"Two TV stations reported that Year 2000 problems might have been to blame ... "If this was indeed a test run for the Y2K bug, stations can use Tuesday's effort as training film for reporters and anchors to smooth things out." IN THE DARK by Tim Goodman EXAMINER TV CRITIC San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 9, 1998 With the PG&E bigwigs cornered and in full panic Tuesday, we got word that the blackout was ultimately a "switching error." If you were lucky enough to have a TV up and running, you could have easily made the same mistake. As the story unfolded, there was a four-way race to televise events. Who won? Easy. KCBS radio. But if you wanted pictures to tell the story, you had to be mighty selective or risk falling into an information blackout. KRON Channel 4 had its day all but ruined when its generator malfunctioned. The station was off the air for 90 minutes and then had to broadcast out of a van parked on the street out front. This isn't the first time KRON has had trouble with its generators during a crisis. (At least this time it had a generator - the station didn't have one handy during the '89 earthquake.) The station went dark several times after that - both from the van and on the set - and lost sound as well. Regardless of what happened next, those glitches didn't bode well for anyone with a remote and a sense of urgency. But once things got back to normal with Pete Wilson and Emerald Yeh on the set, Wilson provided some calm in a crisis situation. Wilson is probably the best local anchor at such a task and he delivered the line of the day when it was reported Mayor Brown said the blackout was due to human error. "We have to be pretty careful about that. The mayor has been known to conclude things like that quickly." Wilson kept the same attitude when Brown said at 10 a.m. - erroneously - that we'd all have electricity in 45 minutes. The TV newscast with the best coverage was undoubtedly KTVU Channel 2, if for nothing else because it was the only one of four stations to get the PG&E press conference live. At that point KPIX Channel 5 and KGO Channel 7 joined KRON in a continuous guessing game with no answers. What happened? Who's to blame? When will our coffee makers work again? At one point, KPIX anchor Ken Bastida said, "We're told PG&E is setting up for an interview." Actually, Ken, they were just about to break it down. KTVU had a camera and Tom Vacar inside to give its viewers all the answers the rest of the pack was only guessing at. Game, set, match. Everybody go home. Later, KTVU was the first one to have Willie Brown's impromptu press conference. The station was joined quickly by KRON, then KPIX. KGO was doing weather, and then minutes later, hilariously, cut to its cameraman trying to force his way in to get a shot of Brown, only to get stuck with an obstructed view. Better settle that strike soon. In this town, always follow the mayor. They should have known that. It was a bizarre TV event because most of San Francisco was dark. If you had a TV with batteries in it - or lived elsewhere - chances are you got to see the action. Crisis situations invariably bring out the worst in TV stations because anchors have to ad-lib - a dangerous game only a few can pull off. What we got was a lot of repeated information - not at the half-hour mark but sometimes within the same minute - that didn't further the story. To be fair, a big, breaking news event is inherently a seat-of-your-pants flight and contents sometimes shift along the way. While KGO anchor Eric Thomas was wonderfully composed, his efforts were undermined by co-anchor Beth Spicuzza, who seemed distracted and confused the entire morning. She did tell us it was cold in the studio. All four stations were guilty of one of the most insidious problems in local TV news: the non-story. There was a mad rush to report live from the San Mateo-based PG&E substation that newscasts called "ground zero." The problem? No news came from there. Hours rolled by and the reporting was lousy and useless. The best - or worst - line came from KTVU's Jennifer Jolly: "The biggest news here is that absolutely nothing is going on." Great. Hang on and we'll come back live in two minutes. KTVU was lucky that its news instincts helped win the day, with the PG&E and Mayor Brown press conferences. Outside of Vacar, there wasn't much reporting that stood out. The station - and KGO as well - both reported that there might have been Year 2000 problems to blame. Let's get Mulder and Scully on that right away. KTVU anchor Frank Somerville, talking off the cuff about a pedestrian who had been hit by a vehicle, said this: "It may turn out the victim is going to die." Sadly, she did die later in the day, but: verification before speculation - always. Misinformation is always a frequent surprise guest during a crisis, and it's up to anchors and reporters to use caution when passing on information. At one point, virtually every station had differing views about BART delays and traffic congestion, with their own cameras sometimes contradicting on-air statements. "You have to be real honest with people about the state of your process gathering," said KRON news director Dan Rosenheim. "When a disaster happens, by definition at the beginning you're presenting sketchy reports." Rosenheim and Andrew Finlayson, associate news director at KTVU, both said their stations have procedures for crisis reporting and that an effort is made to not only keep news fresh, but accurate at all times. That's obviously easier stated than accomplished. Stations would do well to keep an eye on fluctuating facts - is BART running on time, has anyone died, when will electricity be restored, etc. And useless information - live reports from the San Mateo substation for example - should be nipped in the bud as soon as possible. Also, beware repeated information during hour three. We know the roads are jammed, we know it's good to have a non-electric phone, we know we're supposed to unplug our computers. If this was indeed a test run for the Y2K bug, stations can use Tuesday's effort as training film for reporters and anchors to smooth things out. Let's hope there's not a quake in the meantime. ______________________ The day the City stood still by ROB MORSE San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 8, 1998 This was the preview. This was the day San Francisco stood still to let us know what we have to be ready for. The Big One? Y2K? It was a little bit of both. At 9:15, an hour after the power went down, there wasn't a cop or traffic control officer in sight at any intersection in San Francisco. The only person directing traffic was Pan Pacific Hotel doorman James Spencer, waving traffic through Post and Mason in his white uniform. "I lived through New York in 1965," he said, referring to the huge East Coast power failure. "But I was a lot younger. It would be nice if someone was directing traffic down there." He pointed toward Union Square, where traffic was gridlocked. "There are no cops there," said Bill Campbell. "It's wild. Cable car gripmen are directing traffic at Kearny and California." The only cops in sight were two Honda motorcycle officers who parked in front of the Stockton entrance of Macy's and looked confused. When I asked one where the cops were, he said, "I tell you everything's out. Everyone's on their own." Everyone's on their own. That's San Francisco when it happens. When anything happens. This is how bad it was: Muni - diesel powered Muni - performed better than any city organization. "I think these guys who drive the diesel buses are doing a yeoman's job," said Barbara Erickson, who was on her way to work at Macy's. Brian Karo was walking down Market Street trying to get his cell phone to work. I asked him if he saw any cops directing traffic. "No," he said. "There really isn't a lot of support." When asked what he wished he had brought from home, he said: "My pillow." Tuesday was a reminder of all the things we need to be prepared for, and never are. Let's see: A full tank of gas. Food and water. Cash because the ATMs don't work. Flashlights. Radios. Batteries. We'll get some of that stuff this week, and as time passes we'll forget we're on our own. Fortunately, we're pretty good when we're on our own. We have to be. "I was here for the earthquake in '89," said Michael McDonnell of Galway, Ireland, who was here with a teenage Irish football team. "What I can't get over is how exceptionally civilized everybody is. Dublin would be in chaos." San Francisco, past and future. Just as in '89, everyone was stopping for lights that weren't working. "They're even orderly at O'Farrell and Stockton," said Margaretta Heiserman, "and nobody's ever orderly there." We can do it when we're on our own. But for how long? And where all those cops and traffic control officers? This is San Francisco, and a five-day stash of food, batteries and cash is required.
