WHYY brings Newsworks to Cape May By JACK FICHTER CAPE MAY- In the late afternoon sun, WHYY Radio opened a live broadcast of Newsworks from the Promenade with the song “On the Way to Cape May.” “For the next half hour, we’ll bring you the sights, sounds and history of this historic beach resort at the southernmost tip of New Jersey,” said Anchorman Dave Heller speaking over the music into his headset microphone. Under a canopy in front of the city’s beach tag office Sept. 26 at 6 p.m., Heller, reporter Tom McDonald and a technical crew mixing the audio, broadcast the 30-minute news program to Philadelphia and New Jersey. During WHYY’s spring membership drive, listeners voted for the favorite shore town with the payoff being a live broadcast of Newsworks from that location. “Cape May ran away with it, nobody was close,” according to Eugene Sonn, audio news director for WHYY. While most remote radio broadcasts may involve little more than a cell phone and a small audio mixing board, WHYY brought a car-mounted satellite uplink dish to get the signal back to Philadelphia, laptops, a printer for Heller’s script and plethora of cables. Sonn said an Internet backup audio link was made in case the satellite signal faltered. “One of our trademarks in public radio is attention to audio quality and ambient sound and you can’t get that over a scratchy phone,” he said The lead off story on the Newsworks broadcast was a look at the shore’s “second season,” strategies to keep tourists arriving after Labor Day. McDonald and crew reported the story live rather than editing and recording the story in advance. He noted locals often call the shoulder season their favorite time of year after the “shoobies” have gone back home. Ocean City takes credit for creating the second season by scheduling promotions after school starts, reported McDonald. Dr. Robert Heinly, museum education director for the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Cape May Star and Wave “Victorian Views” columnist, chatted with Heller about the history of Cape May, in particular the city’s great fire and the later preservation movement. Heinly talked about a fire in 1856 that consumed Cape May’s Mount Vernon Hotel, at the time the world’s largest seaside hotel. “That was the first of a rich tradition of fires in Cape May in previous centuries,” he said. Heinly noted a disgruntled employee started the fire most likely to cover up the murder of his former boss. Another segment looked at saltwater intrusion affecting farmers in Delaware. In the final segment, Newsworks reported on the large number of visitors to Cape May from Quebec.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 10:46:13 +0000
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