Reviewing Day One

Tuesday night WPTA debuted its new set [photos], and result was an unmitigated disaster. It looked like amateur hour over on Butler Road, and, frankly, it was painful to watch.

Make a list of all the bad things you've seen on a newscast over the last few years. Now imagine they all happened in the same newsroom on the same night.

Everyone knows that the WPTA employees -- those behind and in front of the cameras -- are competent professionals who usually produce newscasts free of embarrassing mishaps. So I'm not blaming them for what happened on Tuesday night. In fact, I felt sorry for the on-air talent, who were clearly aware of how they were coming off but could only sit (or stand) and smile.

It was no secret inside the station that they weren't going to be ready by Tuesday night, even after a Monday night's final rehearsal. The source who provided me advance details of the new set told me as much.

"I think they're rushing it on the air before they're ready. It's like they've taken their time up to a certain point, and now they've decided to get it on the air as soon as possible."

But why? Wasn't a smooth transition to the new set and camera angles and standing positions more important than trying to squeese in some buzz at the end of November sweeps -- especially if there was such a big risk of the station falling on its face?

After the community reaction to last spring's merger, you'd think those managing the station would realize that they weren't going to have a very forgiving audience for the big debut. Yet they still didn't take the time to make sure everything was right.

It doesn't help that WPTA's Jerry Giesler thinks I'm out to get him and his station -- in fact, the last time he was contacted by Fort Wayne Observed, he claimed I'd been "fairly brutal" to the station and that he had "no reason to believe the operation will get a fair hearing" from this blog.

But Giesler's confusing "fairly brutal" with "brutally fair." Though both can be painful, there is a difference.

And I'm not out to get WPTA. In fact, I went out of my way to play down the "we're not ready" angle in my report Monday, even though I had ample information indicating that Tuesday night would be the disaster it turned out to be.

The good news is that the employees will regroup and eventually get as comfortable with this  set as they were with the old one.

But even after all the glitches are fixed, the station will still have trouble attracting viewers, unless Giesler and other leaders at the station make a concerted effort to overhaul the news operation even more than they altered the set.

If that ever does happen -- and I hope it does -- Giesler will have the support of his employees, according to my source.

"Everyone wants to make the product better."

Now that's something worth rushing.