WCHS news director Matt Snyder has responded to claims his newsroom is ignoring Ed Rabel’s run for Congress.
“Eyewitness News at WCHS-WVAH TV is committed to covering news important to the people of West Virginia without bias or agenda,” Snyder wrote in a statement. “WCHS-WVAH has and will continue to be committed to covering the elections, political races and candidates including the second district race important to our viewers both online and on TV. We will continue to cover these campaigns and candidates so that voters have the knowledge they need to make an informed decision this November.”
To counter claims of a total cone of silence surrounding Rabel, TVSpy did a quick unscientific Google search, at the urging of Snyder, and saw the Congressional candidate showed up four times on the station’s website: once in a story announcing Rabel was running for Congress, once to say he’d been endorsed by former Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, once to report Rabel was having a campaign kick-off event, and a fourth time in a story about Democratic candidate Nick Casey and Republican candidate Alex Mooney.
A look at how the WCHS website stacked up against the other stations in Charleston, shows CBS affiliate WOWK was the only other station to report on Rabel.
A quick search of all the Charleston market affiliates on TVeyes.com, showed WOWK had one report in a three month period. Their story about the former newsman campaigning on horseback was one story more than we could find on all the other stations.
Snyder made headlines this week after several outlets, including TVSpy, reported he told his newsroom to ignore Rabel’s campaign over the former newsman’s op-ed piece in The Charleston Gazette critical of local TV News.