Recap: NY1’s Irene Coverage Best in Show

Monday, 29 August 2011 | by Pat's Picks

If you missed our Hurricane Irene coverage over the weekend, there’s a play-by-play of it on Capital New York this morning. I spent a long time talking to Tom McGeveran about our approach to the storm coverage, which he crowned as the best in show, writing that “NY1’s storm package was evidence that you can sell news without hysteria, and that real knowledge and honesty beat showmanship.”

I talked to him about the challenge to convey urgency from the anchor chair, without sounding hysterical, something McGeveran says the NY1 team did better than the competition. From our extensive coverage on Long Beach to Roger Clark’s soaking wet stand-up on Coney Island, McGeveran writes, “I came out of Irene feeling, for the first time, that a local television news outfit had been my only real essential source of information, beating out the Web and making an utter mockery of the ratings-grubbing hysterics at CNN, MSNBC and Fox.”