How not to cover a fire... the KTVB example

August 26, 2008

Boise had a devastating fire on Monday evening. When all is said and done a woman died, ten houses were destroyed and many more damaged. The Idaho Statesman has very good coverage. This post is not, however, about the fire but is about the coverage of the fire. Lacking a TiVo in our current setup I wasn't able to do a comparison between the different networks. As such this is then a critique of the coverage done by KTVB. One word sums it up.

Terrible.

However stopping there wouldn't do this story justice. At the same time KTVB is producing content that is embarrassingly bad they are bragging about it not just on the air but on Twitter as well. More about that in a bit.

Breaking News?

Let us start at the beginning, just after the fire raced into a southwest Boise subdivision. Within an hour of the fire hitting the houses KTVB broke into regular programming with the breaking news. I watched the next hour or so of coverage. In that time viewers learned: Read more about How not to cover a fire... the KTVB example

Overland Fire Update

October 30, 2003

By day's end the Overland Fire had scorched more than 5000 acres of land north of Boulder. As is typical in October in Colorado yesterday's 75 degree heat and gusty winds have given way to freezing drizzle and calm overcast skies. We should be set for a nice, traditional, snow just in time for the little goblins and ghosts to come a trick-or-treaking.

Overland Fire

October 29, 2003

The Overland Fire was discovered Wednesday morning in Lefthand Canyon near Boulder, Colorado. Hot dry winds have whipped the fire into a major blaze which is currently estimated at between 400 and 500 acres. Anyone interested in the complexities of running such an operation can listen to two of the Boulder County Sheriff's Office radio channels.

The red circle in the picture shows the spread of the smoke plume on Wednesday afternoon after the fire flared up to several hundred acres.

NCAR has a web cam that is taking in the view of the smoke north of Boulder.