Thursday, July 12, 2007

The "other" Akron News documentary

Much has been made on a few media blogs and elsewhere about the documentary that aired a few nights ago about the death and rebirth of TV News in Akron. It will re-air at 3 a.m. this Saturday morning on PBS 45/49. Some liked it while others didn't. I still need to see it before I can weigh in.

If the topic really interests you, there's another documentary out there that is exceptionally well done, and it's available for free on the Internet. Twentyfourhours was put together in 2001 and looked at how all of the Cleveland stations cover Akron-area news. The report also looks back at how Akron ended up without a newscast for a five-year period.

Here's a link: http://www.pbs4549.org/vod.htm

While it's a few years old, this documentary really nails a lot of the big issues facing Akron news coverage and includes a broad group of interviews to tackle the subject. Let me know what you think. As fate would have it, the PBS crew was scheduled to visit our Akron newsroom on September 11th. So the video you see of our newsroom at the top of the documentary where folks are running all over the place and looking stressed on the phones was shot on the actual day of the attacks.

By the way, I think I'll go run a few miles after seeing how chubby my face was in 2001. Kind of the "fat Eric" versus the "Eric" I am today. Maybe that gives me something in common with Elvis.

1 comment:

Tim Lones said...

Hello Eric:
I watched the new documentary last night..It was well done, but mostly things that was pretty mich common knowledge..at least to those who follow local tv. I was a bit disappointed there was not more earlier vintage WAKR-TV footage used. I had always wished that one or two other stations would have been built in Akron-Canton..There were permits in the 1950's. Then there might have been 2 or 3 newsrooms instead of one..I dont get to see 23 Akron-Canton news because I have satellite but when I have seen you on occasion You always do a good job.

I have my own blog should you ever have time to check it out..sort of a history TV site for Cleveland/NE Ohio.

http://www.clevelandclassicmedia.blogspot.com