Team 4 Rundown Rationale

By Kevin Belbey (NCC News)
October 20, 2010, 7:30 p.m.

Team 4 consisted of myself, Kevin Belbey, as producer and Kimberly Caruba as anchor. We also used Tim Killian for our recorded wrap and Andrew Kanell.

A1: Headlines
For the Headlines, I teased three of the stories with soundbites—JD Schools, Governor’s Poll, and the Four Loko story. I tried to have the three stories dispersed a bit in the rundown instead of just teasing the first three stories.

A2: JD Schools
With no breaking national or local stories, I decided to lead with a story about Jamesville-Dewitt residents having approved an $11.5 million funding project for the school district. This was a recorded wrap by Tim Killian.

A3: New FM Contract
Keeping it local and education related, we went to Kimmie’s anchor-actuality about how the Fayetville-Manlius school district and its teacher’s union passed on contract for the next school year that will save the district more than $500,000 a year.

A4: Murder of 1991
The next story was about stayed local but moved away from education. This reader was about a man who is charged with strangling his wife back in 1991, but is finally facing trial in Onondaga County Court. His wife was also seven months pregnant when she was murdered nearly two decades ago.

A5: Governor’s Poll
The next story transitioned from local to state, and from here on out we covered stories on a bigger scale. This reader was about the newest Governor’s Poll that was released about an hour before we took air. The Siena College poll showed Carl Paladino’s support continuing to diminish, as 63% of likely voters said they would go to the polls for Andrew Cuomo on November 2nd.

A6: Four Loko
From the Governor’s Poll, we went to Andrew Kanell’s live wrap on a Four Loko story. Four Loko is a twenty-four ounce canned beverage which contains three or four times the amount of alcohol in a beer, and three times the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee. Andrew reported that the drink is currently under investigation by the FDA, and was able to do a good wrap even though some store owners were reluctant to comment.

A7: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Following the Four Loko story, we had another anchor-actuality by Kimmie which flowed well with the theme of things being banned at the national level. Her story was about the Justice Department continuing to fight Federal Judge Virginia Phillips refusal to delay her injunction on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Kimmie took a soundbite off of ABC Newscall from Service-Members Legal Defense Network spokesman Trevor Thomas.

A8: H. Clinton Gays
After the anchor-actuality, we had a reader about Hillary Clinton offering her support towards gay teenagers who are suffering from bullying through a videotaped message on YouTube. I thought this flowed well coming out of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” story.

A9: Obama Campaign Trail
The last story before the tease was a reader about Barack Obama starting his longest campaign trip of the season, hitting California, Nevada, Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington state. I planned on having a reader last in case we needed to drop it, and we did. Running a little over on time, this helped a bit getting us back where we needed to be.

A10: Tease
We had a quick tease, mentioning the kicker story and the weather

B1: Kicker-Lawsuits
The kicker was a reader about a federal prisoner who has filed more than 5,000 lawsuits while behind bars on everyone from New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick to former President George W. Bush. Finally, a judge from Lexington, Kentucky ruled for prison officials to review and reject any outgoing mail sent by Jonathan Lee Riches, who has been in prison for nearly a decade after pleading guilty to an email credit card scam. Still a bit over on time, we cut the last two sentences from the kicker but the story still made sense without them.

B2: Weather
Kimmie finished up the newscast with the weather by reading tonight and tomorrow’s weather forecast, the forecast for the weekend, and the current temperature and conditions. Preparing to time out perfectly, the extra weather didn’t need to be read and Kimmie did a good job of checking out the clock as time ticked down.

End of Show
Kimmie read the close and finished our newscast on time.

Floater1: FDNY Ban
We did not need either floater, but we had two prepared just in case. The first was a twenty second reader about a federal judge barring New York City from hiring any more new firefighters. The judge criticized the fire department’s handling of a discrimination lawsuit.

Floater2: SU Hoops
The second floater was a ten second reader in case we were in need of a smaller story to kill some time. The story was about Syracuse University basketball being predicted to finish third in the Big East Conference early this morning at Media Day in New York City.