Wall to Wall to Wall...?

One of my hobbies is listening to the live streams of radio stations in local cities where news is breaking, as I was once a radio news director. This week, I listened to a station in Kansas City, where a huge explosion and fire engulfed a popular downtown restaurant, killing one and injuring many others.

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The discussion on the talk portion of the station’s programming involved not only the circumstances of the fire, but also the coverage of it in local electronic media. The hosts on the station I was listening to noted that the previous evening, the station’s broadcast of the University of Missouri basketball game was interrupted to cover the breaking news. Many listeners approved – but a few complained about missing their game. Similarly, a TV station in town that offered wall-to-wall coverage of the explosion and fire got complaints that popular TV shows were being pre-empted. One young woman texted, “We get that there’s a fire in Kansas City, but can’t we see ‘The Bachelor’?”

Journalism purists like me were shocked that audiences could be so callous about a breaking news event. But one caller on the radio station today came to their defense. “Showing the same fire footage over and over,” he said, “and repeating the same information several times does not constitute ‘coverage.’”

When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, radio stations did not drop their regular programming. Of course, they had no tape to replay over and over, so they simply reported the news they had and went back to their regular programs. That was all people expected. If they wanted a full report, they waited until their evening network news show.

These days, stations could do the same thing, if they wanted: report the information available, then return to regular programming until there was new information. But they don’t – sometimes, ”wall-to-wall” is the way to go.

But why? Is it to serve the public and make sure that the station is there for them in a time of crisis? Sure – but there’s more to it than that. The other part is, “How can I show up better than my competitors? If we don’t do it, will they?” Then there’s the issue of a viewer or listener tuning in for information in an “off” moment and finding only regular programming, then searching for the station that’s doing the coverage  -- which often involves the same reporter/anchor babble until the next hard information becomes available.

And some potential audience members just don’t care. Are they lesser human beings who have failed to evolve? Or are they actually entitled to a legitimate choice?

Different strokes, as they say, for different folks.