Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/453014
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 93 redcross.org/louisville cessantly, cataloging every story every station is airing during that frst 10 minutes or so of a newscast. For about six hours (with one medium Heine Brothers cofee to assist and, subsequently, two bathroom breaks), I return to those odd viewing habits. I start with WDRB's 6 p.m. newscast on the frst day of sweeps. "A way to a man's heart may not only be his stomach...." Ah, yes. Te prostitution sting. WHAS leads its 6 p.m. with the University of Louisville's football game against Florida State set to take place that evening. WAVE dedicates the frst few minutes to sports as well, naming its segment "A Car- dinal Moment" and pumping in an ESPN-ish sport anthem. WLKY does the same. "A party on South Floyd Street!" their anchor proclaims. Around the second hour of watching news, the exercise begins to feel like a social experiment. So much to ingest: JCPS is planning for the worst: an active shooter situation inside its schools. Freeze warn- ing. Armed-robbery suspects. One student hurt on a school bus. Starving, thirsting, wasting away in waste — WAVE's John Boel investigates animal-shelter conditions. Embezzlement. Stu- dent hit outside Bullitt County High School. A hidden hazard on the highway. A new fre truck for Jefersonville. "Sure felt like a trick and not a treat with the weather tonight." Smoke billows over South Louisville. Home invasion, pis- tol-whipped. Sexting. Deputy who sued the sher- if now fred. Indiana man arraigned on deadly shooting. Armed-robbery suspects. "While dirt was brought in to fght the fre, we did some digging of our own." Armed-robbery suspects. Gay-marriage ban upheld. A special Ebola am- bulance. "It's a case so horrifc, investigators say they've never been able to forget what they saw." Not-guilty verdict in double-murder trial. Arctic air. Record cold. Amazon needs workers. Abuse allegations. Armed-robbery suspects. WDRB does cover a wide range of stories: business news, feel good to ofset the feel bad. Tey seem to report fewer car wrecks. Still, over- lap exists. TV microphones from all four stations follow the same suspects into court and slide onto the same podiums. Memorable sweeps pieces: WAVE's Trouble- shooter showed me that the "freaky fast" Jimmy John's deliverymen make illegal U-turns. WHAS uncovered that the Fair Board spent more than $3 million on a parking system it never used. Tere were sweeps stories that kept my interest, but I felt I'd seen them before — fuctuating gas prices, weak drunk-driving laws and how to "thief proof " your home ("To keep crooks out, start with your door"). I am watching all this news in January. Te day before, I visited WDRB one last time for a February sweeps planning meeting. More than 40 people flled black chairs in a studio once used as a temporary set while the new one was built. Tey ate Jimmy John's, unafraid of its freaky fast U-turners. Fulmer sat at a desk, a photo of the city's skyline at his back, with a small glass bottle of Diet Coke and a laptop. He typed out every story idea, mentally testing each one — 1.) Do we have time? 2.) Is it promotable? I dare not write what I heard. I've been sworn to secrecy. I fnally complete my binge of nearly 50 re- corded local newscasts. (Toward the end, I admit, I watched in fts of fast-forward.) I'm really tired. I want to call an old friend, a woman who's worked in TV news for more than 30 years. She wistfully recalls the days when one of her news directors encouraged documentary-length projects and newscasts contained a few in-depth pieces rather than packing in a dozen short ones. She jokes that the TV wasn't so cluttered "before crawls, time, temperature and blood type were on the screen." Of course, things change. With the advent of overnight ratings, newsrooms could identify when viewers tuned in and why. What worked one place, others might replicate. Cable news and social media shaped an immediate, near-frantic clip to informing. We didn't talk for long, but I always love chatting with her. Inevita- bly, afterward, I sit staring into nowhere thinking about television — where it is, what it was, pur- pose and possibility.