Viewers get a glimpse of newscasters’ home life
Once upon a time — actually it was a few weeks ago — the three locally produced newscasts at 6 and 11 p.m. featured co-anchors.
He and she. They sat elbow to elbow. Real close.
And then the coronavirus pandemic reached Virginia. Social distancing came with it. We have been urged to stay at least 6 feet from one another to help curb the spread of the deadly virus.
And what about the local TV anchors who work as closely as peas in a pod?
The co-anchors on the WTKR, WAVY and WVEC newscasts are often filing stories from home while their partner reports from the studio.
Beverly Kidd has been anchoring at home for WTKR Channel 3 while her companion, Kurt Williams, continued to do “News 3 News” from studios in downtown Norfolk. “Not working with my friends in the studio is a bummer. But I’m adjusting,” Kidd said. “When I start doing an interview at home, instead of the station’s floor manager yelling ‘quiet on the set’ it’s me yelling ‘quiet in the house!’ ”
Living with Kidd are her two sons, 19 and 20, both 6-footers. There’s also a cat named Jack and a lab named Cass.
“I have a family circus around me,” said Kidd, who files stories from her home with the help of Zoom, a conferencing tool that allows users to meet online. With Zoom you get video, audio and host-ameeting features.
“I interview people using Zoom, write the story and send it back to the station to be edited. No photographer or cameraman, just me and my laptop,” Kidd said.
Williams has been anchoring the nightly newscasts. As April nears its end Kidd will leave the cat and kids at home and return to the studio to anchor newscasts at 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11 p.m.
The station will continue rotating its anchors from home, Channel 3 news director Eric Olsen said.
WAVY 10 is taking similar measures.
“When all of this caronavirus business started we had our building sanitized and deep cleaned,” Channel 10’s newsroom boss Mark Kurtz said. “We have our anchors working on a day-on, day-off schedule.”
In using 2020 technology, the at-home anchors give viewers a glimpse of where and how they live. WVEC’s sports guy Scott Cash plucked flowers from his backyard and displayed them on camera to make his house look lived in. Channel 10 meteorologist Don Slater has been reporting nature’s highs and lows from “the remote weather center” in his house. Is it the attic? The basement?
WAVY co-anchor Anita Blanton said that she appreciates email sent to her as she works from home. “We know you’re going through a lot,” she tells her viewers. “We’re working to be a light in a dark time.”