Military tapes. Before the crisis, they pulled military file tapes --- ships, planes,
locations.
"We stacked it up, with a long list of what everything was," said Mitchell.
Dividing duties. They rotated anchors and producers and made clear assignments,
dividing the work.
Graphics. War in the Gulf graphics had been prepared well in advance.
The station's stories concentrated on local people --- the man who delivered the mail to
Navy wives; the kids in school and how they were being taught about this; professors
dealing with the war; psychologists helping people cope with the concept of war; how
the chaplains in the military were trained to deliver bad news.
"The story had become one of telling personal stories," Mitchell said.
Local presence was important
It was difficult to tell the story of a war thousands of miles away, and one that
had relatively few visuals.
"It would be so easy to let the networks take the story and run, but then you are losing
all your local identification," said Mike Sullivan, News Director of KTUL-TV, Tulsa.
"This is the major story of the decade. If you don't grab onto it some way, you are
abdicating and are missing an opportunity to let your audience know you are covering
the story, too," he said.
The station used the spots normally were reserved for promos and PSAs to tell people
where they could help by doing such things as donating blood.
In their 6 p.m. news, which had always been local, they added a Desert Storm update
towards the end of the show.
"We want to let our viewers know we are there for them," Sullivan added.
Staffing was carefully assigned
One month before the U.N. deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, news
executives at WTVT-TV in Tampa, put together a detailed war coverage plan.
