WABC to Air Full September 11 Ceremony
It sounded like a bone-headed media maneuver from the get-go. Why would the city’s top-rated station want to alienate its viewers on an issue of grave importance to so many? Richard Huff and Corky Siemaszko of the Daily News broke the story that WABC New York would cut into the September 11 ceremony, omitting the reading of the names — the most important part to many victims families — to run “Live with Regis & Kelly,” “Rachael Ray” and “The View.”
Meanwhile WCBS, WNYW, WWOR and WPIX all decided to air the ceremony in its entirety. It was a no-brainer that WABC would ultimately have to blink, and they did. Hard. From Newsday (via AP):
”Kenny Plotnick, vice president and news director at WABC, said he had spoken to a number of families, who expressed concern over not seeing the entire ceremony on the station’s main channel and said they didn’t have access to the digital cable channel or Web broadcast.
”’I felt a lot of pain in these conversations that I had,’ he said. ‘That’s not our intent, to hurt our audience.”
Revealed, we cannot fail to note, in the Friday afternoon news dump. I’m just saying.
