This past week, an unspeakable tragedy happened in Los Angeles while several TV news helicopters were in the air covering a major accident. One of them, the helicopter for NBC4, went down about a block away, claiming the lives of the pilot and an NBC4 reporter.
NBC4’s news anchors had been live on the air reporting on one tragedy when suddenly they had to report on one of their own.
Think about that for a moment.
Radio stations have emergency plans for tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, shootings, technical failures, and power outages. We’ve had lots of discussions about that recently. But what happens when the emergency isn’t happening out there?
What happens when it happens to us?
Suddenly, the people whose job it is to communicate with the audience are experiencing the same shock, confusion, and grief they’re trying to communicate.
NBC4 didn’t pretend everything was normal. They didn’t hide their emotions because anchors are supposed to be “professional.” In that moment, the emotion was professional because it was authentic. Their viewers weren’t watching a television station discussing the loss of two employees. They were watching people mourn people they knew.
Radio can sometimes ask the wrong questions in moments like these:
What do we say? What imaging do we run? Do we change the music? Who approves the statement? What does corporate want us to do?
Those things matter.
But maybe the first question ought to be:
What do our people need right now?
There’s another audience we don’t always consider — the staff.
The jock who has to open the microphone 20 minutes after finding out.The producer who still has to produce. The salesperson who was close to the person. The manager or PD who has to make decisions while grieving, too.
Maybe somebody shouldn’t be on the air. Maybe somebody desperately wants to be on the air. Maybe you throw the format clock away for an hour. Maybe listeners call. Maybe employees tell stories. Maybe there’s silence.
You can have procedures for tragedy. But there shouldn’t be a format for grief.
Then comes the other question:
What does our audience need from us?
Maybe the answer is simpler than we think.
Us.
Be authentic. Let people hear whatever emotions we’re experiencing collectively and individually. Don’t manufacture the moment. Don’t program it. Don’t worry about making it sound perfect. Because it won’t be. And maybe it shouldn’t be.
Which brings us to the bigger radio lesson underneath all of this:
We spend years telling listeners that we’re part of their lives. Tragedy is one of those moments when we have to let them become part of ours.
