WMBD 31 FAIL (UPDATED)
I spent the evening watching the many fine prime-time programming on WMBD 31. Several times, they announced that the 10 p.m. news report that two Peoria schools were on lockdown and that if I wanted to know more, I ought to watch the news.
It is now 10:11 p.m. and the station has yet to air the report. They haven’t even mentioned it. Nothing is on their Website, either.
Ladies and gentleman, this is bullshit.
UPDATE: Oh, this is COMPLETE bullshit. The very last item of the broadcast, they reported in the most matter-of-fact toner humanly possible that Peoria Central and Franklin Edison schools were briefly put on lock down as because a warrant was begin served at a nearby location.
The facts of the report did not warrant the scare promo was was running throughout the evening.
WMBD 31 took a big, fat dump on their credibility tonight.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
[...] This post was Twitted by PeoriaPundit [...]
http://www.pjstar.com/homepage/x441553353/Two-District-150-schools-on-brief-lockdown-this-morning
You could have read about it almost 13 hours earlier at PJStar.com, Billy. Even in its current diminished state, my former newspaper has four or five times the reporting resource of all the Peoria TV and radio stations put together.
I didn’t see this on PJStar. I wish I had. I would have been a lot less flustered, because the tone of those promos made it seem like this was a Big Thing.
This wasn’t an issue of understaffing at WMBD. It’s a case of casual sensationalism I hope the extra eyeballs they got to stay up to watch their newscast was worth the loss of credibility.
Why don’t you subscribe to the PJStar’s RSS feed? Then you don’t even have to bother going to their site, they send the news to you. Use a Reader such as Google Reader. I knew about this story yesterday morning as well.
Ummmm there was good reason for the lock down. I was able to witness the situation first hand. Columbia Terrace an unmarked van unloaded a full team of swat officers in full combat gear with automatic weapons about three houses down from Franklin. They stormed the house after several suspects who were known to flee and also who are known to be armed and dangerous. Fun to watch over coffee
My complaint wasn’t about the lockdown or the need for it. I approve.
My complaint is that WMBD ran scare promos on and off for three hours and then tossed in a 20 second (if that) report at the end of the show about how it was all routine nothing to worry about.
Many years ago I worked what they call traffic management for CBS. That is not transportation, it is traffic of scheduling programs. We were in the dark ages, no computers, etc., and we did a better job of the news and all the other programming schedule than today’s news media or Comcast put together. We never had the faux pas that go on today. Everyday there is a screw up in the programming on Comcast and the news is so old its stale by the time it gets to the screen and then half the time the facts aren’t straight. The JS is not the only media that can’t get the story straight. The more sophisticated we get with equipment, the messier things get. Shoddy workmanship everywhere. And the news and the weather channel and JS never agree on anything to do with the area weather.
You could have read about the story 13 hours earlier on WMBD’s website too, under the news tab. Check your own facts before you make false claims.
Really? I’m looking at the content of the news tab and I see nothing about any school lock down. Can you provide a link?
Found it. It was toward the bottom of the page.
http://centralillinoisproud.com/content/fulltext/?cid=88102
Viewer, doesn’t change the fact that the ran it in the promos as if it was breaking and relevant news and it wasn’t.
http://centralillinoisproud.com/content/fulltext/?cid=88102
Local TV News is a joke in this community. Our so called celebrities who call themselves news reporters and weather personalties are a joke. I never watch anymore. Their 5pm newscast is nothing but promos for their 6pm newscast which is nothing but promos for their 10pm newscast. In fact, I happened on TV 25’s weather the other day and thought, what the heck, I’ll see what Lee Ranson is saying. The weather segment was mostly taken up by the picture of the day segment. Really? Do we need a picture of the day segment instead of good weather forecasting? It’s all crap and if you depend on these clowns for your news source, then you get what you pay for. Nothing.
I can’t believe I am going to say this. But…I completely agree with everything Emtronics just said.