Alpha Media’s West Palm Beach operation is about 30 minutes up the road from where the Florida school shooting took place last week. Alpha’s moniker is “live and local” so the radio stations jumped right into action with their News-Talk station taking the lead. Leo Baldwin is the Operations Manager for Alpha Media’s seven West Palm Beach stations. We spoke to Baldwin about how his entire cluster covered the tragedy.
Radio Ink: How did you originally cover the shooting when you first heard about it?
Leo Baldwin: We are fortunate as a cluster to have our own News-Talk station, 850 WFTL. Through WFTL we have a TV partner in CBS 12. Those two entities bring an event like this into our building immediately. From there our News Director Karen Curtis and our Web Content Creator Tracy St. George were able to quickly get the information across all of our stations and digital platforms.
Radio Ink: Tell us about how all of your stations covered the shooting once it was in motion with all the press conferences and national coverage going on?
Leo Baldwin: Our News Talk 850 WFTL took the lead and we filtered information down the line to the other six stations. We also have a breaking news feature on all of the station websites that leads back to 850wftl.com. Having our own news team in the building helps us as a cluster get critical information to our audiences quickly and accurately.
Radio Ink: Are you taking a lot of calls on your stations and what is the community saying?
Leo Baldwin: Thursday, the morning after, we preempted any syndicated morning shows and went with local programming. We felt our community needed to know we were there and more importantly ready to listen. As you can imagine with a tragedy so close to home that involves the loss of innocent lives, especially children, our community is hurt and angry. From the emotions of how come this wasn’t prevented to the more important question of how do we make sure it never happens again.
Radio Ink: Do you have any plans for special programming or community events?
Leo Baldwin: In the coming days, weeks and months there will be many community events that are centered around this moment and we will be there for all of them. One of the initiatives we will strongly participate in will be the National School Walkout on March 14.
Radio Ink: Tell us about how your team did in the midst of such an emotional community tragedy?
Leo Baldwin: In moments like this you realize just how tight knit communities are. We have two employees in our building that are alumni of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and that instantly brought this into perspective to our team. I am fortunate to have a building full of broadcasters who are extremely passionate about what they do for a living. From the first alert, this team jumped into action and never stopped; whatever was needed was done. As the operations manager I am proud to be part of a group that took on this unfortunate and difficult task with the tenacity, grace, and compassion that they did.
Reach out to Leo to congratulate him on a job well done at [email protected]
Thanks so much for sharing all the information on your page. Great stuff!
For the KVJ Show we did nothing but talk to the audience and voice our emotions for four straight hours. Stories aired from people who were directly involved with the shooting and also the universal concern that all parents are sharing about sending their kids to school in South Florida. Our coverage was more based on emotion and concern than newsy details.
Appreciate this follow up, altho expected to hear more station responses.
I searched a list if stations on the web Feb 14th, and all had a way for me to access their app, sign up, give a password yada yards yada…..but the only one I found was WFTL850 ( I have no idea what Alpha media is when searching stations), I either couldn’t get the stream to respond( maybe too jammed with inquiries) and when I did get on late in the evening was there a talk show host talking about his kids on social media?)
Agree with previous comment, why was there any syndication period!
Thanks for chance to vent here.
Jim
So syndicated programming was cut for a Day last Thursday. Does this mean WIRK simulcasted KVJ or WFTL? Did they do their own local show? What about X and WEAT? I’d hate to learn that “local programming” was a simulcast of all stations for four or five hours or — even worse — running CBS12.