KENS Shines a Spotlight on Military Issues in Week Long Web Series

By Merrill Knox 

TVNewsCheck speaks to Jan Boyd, director of digital media at KENS, about the station’s recent web-exclusive series, “Seven Days in Military City, USA.” In San Antonio, where 18 percent of the population has military ties, Boyd said the seven-part series is part of the station’s quest for a digital identity:

The series — using video, photo slideshows and written stories — included stories about the “wounded warriors” who for the second year rode bikes 500 miles across Texas; homeless veterans who reportedly make up nearly one-quarter of the homeless in San Antonio counted as head of households; and Tim Williams, a veteran who now is a maintenance crew work leader at Fort Sam Houston Cemetery, the country’s seventh busiest national cemetery.

The series was filmed, photographed, written and posted entirely by KENS5.com’s four-person digital content-creation team, says Jan Boyd, the station’s director of digital media. It reflects Boyd’s vision of a TV station website that has its own editorial voice while still meeting its obligations of supporting, and supplementing, on-air content.

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“The purpose is to do stuff that really reflects San Antonio, but there is a different audience on the Web than TV. We try to have a definite personality,” Boyd says.

Watch one of the reports:

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