Forgive us for treating it like, well, the elephant in the middle of the room…but we have yet to comment on the Northeast Ohio Media Circus.
That is, the fact that much of the national media has descended upon Canton and nearby areas concerning the disappearance of a certain pregnant mother, 26 year-old Jessie Marie Davis, from her home in North Canton.
A virtual media village has set up at the Stark County Sheriff’s Department, and national network and cable news reporters have made the area their second home. Among the first to make the trek to Ohio – FOX News Channel’s Greta van Susteren and her “On The Record” show, flanked by at least two other FNC reporters.
And local TV and radio news operations are intensely involved as well.
On Wednesday evening’s “Channel 3 News at 6”, Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC/3 featured anchor Tim White on-scene in Canton at what we guess could be “Camp Jessie” – the parking lot of the sheriff’s department.
With White joined by reporter Chris Tye and Akron/Canton bureau chief-news anchor Eric Mansfield, the “multiple coverage” reminds us of the massive “team coverage” over the Cleveland Cavaliers’ recent NBA Finals series.
Speaking of which, ABC affiliate WEWS/5 was not to be left out, with “NewsChannel 5” investigative reporter Duane Pohlman breathlessly describing a search of the home of Davis’ boyfriend, a Canton police officer, with “NewsChopper 5” providing pictures overhead. A similar scene played out over at CBS affiliate WOIO/19’s “19 Action News” Wednesday afternoon.
Teams have also fanned out from northern Stark County and Canton, over to Wooster and up to Hudson to cover various aspects of this story.
And with the FNC folks here, FOX O&O (for now) WJW/8 “FOX 8” has had use of their footage to supplement local reporting. We saw Ms. van Susteren’s tour of Ms. Davis’ home on “FOX 8 News” Wednesday evening.
Local TV and radio reporters are busy serving non-local viewers and listeners as well.
We’re sure just about all of ’em are doing live shots for their various sister network affiliates around the country. Those are the same live shots you’ve seen reporters do in other cities for local stations of the same network or owner.
News-oriented stations like Canton’s WHBC/1480 and Akron’s WAKR/1590 have been covering the ongoing series of events with vigor, and WHBC’s microphone flag has been visible in just about every live press conference video we’ve seen.
We haven’t had the ability to listen to WHBC’s local talk shows since this started, but we’ll assume that they’re delving into the first big Canton news story since they changed format to talk.
And as you might expect, WAKR/Rubber City Radio’s AkronNewsNow website is all over the story, with an extensive special section with news stories, audio, video and even a blog from the station’s news staffers covering the events.
The story is even pressing non-newsies into service as reporters, and not just on FM radio morning shows.
As we flipped by CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck show Wednesday evening, we saw Beck tossing to someone from “our radio affiliate”, Clear Channel Akron talker WHLO/640, and “reporter” Keith Kennedy on the phone.
That’s right, the cluster’s programming operations director and hot AC WKDD/98.1 afternoon driver was doing a news “voicer” report for the host who airs – on the radio side – weekdays on WHLO at 9 AM.
(For the OMW readers at Freedom Avenue, feel free to jokingly call him “Scoop” today.)
Beck did misidentify the station as “NewsTalk 540” twice, though the graphics were correct. (We’re guessing he had affiliate WFLF/540 Orlando FL on his mind.)
Though WHLO itself dispatches no field reporters from its studios – morning anchor Tom Duresky is busy anchoring for WHLO and WKDD – the station has the services of excellent WTAM/1100 “lead team reporter” Greg Saber, who can drop into the studios after covering events.
And it’s not that far of a drive.
WHLO and its Freedom Avenue sisters are actually occupying the closest broadcast media facility of any type to the home of Ms. Davis. A quick Google Maps search shows us that it’s just a two-and-a-half mile drive from the home to the Clear Channel World Domination HQ/Southern Command.
And one of the most unlikely TV and radio voices is all over the place in broadcast media coverage.
The Canton Repository’s Todd Porter nabbed the first interview with the aforementioned Canton police officer who’s the boyfriend of the missing woman. The audio was heard on TV and radio all over Northeast Ohio – and the world – for the better part of the Wednesday, thanks to the Repository’s posting of it on the cantonrep.com website.
The Akron Beacon Journal’s Bob Dyer, a former media writer for the paper himself, delves into the national media takeover of Stark County in an article in today’s Beacon.
Anyway, media circus aside, particularly, we express our fondest hope that Ms. Davis and her child are found safe and sound…
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