On The Kowch for week of August 29th

Top 5 things we can learn from US radio and TV coverage of Hurricane Irene, tornadoes and earthquakes

From where I sit On The Kowch, now is a good time to look at how US media handled coverage of Hurricane Irene, recent tornadoes and earthquakes to figure out what you can do in the event of a natural disaster (major snowstorm, earthquake or tornado) hitting your local listening or viewing area.

Based on what the American media did to cover their natural disasters in the past month, here are the top five things you need to do:

• Provide listeners with a reason to listen to your radio station or watch your television station. What is the benefit of coming to you vs your competition. In times of disaster it is more than just telling people what happened. You create a benefit for coming to your media outlet by giving them information they can use to stay out of harm's way or to help themselves. Figure out what you or your family would need to know if something like this happened in your listening or viewing area. Ask staff what kind of information they would need to get them through a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or major snowstorm. Then build that into your coverage plans.

• Fine tune your social media strategies to connect with as many users as possible with critical information. TV stations in the States posted weather forecasts and updates on YouTube of Hurricane Irene.  Battery powered laptops, smartphones and WIFI made it possible to go online to watch the videos. One TV station increased its Facebook page by 2,000 Likes. Extreme news events are typically good for 10% spikes in Facebook, Twitter and Skype memberships. Promote your social media connections and encourage listeners/viewers to use the social media to update you on what is happening in their neighbourhoods.

• In times of extreme emergencies the cellular phone networks crash under the crush of everyone calling family and friends to see if they are OK. This will create a major headache to have your reporters file reports or go live on radio and TV. That is when you need to use modern technology like Skype. Reporters can use a Smartphone to dial your Skype line to get on air and even show video on TV. (Battery powered laptops with access to WIFI can also log on to Skype). Listeners can call the radio station or TV station to go on air to report what they see via Skype. If your station doesn't use Skype now, get your engineering department to hook you up. More importantly, have the engineers hook Skype up in master control so you can put people using Skype on the air. Don't wait until something happens. Do it now while it's still fresh in your mind.

• Cellular phones may crash but texting will still work. It is a different server on the network. Make sure your station has a texting account to receive crucial updates from citizen journalists. Do it now. It takes time to set this up. You can't do it at the last minute or during a natural disaster. Remember, if you have a texting network it works both ways. You can send your listeners/viewers text message updates including promoting upcoming coverage like a live press conference.

• Create a "Go-Team" plan where you share human resources with sister stations in your company. This was a major initiative by US stations to roll in reinforcements to load up personnel in major-news areas depending on the need. Sort of a mutual aid system like fire departments have with neighbouring communities. If your company has stations across the province start figuring out your mutual aid system now.

From where I sit On The Kowch, in times of disasters you're either in with both feet or you're out of the game. Music stations need to stop playing music and commit to full time coverage of the natural disaster. Have your announcers handle the coverage because listeners want to hear familiar voices in times of emergency. If there is a talk or all news station in your cluster simulcast live press conferences or its newscasts.

Don't assume because it's evening or overnight that it's okay to go back to music. It's not OK until things settle down and the emergency has passed. You will lose listeners for the duration of the crises because they will search out the information and not come back to you.

It is always a difficult decision to make about when to pull the plug on special coverage programming. But it is better to err on the side of being the second or third station returning to regular programming than the first. Just make sure when you return to normal programming that you promise listeners you will bring them the latest developments as they happen. This way listeners won't worry about missing anything.

Steve Kowch was program director of two of Canada's largest newstalk radio stations for 14 years

He has produced special coverage programming that won more than 30 local, national and international awards

He can be reached at steve@kowchmedia.com

www.facebook.com/kowchmedia