WLVT starting news operation

[ToriElectra 291]

Looks as though this flew under all our radars-- WLVT, the Lehigh Valley's PBS 39, has used cash they got from the spectrum auction to start a local news division, beginning with PBS39 News Tonight, which launched on September 17. The news op is being headed by Jim Deegan, veteran of Lehigh Valley newspapers, and Monica Evans, previously of KDAF, WTIC and WVIT. As part of the initiative, WLVT has hired 10 reporters-- one for each county in the viewing area-- dubbed the "Reporter Corps". They're using their non-commercial format to focus on longer, more detailed stories and not just recapping fires and arrests.

 

As part of the expansion, they've also created a Spanish-language talk show, Es Tiempo Lehigh Valley, and have absorbed a local show called Reporters' Roundtable into their purview. The latter is how I learned of this-- one of my old classmates from Warren Tech, Jack Reinhard, is one of the panelists, representing Centenary University, where he's been busy with a Warren County-focused news site, InsideWarren, as well as being the News Director of the new WNTI (WNTI, the old Centenary-based radio station, was sold to Philly's WXPN and became a repeater of that station a couple years back; WNTI was then reborn as a internet radio station).

 

Here's the promo for Reporter's Roundtable (the latest edition of News Tonight is on the WLVT front page, but I couldn't figure out how to link it):

 

[NEOMatrix 1295]

It's not a bad concept. Would be a good template for Western Reserve PBS to start up a news operation in Akr- HAHAHAHA! I WISH!

 

But seriously, even though it's pre-taped and not a threat against WFMZ, it's a solid effort in covering quality stories while leaving WFMZ to be a glorified police scanner.