I INTRODUCED GARY Weddle to everyone at the Channel 10 morning news meeting.
I started off by repeating the same line about consultants I’d used with Faron: “Gary is a consultant who’s been hired by management to help us with our newscasts. And, you know what they say about consultants. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t do either become consultants.” Then I followed it up with a few new jokes: “A consultant is a person you pay to borrow your watch and tell you what time it is.” And finally: “Why is a consultant like a prostitute? They both screw their clients for money.”
Everyone laughed, including Weddle.
Then I told them a bit about Weddle’s qualifications and why he was here. I also ran through some of the ideas he had told me about improving our newscast. And that I liked a lot of his proposals. My hope was that showing I was onboard with the consultant idea might temper some of the opposition to Weddle that I knew was coming. But it did not.
“You want us to throw our material up immediately on the web for everyone to see?” someone asked. “Why would they tune in to our newscast then? That would kill our ratings.”
“How would we even do it?” another editor asked. “Work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week in here putting up news on the website all day and night. That’s crazy.”
And, as I expected, Brett Wolff and Dani Blaine—our two co-anchors—wanted to know how it would impact them as the stars of the newscast, the ones people wanted to see and advertisers paid big bucks to have on the screen delivering the news in their living rooms each night.
“We’re the face of Channel 10 News,” they both said in different ways, but pretty much with the same message. “Not some dopey website.”
Gary Weddle patiently went through it all with them. He talked about how more and more people—especially young people, the target of our advertisers—were not watching traditional newscasts, but instead, got most of their news in real time on smartphones and their tablets.
He explained that his “The News Never Stops” concept would help the ratings, not hurt them, by promoting the station’s newscast and its newscasters—most prominently Brett and Dani—throughout the day.
He also said that a series of procedures could be established so that any big breaking news story we would be covering anyway that day could transition easily to the station’s website as part of the normal news coverage process, without involving a great deal of extra work for anyone.
“If you’re at a fire that happens at 11 a.m., you’re going to shoot video of that fire then, while its occurring. All we do then is put that video up on our website quickly, rather than holding onto it for the 6 p.m. newscast. Then, for the newscast itself, we do it all the better, with the star power of our two anchors and all the rest of our resources.
“Nobody’s going to be working all day on it. And it’s not like we’d put up every bit of news that goes on during the day. We’d only do it for a big breaking story that we’re covering anyway—and giving that news to people as it happens, without being locked into the constraints of a specific newscast time like in the past.
“Look, here’s the bottom line for ‘The News Never Stops.’ It’s a promotional gimmick. The idea that we’re out there doing this 24/7 is all bullshit. We don’t have to actually do that, just make viewers feel like that’s what they’re getting from us. It will give us a brand—a promotional sizzle—that no other station in town has. And that will translate into even higher ratings for us.”
Sizzle.
Brand promotion.
Bigger ratings.
Now those were concepts TV people could relate to.
Weddle was winning the room over now, getting them all to buy in for “The News Never Stops.”
Even Brett and Dani.
Weddle wrapped his talk up by saying that he would be talking individually to more people in the newsroom over the coming days; I told another joke or two; and then I said how much I looked forward to working with Gary Weddle to implement all this for our Channel 10 coverage.
I gave him a big smile when I was done.
He smiled back at me.
It was a nice smile.
“What was that all about in there?” Maggie asked me when we were back in my office after Weddle left.
“Do you mean the ‘The News Never Stops’ stuff?”
“No, I mean what’s going on between you and this Weddle guy?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were so nice to him.”
“I’m always nice.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m trying to develop a good working relationship with him—the way Jack Faron asked me to do.”
But Maggie wasn’t buying it. I’ve never been able to BS Maggie.
“Are you hot for this guy, Clare?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I could pick up the vibes between you two. You’re pretty obvious when you’re attracted to a man. Not to mention that smile-athon thing you two had going at the end. That looked like more than just a good working relationship with Gary Weddle.”
“Okay, maybe I do find him attractive. So what?”
“He’s not your type, Clare.”
“Everyone keeps telling me that.”
“Maybe you should start listening.”