WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM uses FM radio. Courtesy | Scot Bertram
Radio stations should always be prepared for emergencies, no matter their size, Lee Harris said in his Sept. 18 talk “Covering Breaking News: Preparing for the Unexpected.” Harris was the morning news anchor at 1010 WINS in New York for 30 years, during which he covered the Sept. 11 attacks on live radio.
“One of the reasons I liked working in the morning was that there was very little breaking news,” Harris said. “You can kind of write the show and stick with it, and very little happened in the morning except that one time.”
Harris talked about the importance of everyone working for WINS understanding that if there was an emergency, they would also be reporters on the situation regardless of their official title at the organization. He said that on the morning of 9/11, the first person who had eyes on the attacks was a sales employee.
“One of the first sets of eyeballs we had on it was a woman by the name of Joan Fleischer,” Harris said. “She was not a trained journalist, but she had a balcony overlooking the scene, and we went to her many times as we tried to position our reporters at the scene.”
Part of being a radio broadcaster is learning how to deliver information objectively and clearly and without opinion, according to Harris. During this specific event, though, Harris said Fleischer’s now-famous account suited the situation.
“At 9:59 a.m., the south tower fell, and it was Joan who was on the air with us,” Harris said. “I think in the end, even though she was not a reporter, we were better off with her on the air because she told the story in a way that a reporter would not — a reporter would have felt the need to keep their emotions under control, and Joan did a better job of conveying the horrors.”
Harris also shared tips about how newsrooms and radio stations should prepare for an emergency.
“The basic rule of thumb is that you should be prepared to go 72 hours on the inside without a lot of help,” Harris said. “You’re going to be potentially staying at the radio station and sleeping at the radio station while trying to work through the situation.”
Scot Bertram, general manager at Hillsdale College’s WRFH 101.7 FM, said he brought Harris to campus to educate those interested in radio about what to do when faced with an emergency and breaking news.
An emergency can be the most important story covered, according to Bertram.
“We are limited in some ways because we’re not a full-power radio station, but as a station that serves the community, we should be ready to step up, provide information, give guidance, and help people through the kind of emergencies that can occur,” Bertram said.
Junior Storm Drexler said he appreciated the talk and the practical advice for his podcast and interest in radio.
“I liked his take on honest journalism and the civilian angle,” Drexler said. “I thought that was a really unique perspective about removing your journalistic bias and thinking about things as more objective, and what a regular person would view the situation as is very valuable.”
