A TV news community in mourning

The news helicopter was invented in Los Angeles in 1958. KTLA chief engineer John Silva later said he didn’t think he was pioneering anything: “All I ever wanted to do was get us there and get the picture — before the competition got it.”

Thanks to Silva’s “Telecopter,” news choppers became part of the city’s fabric, showing Angelenos ordinary traffic jams, extraordinary wildfires and everything in between.

The competition is intense, yes, but there’s also real camaraderie off-air. The reporters all know each other. The pilots look out for one another. And that’s why the entire L.A. TV community is in mourning right now.

Last night’s NewsChopper 4 crash killed pilot George Marciniw, NBC L.A. reporter Eliana Moreno and a pedestrian in a parking lot on the ground.

Some of the city’s other news chopper teams may have seen it happen. The news crews were hovering over Chatsworth, covering a deadly rush hour bus crash that also left three people dead.

“The fatal accident shook the media community in a city where extensive and competitive aerial coverage of news stories is a ubiquitous part of the local TV landscape,” Andy Rose wrote in CNN’s story, co-bylined with Karina Tsui.

Reporters on the scene of the crash broke down in tears. Counterparts from other stations shared fond memories of Moreno and Marciniw. Anchors talked about the preciousness of life, and how everything can change in a second.

“Though rare, at least 16 people have died in news helicopter crashes in the United States since 2000,” KTLA noted in this look back at past crashes.

Last night was distinct in some ways because L.A. stations were already busy covering the bus crash when the chopper went down.

NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik was standing in front of the bus at 7:01 p.m. when the anchor interrupted and told him to head toward the smoke plume nearby. The urgency — “move in that direction immediately” — betrayed the fear back at the station.

I don’t know the details yet, but someone at NBC4 knew something was wrong with NewsChopper 4 because Moreno was transmitting live video just before the chopper crashed. Watching the video later, CNN’s aviation correspondent Pete Muntean said he could hear sounds of the engine losing power and a warning alarm in the cockpit.

At 7:00, KTLA started showing video from its own chopper of the crash site, just as the first rescuers arrived and dragged a body away from the fire. In the News4 control room, that must have been a gut-wrenching thing to see.

So Kovacik was told to hurry over, and while he did that, the anchors very candidly asked the audience for patience as they checked the Citizen app and scrolled their phones for any possible info. TheDesk posted video on X of NBC4’s first seven minutes of coverage, which is about as raw as you’ll ever see on live TV.

Once Kovacik arrived, eyewitnesses told him it was a TV chopper crash, confirming the control room’s fears. Anchor Colleen Williams disclosed that the station had lost “contact” with NewsChopper 4. But Williams and others on air tried not to get ahead of what they knew for sure, which was very little. They admirably filled hours of air time until the official word came in about the fatalities. The L.A. Times wrote about the station’s coverage in more detail here.

NBC4’s live broadcast reminded me in some ways of the day two WDBJ journalists were gunned down during a live interview in Virginia. In both cases, the tragedy was partially captured on camera, and the station was at the center of the news for the worst possible reason.

“Here at NBC4, our hearts are broken,” anchor Annabelle Sedano said on air last night, paying tribute to Moreno’s bilingual broadcasts of “everything from high-speed pursuits to wildfires.”

“She was impressive, with a great knowledge of the inner workings of law enforcement… On the anchor desk, we knew we could ask her anything,” Sedano said.

The pilot, Marciniw, was “well known and respected in the industry,” she said. “He loved his job and often said he loved working with Eliana.”

The victim on the ground has yet to be identified, but NBC’s Adela Suliman profiled both the known victims here.

I appreciated what NBC4 A.M. co-anchor Lynette Romero said on the “Today” show this morning: “Our viewers are grieving, too. They lost somebody… When you have that voice of a news chopper reporter in your ear, it’s a very intimate relationship. They’re telling you exactly what they’re seeing, and you can hear it in their voice. She was so good at that.”

As Jessica Yellin wrote on Instagram, this tragedy is “a reminder of the risks journalists sometimes take simply to show us what is happening.”

Now we’re taking a sharp turn to other news…

Question: If CBS hadn’t fired half a dozen “60 Minutes” veterans and very publicly shook up the show, would Sunday’s ratings have been higher, lower, or pretty much the same?

We’ll never know. Bari Weiss went ahead with a highly publicized revamp of “60,” which could have, in theory, drawn lots of newly curious eyeballs. In reality, the ratings plunged, leading some to conclude that Weiss alienated a greater number of viewers than she attracted.

I analyzed the #s for CNN here. The story is full of “buts” because the ratings picture is complicated:

The newsmag put out a strong episode on Sunday night. But some people shunned the show due to the firings and (disputed) charges of political interference.

“60” viewership fell about 20% versus last year’s season premiere. But the NFL match-up that preceded “60” also declined about 20%.

“60” slipped below the 10-million-viewer mark on season premiere night for the first time since 2020. But Nielsen methodology changes are impacting the whole industry.

Bottom line: CBS wanted bigger numbers and dreaded the bad press about “60” having “its worst ratings in more than 25 years.”

For the time being, the network has succeeded in getting people to talk about “60 Minutes,” but getting more of them to watch is proving much harder.

