With Isaac Bearing Down, Networks Weigh Their Options

August 27, 2012, 10:18 am

By BRIAN STELTER

Put yourself in the shoes of a network news president for a moment. There's a tropical storm bearing down on the Gulf Coast, reviving memories of Hurricane Katrina seven years ago. But there's also a political convention beginning in Tampa, Fla., representing the start of a two-month sprint to Election Day. Where do you send the symbols of your news division, your news anchors?

At this moment, the networks are splitting their staffs between the two locations. Other news organizations big and small are also making the same calculations, stationing reporters in Louisiana and Mississippi while leaving other reporters in Tampa, where the Republican National Convention was supposed to begin Monday.

Over the weekend convention organizers canceled most of Monday's events because of the possibility of bad weather from Tropical Storm Isaac, which was churning off Florida's west coast. The bulk of the convention events are now scheduled to begin on Tuesday, when Isaac - forecast by then to be a Category One hurricane - will be approaching the Gulf Coast.

Two of CNN's top anchors in Tampa, Anderson Cooper and Soledad O'Brien, will be moving this morning to New Orleans, a CNN spokeswoman said, while Wolf Blitzer stays in Tampa for the convention. Sam Feist, the Washington bureau chief for CNN, foreshadowed the channel's coverage of the twin stories in a Twitter message. He wrote, “Split screen Tuesday night?”

Similarly, one of the Fox News Channel's best-known anchors, Shepard Smith, a native of the Gulf Coast, will start reporting from New Orleans on Monday.

For now, the three top network news anchors are staying put in Tampa. D iane Sawyer of ABC appeared from there on “Good Morning America” on Monday, with video showing her hair blowing in the wind earlier in the morning. Brian Williams of NBC and Scott Pelley of CBS are also there. The networks are each planning to provide prime-time coverage of the Republican convention on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

But the networks are moving other anchors into position in New Orleans, near where the storm is forecast to make landfall on Wednesday morning. After anchoring the Sunday edition of “NBC Nightly News” from New York, Mr. Williams's primary substitute, Lester Holt, flew to New Orleans; he appeared from there on “Today” on Monday. NBC's main weatherman, Al Roker of the “Today” show, is also on the way to New Orleans after spending the weekend in Key West, Florida.

ABC had its weather anchors in two states on Monday morning: Sam Champion, the weekday weather anchor on “Good Morning America,” was in Naples, Fla ., while Ginger Zee, his weekend counterpart, was in New Orleans. Ms. Zee and her producer drove there from Fort Myers, Fla., on Sunday, an 800-mile trip.

After “G.M.A.” on Monday, Mr. Champion is going to move to New Orleans, an ABC spokesman said, while Ms. Zee moves to the Mississippi coast. (Some residents in Mississippi in Alabama are sensitive to the fact that New Orleans tended to get more attention in the aftermath of Katrina, despite the widespread devastation in their states. After reading residents' messages to her on Twitter, Ms. Zee wrote on Sunday night, “Lots of folks concerned we are forgetting about Mississippi/Alabama… Definitely NOT the case!”)

CBS said Monday morning that it was contemplating changes to its coverage plans, as well. “We continue to watch the storm closely and we will have correspondent coverage throughout the region,” said Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, a vice president of CBS News. “We will reposition some of our res ources as necessary.”