On the Brinck

News Comment for December 1

Approximately two hours before I posted this, the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams aired with a little more drama than usual.

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Before finishing his first sentence, Williams was interrupted by a fire alarm in the studio. While this was definitely an interesting twist to the otherwise normal newscast, the results of this fire alarm sent social media users in a frenzy. In fact, I found about this story on Twitter, not because I was actually watching the news. (Of course, because I’m a college kid. We always get our news from the internet anyway right?)

I don’t know for sure if Brian Williams or Night News became a trending topic of Twitter, but for all the tweets and retweets I saw, it wouldn’t surprise me. To me, there are several interesting things about this incidents that stand out. The first thing is that this story about the news was a big deal, especially in the online world. Second, Brian Williams handled the annoyance like a pro, and Twitter users especially took notice. Once the links to the video spread, more people caught it and many commented on the poise that Williams showed.

Here are some of the comments from people on Twitter:

• “Brian Williams handled that like a pro.”
• “The Show Must Go On Award” to Brian Williams.”
• “In all seriousness, Brian Williams is a pro. He handled it ridiculously well throughout the entire broadcast.”
• “Neither rain nor snow nor studio fire alarm will keep Brian Williams from delivering the NBC Nightly News. Alarm 0 BW 1.”
• “Brian Williams anchoring NBC Nightly News while the building’s fire alarm is going off during the broadcast. A true pro.”
• “Brian Williams showed tremendous poise as fire alarm interrupted newscast.”
• This fire alarm won’t stop. Brian Williams has a lot of trust in whoever is telling him there’s no fire… The news must go on!”
• Brian Williams a consummate professional. Nightly News broadcast with a fire alarm test going off in the background. Not missing a beat.”
• “The only person I get my News from…Brian Williams! Calm under pressure!!”
• “I love Brian Willimas even more post fire alarm newscast”

And of course there are always people having fun with the news, by adding their own analysis:

• “Brian Williams is now going to strangle the fire alarm guy.”
• “Twitterers lauding Brian Williams for doing news during fire alarm. Pffft! Let’s see him do a day-long InDesign seminar w/a jackhammer below.”
• “FACT: Fire don’t scare Brian Williams. In fact, fire is scared of Brian Williams.”

It turned out to be an ill-timed test of the fire alarms, but Brian Williams showed poise and his experience in making sure the news went on. Judging by all the tweets, this performance under pressure by Williams impressed a lot of people. This very video should be a lesson for all broadcasters in poise and control, two things necessary to be successful in the news industry.

Anybody agree that tomorrow night’s ratings for Nightly News will be just a tad higher from people checking if the fire alarm was fixed?

This entry was posted on November 29, 2011 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Comm 208. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.