Posted by Local News Does Good on December 19, 2014 at 22:22:34:
I had a chance to catch all 4 local stations' coverage of the Dontre Hamilton protest. If you missed it, protestors took over 794 and that really pissed off the PR hungry David Clarke. They're protesting because of that Dontre Hamilton kid in Red Arrow Park that tried to beat the shit out of the cop who approached him, and the cop shot and killed him. The cop didn't follow procedures because it turned out the guy had real mental health concerns that the officer should have been able to detect a few moments into the encounter. There's still been no official decision on charging him or not. He was already fired by Milwaukee Police. However, the protests aren't solely because of this case. They're kind of riding the coat tails of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, though in fairness, Dontre's family and supporters have been out there long before the other national cases. Just wanted to provide some background.
I just love the cable news style "find some way to keep saying the same thing over and over" Breaking News coverage. Some are better than others. Vince Vitrano and Susan Kim are two that come to mind off the top of my head.
CBS 58 News' coverage was okay. They had several reporters both downtown and on the side of the freeway where traffic was shut down and arrests were being made. They probably did a total of 10 or 11 minutes. I think CBS 58 has come a LONG way with their graphics and production, thinking back to when that network first launched with one newscast per day and no true studio.
WISN 12 News had multiple reporters as well, and had caught up with a couple protesters that evaded arrest by MPD or the Sheriff's Dept. They did around 10 minutes too. Do you like the station branding as WISN 12 News? I find it so cluttered. I liked when they were just Channel 12 News.
TMJ4 spent approximately 15 minutes on coverage, too near the freeway off-ramps and at the other gathering place protesters were going to. They were streaming and live tweeting - not as much as Fox 6 though.
Fox 6 News had the most coverage that I saw, a good 20+ minutes with at least 3 reporters in the field, lots of good live video and keeping us up to date with social media and streaming the live reports and B-roll on their web site.
As for radio, Mark Belling talked briefly about it but more so from a traffic perspective. Dan O'Donnell from 1130 got his piece on the protests picked up by Fox News Radio and aired repeatedly in their TOH news feed.