2014 Atlantic Journalism Awards Finalists
Attachments
| Slug/Label | Dark NL |
|---|---|
| Date Aired or Published | January 3rd - 6th, 2014 |
| Media outlet where first aired or published: | VOCM |
| Name of Program: | Blackout 2014 |
| If co-produced, list partner: | N/A |
| Location: | Newfoundland and Labrador |
| List awards, grants: | N/A |
| Running time (TV/Radio): | 54 hours |
|
Short explanation of the story and how it developed: On January 2, 2014, an extreme cold snap in the province promoted the provincial supplier of electricity to ask customers to conserve energy. That quickly changed to rolling blackouts and then to wide-scale outages. By Friday morning we realized this was a very serious situation, with no sign if the weather changing. VOCM began a live broadcast dedicated to the storm coverage at 9:30 Friday morning which ran until 1 am the following day. We signed on again at 7 am Saturday and stayed on the air until 1 am the following day and did the same on Sunday, but signed off at 7pm for just over an hour. There was another explosion at a generating station which left tens of thousands of people without power for a third night. VOCM allowed people from all over the province to come on and broadcast messages to their communities about emergency plans, warming shelters, and messages about safety. We signed on again on Monday at 5:30 am and kept the live broadcast going until 4 p.m. That afternoon. |
|
|
Resources of the newsroom (money and time) available to complete the story: In total, about 15 people helped produce the 54 hours of live phone-in broadcast across the entire network of AM stations. It was also precedent setting in that by Sunday night the VOCM signal was also taken by the entire FM network of stations under the Steele Communications umbrella. This was done because by that point more than 100,000 people were without power, some of them for a fourth night. VOCM did this as a public service to keep the entire province connected to what was happening and to allow people a venue to pass messages to communities that had no other way to communicate. |
|