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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 91 www.ywclouisville.org Te trio huddle around Keeney's computer, listening to the phone interview. "I think it's im- portant to point out that this guy is actually sorry for something he did," Keeney says. "Otherwise you're making him out to be …" "A racist frefghter?" Fulmer cuts in. "Tat he's already proven?" Fulmer is calm, almost gentle as far as news directors go. (True story: Once worked for a news director who walked around patting a baseball bat on his meaty palm. A framed Sopranos poster adorned his wall.) But he is competitive. "I don't come to work every day to lose," Fulmer tells me one afternoon. With the addition of the former C-J reporters, he's giddy with how often WDRB now breaks stories. "Print journalists are really good diggers," Fulmer says. Recently, Riley, the courts reporter, had an update on the murder of a toddler. WDRB held it for publication until the courts closed at 4:30, forcing other stations to wait until the following day to pursue the story, a maneuver nicknamed a "4-o'clock fuck-you." A few more minutes of debate. Te apology makes it into the story. Chinn's series of Southeast Bullitt Fire stories (there will be many, including one on a state audit that confrms questionable spending and one in which Hatfeld shoves Chinn after a chaotic Southeast Bullitt Fire Protection Board meeting) are perfect TV stories — a crude, possibly corrupt public fgure who seems oblivious to the fact that giant TV cameras (or police body cameras, as that's what caught the racial slur at the car accident) rarely stop recording. Te one airing this evening will reign as one of WDRB's most popular stories on the web for weeks. It's now early afternoon. On the TV in Keeney's ofce, Dr. Phil is promoting a November sweeps special — Uncle Poodle tells why he thinks Mama June's rekindled romance with a sex ofender might put Honey Boo Boo in danger. Keeney still has an afternoon news meeting, followed by a meeting with Lamb about a possible new hire. And she has to get home to be with her two young daughters by 5:30. "Meetings," Keeney says. "Story of my life." But before she disappears behind closed doors, she and Fulmer wrestle with where to place Chinn's story at 10 p.m. Ratings are down a bit for that show. (Keeney and Fulmer blame a weak FOX primetime lineup.) "You don't ever know what makes ratings great," Keeney admits. Is it a great sweeps piece? Or just people tuning in due to possible bad weather? What she does know is the sales team sells in quarter-hours. To win a quarter-hour, someone has to watch for 7.5 minutes. "If someone watches you for six minutes, it doesn't count," Keeney says. Chinn's story airs at 10:06. W AVE's general manager, Ken Selvaggi, caught wind of my story and seems peeved. He's been in the business almost 35 years and says nobody is growing like WAVE. He's read a recent Business First profle of WDRB. And now we're talking on a January morning over the phone. "It seems like everyone's piling on the love for WDRB, and I don't deny them — they're great," he says. "I appreciate them