Covering the School Shooting in Illinois
WMAQ Chicago has some aerial footage of the multiple shootings on campus at Northern Illinois University here, along with two dozen still photos, mostly similar shots from the chopper.
WFLD has a chopper above the campus too and is posting emergency phone numbers for students to call and say they’re OK.
Around 6:15 ET, WBBM.com had a 45-second report from the studio, and said the chopper was en route to the scene. A subsequent report on WBBM’s graphics department still having its Christmas ornaments up in February seemed a bit inappropriate.
WLS, meanwhile, has audio from a student who was close to the shooting along with aerial video and lots of photos. It’s hard to tell from the interface what’s video and what’s a photo, and the video took a long time to buffer, at least on our computer.
virtualchuck commented:
It's interesting to note 2 things. The first is that WLS (ABC) has the only HD chopper in Chicago; it makes A WORLD of difference in a story like this when most of the early footage is from the air.
Also this is the second time WMAQ (NBC) has had breaking (unplanned) news utilizing their new Ross automation system. The first occurred several Saturday's ago with coverage of five women shot and killed in a suburban strip mall clothing shop. They were obviously having many difficulties bringing news to the viewers with several mentions of things such as “We saw some footage of the scene earlier in the newsroom, and we’re trying to bring that to you now” as well as the incorrect graphics on the screen many times during the newscast.
This is just another example of how the corporation(s) penny pinching is robbing the viewers of invaluable information during breaking news. In case of a true crisis affecting thousands of people, how will the television stations be able to keep viewers informed, when their entire newscast is now run by computers and only a handful of people?