What's Coming Up on 20/20

Watch Friday at 9pm on your local ABC station.

How they covered it: Paterson's bombshell announcement

Today at 3pm all local channels broke in with Governor Patterson's announcement that he will not run for governor. WTEN broke in first at 3pm, with Steve Ammerman anchoring, to say that they would come back on when the governor came out to speak, and good thing they did; the governor did not come out to speak until 3:13.



WTEN, WRGB and WXXA aired his speech live with Steve Ammerman, Liz Bishop and John Gray anchoring; respectivly. Capital News 9 also aired it live. Because of Olympics WNYT aired it live on the digital channel, 13.2 - 'NC13 Now!'

WNYT and WTEN by far had the best breaking news coverage. On WNYT's 13.2 Benita Zahn interviewed a local political analyst. [I was not able to find this video on wnyt.com] Benita Zahn not only tweeted that NewsChannel 13 wanted to know your thoughts on their Facebook page, but she mentioned it multiple times during the special report.

On WTEN Steve Ammerman interviewed U-Albany's Helen Desfosses during their special report. Another thing that should be noted, is the way WTEN modified their webpage, because of this story. They did a great job, highlighting the importance of this story.

The cable networks and New York City stations also aired Paterson's speech live.

Snow + Rain = A MESS!!

A major storm is pounding the northeast. Some people are getting snow, other rain, it depends on where you live. It's also a very complex storm, as you can see from the below maps. Know someone who lives in New York City, click here.

Snow, Whales and two Brian Willams...oh my!

Today snow was the big local story, but there was other news that happened today. Let's begin with the snow. I think the best story of the snow day is this story from WTEN. John McLoughlin reports:


[Click here to watch the story on wten.com]

Capital Region residents enjoy their snow day [Capital News 9]

Toyota CEO feels the heat [NBC Nightly News]

Whale That Killed SeaWorld Trainer Killed Others [WESH]

Compromise unlikely at health summit [AP via MSNBC]

Shooting suspect's father says son sought help [KUSA]

R.I. school fires entire teaching staff [NBC Nightly News]

Then there's this interesting story from the Today show: “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams meets his Canadian doppelganger, anchorman Brian Williams of CTV.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

CN9 to become YNN

Yesterday Capital News9 (CN9) said they would be changing their name to YNN come March. We sort of knew this was coming. Lately the CN9 anchors have been saying "Your News Now" on the air. Also, the Time Warner stations in Buffalo and Rochester already are know as YNN. But, it was the Times Union that first brought up this idea in a blog post last August.

While I understand why they are doing this, I fear it will take the local out of local news. But the new graphics look pretty sweet, so we'll see what becomes of it on March 15th.


Today they started airing this intese promo:

The Gov kicks off his 2010 election bid, officially.

Yesterday, Governor David Paterson officially announced that he is seeking a full four-year term for NYS governor -good luck with that, bud. Anyway, I want to call some attention to some excellent reporting of the event.

While I was a little disappointed that Capital News 9 did not air the rally/speech live, CBS6 sent their Capital Correspondent Steve Flamisch to cover the event. Watch his story below.

Also of note, NY1's Josh Robin had a short exclusive interview. Though with some of the things the governor wants to do (close parks, etc) longer and more in-depth interviews must happen.

As for the New York Time's piece that came out this week, I'm not acknowledging it as journalism.