The month of July was crazy for Wyatt Cox.
It started with a desire to upgrade the national news reporting on KELY, and ended with a local news explosion.
During the start of July, Cox entered into talks to replace the station’s top of the hour news with news from CBS News Radio. That decision was proven to be a good one after what Cox called “substandard” coverage of the attempted assassination of former President Trump. Cox ended up doing much of the coverage himself. By the middle of the week Cox had installed the new CBS Receiver and was programming CBS news every hour.
It was just in time to cover the withdrawal of President Biden from the presidential race. Immediately Cox went to CBS three times each hour for breaking news and reaction to the withdrawal..
Cox’s Facebook and Twitter rant about changing news services caught the attention of national trade media. The question most asked of Cox was why did he go with CBS instead of Fox? The answer, he said, was two-fold.
The first was online access to the CBS Newsroom online, with audio from news, updates, and features, updated by email with headlines and breaking news. It came in handy with the breaking news of the hearings into the Trump assassination attempt and the resignation of the Secret Service Director. “Having access to breaking news audio on a national basis encourages our listeners to stay tuned to KELY instead of turning to television. That way, when news breaks locally they can stay in touch easier like with last week’s prison fight. “
Cox’s local sources alerted him to the disturbance and fatalities on July 30 shortly after it started. Once he was able to confirm it, he went on air with what information he had and did detailed reporting on the Your Morning program Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with a full wrap-up on Monday.
The second reason was something simpler. The CBS World News Roundup, going back to the CBS Radio News origins in The World Tonight in 1938. The World News Roundup airs weekday mornings from 7 to 7:10am live on KELY.
But no time to rest. More local news stories and commentary have to be done daily. Rebuilding the Breaking News mantra isn’t easy, but Cox works toward it daily.
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