TV Struggles To Cover Wildfires

As wildfires continued to roar throughout Southern California, local television news divisions, like the firefighters, found themselves stretched thin while devoting huge swaths of airtime to covering the tragic story.

Paul Button, assistant news director for KCBS and KCAL in Los Angeles, said: “Every bit of personnel we have is working from sunup to sundown. Everyone who works and freelances for us is covering this. We’re taxing our staff to the absolute maximum.”

Both KCBS and KNBC began coverage on Monday at 4 a.m. KCAL joined in the coverage at 9 a.m., though it occasionally broke for commercials.

The networks all began coverage early — about 7 a.m. — on Sunday. KTTV had a helicopter already in the air Sunday morning, so it got the first pictures of the Malibu fire.

“It’s a logistical nightmare,” said Jose Rios, vice president of news for KTTV. “It’s spread all over the place.” Rios said his station had dispatched a clutch of reporters to San Diego, but was unable to fly them there due to high winds.

KNBC has 16 reporters on the ground, said Bob Long, vice president and news director for the station, who added that the logistics for covering a story of this magnitude were daunting.

“We have a huge coverage area to begin with,” he said. “The biggest problem from an editorial standpoint is that our reporters have to have time to gather information and not have them doing TV constantly. They’re reporting for NBC affiliates, on MSNBC, they’re doing network feeds. We’re talking 12 hours a shift. We need to make sure they put the microphone down and gather information.”

The dangerous nature of the story exacerbates the reporters’ jobs, Long added.

“The physical conditions are extremely difficult,” he said. “They’re close to smoke, embers, they have water falling on them. It’s tough to breathe out there.”

Button added, “Logistically, this is such a massive undertaking, covering such a wide area with all kinds of terrain. It’s hard to get television signals out of some areas. We’re deploying equipment to areas where they could be in harm’s way. It’s a delicate balancing act, deploying our reporters and equipment through the width and breadth of our coverage area and ensuring everyone stays safe.”

Local stations agreed to pool feeds from their helicopters hovering over the out-of-control flames.

“With a truly major disaster like this, competition is a facet that goes out the window,” Button said. “We’re letting the other stations use our choppers while theirs go in for refueling. Yes, there’s a competition between stations, but in situations like this, it’s all about trying to get information out.”

–By David Kronke

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