Louisville Magazine

FEB 2015

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 47 for crime, breaking news — "Live. Local. Late Breaking." WHAS (ABC) proclaims to be "on your side." WAVE (NBC) insists, "Expect more. Right now." WDRB wants to be known as home to solid journalists, less fash, more substance. Stories are allowed to be a little longer here — a minute and 40 seconds versus a minute and 20 at news stations across the country. At WDRB, "breaking news" is now dubbed a "develop- ing story" or "news alert." Te station got rid of a helicopter years ago, making it the only local station without one. Te helicop- ter was expensive, and Fulmer often told his staf he'd rather use the money for reporters. "Tere's probably four or fve days a year we really need a helicopter. You know, the other 360 days a year I'll take the six extra people because we're on the street kicking everybody's ass right now," he says. Fulmer tells me one afternoon that WDRB kicks so much ass, other stations copy them. How? Contests on Facebook and Twitter, he says. And text alerts. "We were the frst to start with text alerts," he says. I ask Denson if she checks the ratings a lot. "I'm ratings obsessed," she says, eyes glued to her screen, fngers typing. Before she takes her coat of in the mornings, be- fore she puts her lunch in the fridge, she checks ratings. "Young and the Restless used to handily beat the 4 o'clock. Now we're beating that several times a week," she says. (WDRB also routinely nudges out the only other 4 p.m. news, on WHAS. Oh, and here's an interesting nugget — some of the most-watched shows in Louisville? Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy (both on WLKY) and all the CBS primetime — NCIS, Criminal Minds, Big Bang Teory.) "It's a dog fght at six," Denson says, referring to the evening news. Ratings points earned the night be- fore among three of the four local stations at 6 p.m.: 6.5, 6.6 and 7.2. It's a statistical tie, Denson explains. She scrolls Facebook and spots a potential story about a pig that fell of a truck headed for slaughter and is now in the care of a rescue group. "Luckiest pig of all time!" she shouts, peering over her computer to Kerry McGee, the white- haired, bespectacled assignment editor who's been at WDRB since it started producing news in 1990. "Kerry, there's a saved pig. If I call and set it up, will I get a photographer?" He smirks. "Can I get some bacon if I make it happen?" When I worked at WAVE, WDRB was known as Fox 41. Te station's look was aggressively purple — a news set with three shades of purple. A lavender fy- ing-saucer-looking thing foated above the Louisville skyline. Tis September, WDRB unveiled a new $500,000 set. It reminds me of a stainless-steel refrigerator. Tat may just sign reads, "Patience is Overrated." Awards, including a mounted Emmy, cover the wall behind him. Surely there are more else- where. TV newsrooms love awards. It's hard to cram in validation. Stations pump out and forget about product at such a rapid pace — nine hours of news a day, 55 hours a week at WDRB and its sister station, WBKI. Reporters pitch their ideas: Ebola fears at St. Margaret Mary school. Churchill Downs improvements — is it because Cal- ifornia Chrome's owner talked so poorly of his Derby experience? Cold, nasty weather, maybe furries, due for Halloween. Body parts found in the Ohio River — an arm in Henry County, a leg in Carroll County. "Tat's a good talker," Fulmer says. Tat phrase — "It's a talker" — gets used in news meetings sort of like a stamp at customs. Police catch a burglar who left footprints in snow? Talker. Local dad chides his 12-year-old daughter on Facebook and it earns 20,000 shares? Talker. Candy stolen from a cop car the night before Halloween? It's a talker. I once worked on a story that I swore was a talker — fve adorable little girls who'd formed a rock band and were performing at festivals. My news director watched it and declared something along the lines of, "Well, that's fve minutes of my life I'll never get back." It's a highly subjec- tive line, I guess. Another phrase I hear a lot is, "My detective says." Not as in my hidden inner sleuth tells me, but police sources. TV reporters and cops exist in symbiosis. Police tip reporters knowing that (due to time constraints) their message will remain intact — we're looking for this suspect or these video cameras will solve crimes. Reporters, meanwhile, gain a hard news piece. Fulmer asks the question he poses every time stories have been pitched: "So, what sounds good?" Te room quiets for a mo- ment. "If it wasn't Halloween, would we do a story about random body parts?" a producer asks. "Yeah, we would," Fulmer decides. WDRB will get a news crew to a rural speck within its large viewing area that straddles 29 counties and two states. Tey don't cover that area often. Plus, it's random limbs washed ashore. Weird. "Tere was a woman on WLKY that said, 'We fnd bod- ies all the time; we just don't fnd parts,'" a producer says. "Ewww!" Fulmer and Kee- ney assign the story. "All right, body parts!" a young brunette reporter jokes in sing-song as she heads out of the meeting. W ith assignments delegated for the 4 p.m. show — body parts, new winter snow routes, Jim Beam expansion — everyone shufes to their desks in the newsroom, passing mon- itors taking in a live feed of a weary Bill Clinton stumping for Alison Lundergan Grimes just a few days before the November election. Last year, WDRB completed an 11,000-square-foot, $1.7-million newsroom expansion. Located on the building's frst foor, the red and white space is long and open. Concrete pillars bigger than a bear hug run down the center. A wall lined with mirrors stands opposite a wall of windows that frame the Greyhound bus station across the street. If you include the enclosed sports ofce at one end of the newsroom, the whole thing might ft a basketball court. In the center of the room, police scan- ners palpitate. Mufed voices keep the city in constant motion — welfare checks, fre alarms, minor accidents. Mostly mundane, until it's not — a nursing home fre, a shooting. Have you ever seen a baby receive a vaccination? All panic and volume? It's not uncommon for TV newsrooms to react to breaking news in an only slightly less dra- matic way. WDRB has a counter bell. With a ding, bodies mobilize. A civilized touch, the "Shit is Happening Bell" (as Fulmer calls it), is also there out of necessity. Yelling doesn't carry well. I could do laps and still not capture all the preparation newscasts demand: select- ing and writing the day's sinister deeds and do-gooders, attaching camera angles to each tale, chopping video into familiar sequenc- es — wide shot of rally, medium shot of Bill Clinton, tight shot of hands clapping. Decisions. So many decisions in this place. Example: election-night graphics. Yes to the waving fag projected at the base of the desk. Yes to the stars and stripes in background monitors. Tell anchors to wear black. All done in bathroom-break speed. So much to capture. I feel overwhelmed. Not as overwhelmed as when I was in the TV trenches. Like that year a former assis- tant news director cornered me into a state capitol beat. I adored him, so I begrudgingly accepted. But I still get nervous thinking about wickedly dry afternoon legislative doings chopped and served to a 5 p.m. au- dience. Pause on the fashbacks. Focus on the present. I meet Jessica Denson, a live- ly, dark-haired 41-year-old producer of WDRB's hour-long newscast at 4 p.m. I ask about sweeps. Any heightened pressure? "Everyone's energy is ramped up," she says, adding a bit later that "good journalism is good journalism. Te date on the calendar doesn't matter." I hear that often during my visits — good journalism, better journalism. Every Louisville station has its reputation. WLKY, the local CBS afliate, is known REC

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