#MediaMonday – Kevin Curran
Happy 1st Anniversary at ABC15 to my good friend, Kevin Curran, assignment editor, teacher extraordinaire and today’s #MediaMonday!
Kevin has been in the business for more than 30 years, starting in radio in the New York area. He came to Phoenix in 1992 as a radio operations manager, worked in Los Angeles for Inside Edition, a few other great places in between and now at ABC15. In his “spare” time, aside from being a wonderful dad, Kevin also teaches for Scottsdale and Mesa Community Colleges and is one of the newest professors for the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism teaching The Business and Future of Journalism.
Who better than to take a class from than someone in the “trenches” everyday!
So HAPPY1st Anniversary at ABC15 and #MediaMonday, Kevin Curran.
Kevin, what do you want to tell the blogosphere today?
While other markets have been seeing a consolidation or elimination of news operations, Phoenix still has seven TV newsrooms (five English/two Spanish). Each is continuing efforts to differentiate the station from the others. That also means some thought needs to go into what story pitches are likely to succeed.
At ABC15, we rarely do author interviews, music acts or cooking segments in news shows. We have a reputation for investigations. That was burnished with a Peabody Award last year. We also like people stories. If you’re suggesting a story about a doctor, we will need a patient.
While TV stations still rely on broadcasting for audience and revenue, the online world grows in importance every day. I am amazed at the amount of traffic that runs through ABC15.com. There is an entire staff over there that is dedicated to building and updating the site with an enormous amount of interactive content.
I wanted to repeat some pet peeves I have shared in various forums over the years I’ve been on local TV desks.
- E-mail is the best way to pitch.
- Don’t call between 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
- Always include cell phones that will be answered for evening and weekend events.
- Remember your e-mail will be copied and pasted into another system, so make sure it is in a form where that can be done.
- Don’t include attachments. I’ll ask for them if I need them.
- Watch your file size.
- Twitter is not a replacement for e-mail. I try to read all my e-mails, but I only see tweets that come in when I’m actually in front of the screen.
Speaking of Twitter, don’t forget to add @ABC15desk and @KevinOnTheDesk to your follow lists so you’ll know what’s going on!
