overnight.
Posted
Sep 24 2009, 03:32 PM
by
Rob Owen