Morning news anchors Sharon Geiger (KCBI) and Colin Lambert (KIXL) were joined on the panel at the Dallas convention by former KCBI announcer Mark Elfstrand (now at WMBI-FM in Chicago) and AP Radio Religion Editor Steve Coleman (who got his start in radio in Texas).
Defining what may be one of the most important reasons for Christian radio stations to invest in news, Elfstrand says it's one of the best ways to build up a male audience.
"Traditionally we have watched the loss of men in Christian radio audience," he said. "We see heavily dominated radio market share for women. We want the women listening. But the reality is we are losing something when we don't have men listening."
In addition to switching from a music format to a news magazine on their morning show about two years ago, Elfstrand said WMBI also made sure that sports coverage was bolstered, including visits 3-4 times a week from former WGN sports director Chuck Swirsky, now the voice of the Toronto Raptors.
"The increase in men (in the audience) for WMBI was about 15% in just one year," he said, "because we were bringing news, sports, business information in a credible fashion, into the marketplace."
Elfstrand said the experience he gained helping KCBI introduce a morning magazine format in 1989 helped smooth the transition at WMBI.
Having a credible news department was critical. "You can put news on a lot of stations," he said, "but you don't necessarily have credible news, the kind that people say, 'I'm getting something distinctive here.'"
At KCBI they had established their credibility by hiring an established Dallas radio newsman, Bob Morrison. "It was a vital part of building a morning program."
In Chicago, WMBI went after Dave Mitchell, a veteran of allnews WBBM-AM. "Obviously you want as much of a resource in a community as you can have, and somebody who knows the market inside and out is just invaluable," Elfstrand said.
Other critical elements are traffic and weather. Interestingly, Elfstrand said KCBI and WMBI share the same meteorologist, Joe Lundberg.
KCBI's current morning news anchor, Sharon Geiger, said the mentoring she had received from Mark Elfstrand, Bob Morrison and current boss L.B. Lyon was a great privilege, and a large part of the reason behind the many news awards she's won at KCBI. "We're able to be a lot more creative than other stations, because we don't have strict guidelines in how to do the news," she said. "And God chooses to honor what we do when we do it in a good and credible way."
Three keys to KCBI news:
...#1--Inform people. "We don't want folks tuning away from KCBI in the mornings because they're looking for good news. We want them to come and stay with us all morning long because they know they can get it at KCBI, and they know it's credible. In many cases we actually beat our competitors in getting stories on the air. I'm really proud of that because it's difficult to do in this size of market."
...#2--Be a resource for listeners as well as those trying to get a message out. In the case of recent earthquakes in El Salvador, she said, they were able to connect people with resources to an agency that needed their donations.
...#3 -- We look at newscasts as being a prayer list for our listeners. "They can be plugged in through prayer."
She said KCBI has some specialized news reports, including a recently added Christian emphasis newscast at 4:55 a.m. They have several other special interest newscasts, such as a business report at 11:55 a.m. and a health news report at 1:55. KCBI profile is a helpful service for ministries in the area. They profile local ministries and allow folks to know how they can be involved. "In the past two to four years is that we have become more community oriented, helping to serve the community in getting the news out."
Colin Lambert said he had performed a variety of jobs with KIXL over his off and on career of 18 years. Now he anchors an information intensive two-hour morning program that provides listeners with an extra dimension of news. "We do our best to find news that interests people that no one else is reporting," he said. "And on the stories that are being reported, rather than focusing on a narrow portion of that story, we give a broader look at the entire picture so they can make a good judgement about what the story is all about."
Lambert said he didn't claim to be a journalist, he just delivered news and information. Although his radio show was only a small part of his day, he said he spent every spare waking moment reading wire stories, newspapers, magazines, websites.
"That's what I do," he said. "I love news, I eat news. 24 hours a day that's what I'm doing. So I have an ability at a moments notice to talk about anything that any caller might want to talk about that's happening in the news. News to me is the entire program, news and information is what we do. I'm not a journalist but I'm fully informed."
To that Steve Coleman responded, "Yes you are a journalist." Coleman said he himself didn't have a journalism degree. "Journalism can be learned on the job," he asserted. "I know, I've done it that way. I think you're doing it.
"I think it's terrific when people are doing that," he continued. "It's your vocation, you gotta a love it, because you're not going to get rich doing it, that's for sure."
He lamented the all-too-common practice of "rip n read." "You're depending on whatever your resources are and you're not really going out and getting much. Maybe you don't have time, but when you're a real reporter that means you can go out and get it yourself. You can do the interview, you can write the story. That's when reporting's fun, when you're the one going out and getting the story."
For his own part Coleman said he had what many people would consider the perfect job. "Few reporters can say what I can say. I can come into work just about any time of day I want, and when I get there I can work on any stories I want. I can write them the way I want."
"And of course with that sort of freedom comes responsibility," he quickly added. "But I can call anywhere in the world. I have lots of resources, and some of you folks are my resources at times."
Coleman said he's been with the Associated Press for going on 14 years. Most of his career had nothing to do with Christian radio. "A couple of years ago I was sensing there was an awful lot of outreach in the AP to different minority groups. And so I went to my bosses one day, and said 'If ever you're looking for kind of a Christian perspective on things, maybe I can help you out.'"
"It wasn't but about a week later, Praise God, that they told me that in picking up UPI radio we were also picking up their religion feed which we had nobody to do, and would you like to do it?"
Coleman pointed out that he is religion editor, not just Christian editor. "That means I'm going to cover more than just Christian stories. During the muslim feast of Ramadan, I need to do those stories. During the Jewish High Holy days, etc. I would like to think some Christians are interested in other religions. I like to do stories and explain what people believe, so people can make up their own mind about what they think about it."
After those fairly short presentations, the rest of the workshop was spent in a very fruitful dialogue between audience and panel on how to serve listeners better, the various formats represented on the panel, and where to find good news people.
"Finding good news people is a big challenge,," said Mark Elfstrand. "In our industry we need to recruit people into what we do. Get students who are interested and get 'em into the business. Groom people for what we want them to do. We need people who are committed to news, the audience can tell the difference."
"Bringing the Bible to bear on the issues of the day is part of the mission of the church," said Patrick, as he discussed the role of journalism in Christian broadcasting. "News is a ministry. We have abandoned that ministry to the world. We shouldn't be surprised at what we get."
"A news department that becomes an asset to the community will have long term value," seconded Scarborough. "Who should be telling the stories of what God is doing? We don't need to abdicate our responsibilities to the secular media. If we really believe revival is coming, who's going to report it? We've got to get systems in place."
Richard Dean, who's part of an Allentown Pennsylvania station that is one of the few Christian television stations doing news, said it had been a very positive experience. "News opened up so many doors for us," he said. "One of the problems we have as Christians, we talk to ourselves so well we don't reach out enough."
"A lot of people watch the first 15 minutes of the 700 Club just for the news," said Patrick. "People are coming to Christ by watching a news program," said Hannu Haukka, a European broadcaster.
At this workshop the possibility was first aired of having a joint TV-Radio news bootcamp at an NRB convention. Now planning is underway to make it happen at NRB 2002 in Nashville.