NorthEast Radio Watch 7/15 and 7/22/2024: Trump Shot, KDKA Reacts

In this week’s issue… Media react to weekend assassination attempt – Corus makes deep cuts – Ishikawa adds in Southern Tier – Seven Mountains gets “Fuz”zy – Remembering Dr. Ruth, FM’s Burden, LI’s Garcia 

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

(Programming note: for a variety of health and work reasons, it’s another double issue – expect our next issue July 29 unless there’s major breaking news in the interim.) 

*There aren’t many news stories bigger than an attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in an already-heated election cycle, and so when shots rang out in Butler, PENNSYLVANIA on Saturday night, the news media sprang into action – at least to the extent they could on a Saturday night.

Weekend staffing has never been a strong suit for newsrooms, of course, and it’s especially thin in a lot of places these days. Here’s what we were able to see while traveling last weekend, and what we’ve learned since: the major broadcast networks were all very quick to get on the air with special reports, with most of them staying on the air late into Saturday night even in the absence of any real new facts.

We heard a few things that wouldn’t have happened a decade or two ago: tuning in to New York’s WCBS (880) while on the road in New England, we heard a lot of simulcasting with CBS TV coverage (though additional local staff was also called in later in the evening). And because we were in New England, we couldn’t tune directly to Pittsburgh’s KDKA (1020) – but all reports are that the Audacy news-talker sprung into action with comprehensive coverage of what may be one of the biggest local stories of the decade in its market. That’s not a given these days from any radio newsroom, and we salute KDKA for living up to its reputation.

The timing of the incident, early on a Saturday evening, was also an eye-opener for print fans hoping to pick up a Sunday paper with coverage. So many newspapers have moved their printing far out of town and made deadlines so early that it was decidedly hit and miss: the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which no longer prints seven days a week, was able to get on the streets with a Sunday front page with coverage, but the local paper in Butler, the Eagle, prints its “Sunday” edition on Saturday and thus didn’t have a printed edition on Sunday with coverage. Neither did some fairly large papers such as the Buffalo News, which now prints in Cleveland.

If the coverage was a bit repetitive, it was at least fairly responsible, by and large. While speculation swirled online, as it always does, about the identity and motive of the shooter, the networks and newspapers waited until better information emerged.