I don’t normally watch local news. I get more than enough news on the internets, from reading Twitter, and the Willy Week and The Merc’s Blogtown.
But during the election season, KGW actually devoted a half-hour, five days a week to nothing but the election, both local and national. I watched several times, and wished I’d watched more. Maybe it’s a sign of how poorly local news handles politics that KGW’s move made it stand out, but I wanted to encourage things like that. I am a political junkie, so I follow it all like it was baseball… and I’m sure that if more people had political information in front of them, it would be better in general for all of us. Democracy works when more people participate.
But it seemed to disappear after the election. Or maybe I just stopped watching and went back to my precious internets.
Then… I started reading on Twitter, from a lot of the local folks that I follow, notably Twitterer-about-town Josh Bancroft, that KGW has a new live show on the air at 7:00 PM in my hometown, called Live @ 7. I’m pretty sure that was the same timeslot as the election show.
And, apparently, the host of the show, Stephanie Stricklen, is on Twitter (and the producers (I think) Twitters under their own account, too).
Then, the final straw was reading, somewhere, I don’t remember who said it first, or at all, that Live @ 7 kept their mikes and cameras “live” during commercial breaks for anyone watching them online instead of on TV.
How cool is that?
Last night, because I was home and surfing, I decided to follow StephStricklen and TheSquare on Twitter and load up their live video while I surfed.
It’s kinda cool to see local newscasters who seem to have really embraced a couple of the neat internet tools. During one of the breaks, Stephanie, in between apologizing for being short (what a silly thing to apologize for, said the 5’6″ man), she filled in online watchers on a story that got cut from the broadcast for time, for example.
And prior to the show, the producers asked for input from Twitterers, namely if we were doing anything to prepare for this storm that’s being predicted for the Portland area. I snapped off a snarky but honest answer.
Seeing Attorney-General-elect John Kroger get interviewed made me glad for my vote for him, and Ms. Stricklen made good use of the short amount of time with her questions. I hope, for example, that Kroger’s eye-opening point on how scared even rural communities are of “the meth problem” may lead to other options other than law enforcement options to dealing with drug use and abuse, but I’m glad he is approaching his position by listening to the entire state. It’s encouraging.
Surprise! During the final break, I got to watch Stephanie stumble over my handle. She made a common mistake, assuming that it breaks out as “luna + rob + verse”, I think, from the way she was reading it.
…holy crab, does that mean she’s going to read my tweet?
I shot off a quick note to let them know that my handle is broken out and should be read as “lunar + obverse”. Then I got to see my original tweet read, on air, by the host.
Whoo-hoo! I’m internet famous!
Big thanks to KGW, Stephanie Stricklen and the producers of “Live @ 7” for making me a fan of local news again, and for participating in the internet community. Big props.