Wednesday, May 21, 2008

WLS-TV to host another special on youth violence

ABC-owned WLS-TV will host another summit on youth violence this Thursday.

The station plans to air Stop the Violence: Conflicts and Solutions in HD at 6:30 p.m. The special is being hosted by Ron Magers and Cheryl Burton, and is being joined by reporters Charles Thomas and Paul Meincke. WLS aired a similar special last spring after 16 year-old Blair Holt was gunned down on a CTA bus by a gang member.

This is the second special to air this month regarding youth violence in Chicago - on May 10, WBBM-TV air a two-hour town hall meeting on the subject

Thought: Although I was only able to catch the last hour of the WBBM-TV special on May 10, the WBBM squad did a good job in moderating the debate on youth violence, with community leaders and residents interacting with each other trying to find solutions. I plan to view the entire special online at cbs2chicago.com (look in the video library and the May 11th date), and come back with a full review in the coming days ahead.

As for these specials, Chicago's local stations are moving in the right direction is discussing issues vital to our communities, though there is room for improvement (how about airing these type of specials in prime-time?)

2 comments:

Mario500 said...

Maybe the stations don't want to interfere with their viewers' favorite programs by airing the specials in prime time. The two stations you mentioned are also owned by their respective networks (ABC and CBS).

T Dog said...

That's true, but there's always Saturday night, where the networks (except Fox and ABC during college football season) have all but abandoned original programming. Some O&Os have pre-empted network programming before in prime-time for local specials, but only when the pre-empted fare consisted of repeats.