Credit where it’s due: CBS News continues to publish scoops and stories that totally fly in the face of the “MAGA-coded” narrative about the news division. Here are three emblematic headlines from just the past day:

>> “New photos show widespread damage at U.S. positions caused by Iranian missile, drone attacks.” Jonah Kaplan said he received the exclusive imagery from “active service members on condition of anonymity because of rigid media restrictions within the military.” One of the sources told him, “This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public. We’re standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face.”

>> “Latin American migrants deported by ICE to West Africa describe being stranded ‘on the other side of the world.’” Camilo Montoya-Galvez “tracked down the deportees in Liberia,” and his story says CBS is “the first U.S. television network to speak to them in person.”

>> “Ukraine’s Zelenskyy tells CBS News Russia tried to attack his plane with drones twice in recent weeks.” Aidan Stretch taped the interview yesterday.

Trump’s Justice Department is siding with Paramount in its push to make the 12 states challenging its Warner Bros. Discovery merger post a $1.88 billion bond to cover its losses from the delay, THR’s Winston Cho reports. “The bond requirement forces parties to have skin in the game,” the DOJ argues in the filing, further noting how the DOJ’s own review of the merger found no risks to competition and approved the deal.

“One potentially thorny issue for Paramount,” Cho points out: “The states have argued that the court never technically issued an injunction, which would render Paramount ineligible for a bond, since the studio voluntarily agreed not to close the deal under a joint stipulation.” Paramount has pushed back on that…

A bold deal announced this morning: The former “Hard Fork” hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton “are bringing their newest venture, ‘Machine Gods,’ to NPR.” The video-first show “will run twice weekly on NPR podcast feeds and give public media audiences access to the leaders actively shaping the future of technology, in conversations across audio and video platforms,” NPR said in a press release…

The New York Times is filling the media columnist post that has been vacant since 2022. And I have to say, I think it’s an inspired, astute choice. Michael Hirschorn, a writer and media exec, “has been both a player in the ever-changing media ecosystem as well as a keen observer of it for the past 20 years,” Joe Kahn and Carolyn Ryan’s memo said.

Hirschorn co-founded Inside.com, ran programming at VH1, and edited features at Esquire, just to name a few of his past jobs. He somewhat infamously wrote a piece for The Atlantic titled “End Times” back when the NYT needed a digital subscription plan but didn’t have one yet. He cleverly referenced that piece in the announcement:

“Back in 2008, I wrote that The New York Times could plausibly go out of business. I’m thrilled to have not only been proven wrong, but so wrong that you guys were able to turn around and hire me.”

That’s the headline from Politico legal eagles Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, who say “a secret, months-long battle between tech titans and the Justice Department — over prosecutors’ effort to obtain details on a journalist’s LinkedIn interactions for use in a national security leak probe — spilled into view Tuesday during a federal court argument in Virginia.”

The “details of the case remain sealed,” but prosecutors “are demanding details of about 1,900 LinkedIn interactions from six users as part of the unspecified probe,” and LinkedIn is pushing back. The Microsoft-owned company published a blog post explaining why it is “challenging an overbroad government demand.”

Fox’s favorite Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman, “attended an exclusive retreat with executives from Fox News, traveling to Montana in July at the invitation of the network’s owners,” the Washington Examiner’s David Sivak scooped yesterday.

The July event at Rupert Murdoch’s ranch included “a panel on social media that Fetterman headlined with Sen. Katie Britt, one of his closest GOP colleagues in the Senate.”

“A free and unburdened Stephen Colbert was back on late night on Tuesday, but this time he was (sort of) answering the questions rather than asking them,” THR’s Abid Rahman writes. Colbert sat down with Jimmy Kimmel for a lengthy chat, in which they mostly talked about his Emmy wins and his “Lord of the Rings” film project.

Colbert seemed more interested in looking ahead than dwelling on his old employer, brushing off questions about CBS and his old job. Asked whether he misses late night, he said, “Nope! I will say, I have an opportunity to not think about the news every day, and I took it.” Watch the whole segment here…

“Another big awards show could be on its way to a streaming platform. The Television Academy and Prime Video are in talks about the Amazon-owned streamer taking over as home of the Primetime Emmy Awards telecast,” THR’s Rick Porter reports, based on sources familiar with the talks.

Monday night’s Emmys broadcast on NBC marked the end of the academy’s eight-year deal with the big four broadcasters. If Prime snags this deal, the Emmys would join the Academy Awards in moving to streaming: YouTube will be home to the Oscars starting in 2029…

>> All three opening acts plus Ed Sheeran’s own backing band have ditched his world tour after Macklemore was booted over his “Free Palestine” comments, Zoe Sottile reports. (CNN)

>> As WIRED launches a new app, “Katie Drummond says she wants the brand to focus on serving fewer, more engaged readers who can interact with its journalists on its own platforms.” (Axios)

>> “ESPN’s Joe Buck has agreed to a new contract worth more than $100 million that will keep him as the voice of ‘Monday Night Football’ into the next decade,” Andrew Marchand reports. (The Athletic)

>> HBO CEO Casey Bloys confirms Nathan Fielder is already working on “The Rehearsal” season three. (Deadline)

>> 🎶Music to our ears: “Spotify finally lets parents exclude kids’ music from Wrapped and recommendations,” Sarah Perez reports. (TechCrunch)

“American Idol” is “packing up its stars after 25 years in Hollywood,” the LAT’s Meg James and Cerys Davies write, calling it “the latest blow to Los Angeles film production.” The iconic singing competition “will move its upcoming season to the Atlanta area.”

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.