{"id":2475,"date":"2014-02-21T17:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T23:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=2475"},"modified":"2014-02-21T17:01:21","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T23:01:21","slug":"quiet-on-the-set-wgn-morning-news-falls-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/02\/21\/quiet-on-the-set-wgn-morning-news-falls-silent\/","title":{"rendered":"Quiet on the set: \u2018WGN Morning News\u2019 falls silent"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2477\" style=\"width: 719px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/02\/21\/quiet-on-the-set-wgn-morning-news-falls-silent\/\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2477\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2477\" alt=\"Larry Potash\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Larry-Potash.png\" width=\"709\" height=\"394\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2477\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/a> Larry Potash<\/p><\/div>\n<p>WGN-Channel 9 normally advertises its top-rated morning show as Chicago\u2019s \u201cmust watch morning news.\u201d But for 19 minutes on Friday, it was Chicago\u2019s <em>can\u2019t hear<\/em> morning news.<\/p>\n<p>A technical glitch of epic proportion knocked out the Tribune Broadcasting station\u2019s studio audio from 7:03 to 7:22 a.m., leaving <a href=\"http:\/\/morningnews.wgntv.com\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cWGN Morning News\u201d <\/a>anchors Larry Potash and Robin Baumgarten free to improvise even more than usual by holding up hand-written signs and making goofy faces.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Reporter Nancy Loo, who was in the field covering the weather story along Michigan Avenue, gamely explained the situation to viewers since hers was the only microphone that continued to function during the audio dropout.<\/p>\n<p>Mostly, the station filled the time with lots and lots of commercials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe computer that controls the audio board locked up and shut down the board,\u201d news director Greg Caputo later told me. \u201cThe engineers began moving the newscast to the back-up system while going through the reboot procedures for the primary.\u00a0. . . In classic \u2018Morning Show\u2019 style, Larry and Robin had some fun with the moment by holding up hand-written messages about the situation, about management, and about each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis tops it all,\u201d Baumgarten said when audio was finally restored. \u201cThis tops the <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.chicagotribune.com\/2012-11-30\/news\/chi-staged-plane-crash-makes-the-morning-news-20121130_1_plane-crash-helicopter-chicago-fire\" target=\"_blank\">fake plane crash.<\/a> This tops everything. We have been silenced. That has never happened to us before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The show\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/morningnews.wgntv.com\" target=\"_blank\">website <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WGNMorningNews\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> page posted these highlights of what it called <a href=\"http:\/\/morningnews.wgntv.com\/2014\/02\/21\/anchors-communicate-with-hilarious-signs-during-technical-meltdown\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Most Excellent Technical Meltdown In Live Television News History:<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.newsinc.com\/Single\/iframe.html?WID=2&amp;VID=25645361&amp;freewheel=90921&amp;sitesection=chicagotribune&amp;height=400&amp;width=600\" height=\"400\" width=\"600\" frameborder=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0px\" marginheight=\"0px\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WGN-Channel 9 normally advertises its top-rated morning show as Chicago\u2019s \u201cmust watch morning news.\u201d But for 19 minutes on Friday, it was Chicago\u2019s can\u2019t hear morning news. A technical glitch of epic proportion knocked out the Tribune Broadcasting station\u2019s studio audio from 7:03 to 7:22 a.m., leaving \u201cWGN Morning News\u201d anchors Larry Potash and Robin... <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/02\/21\/quiet-on-the-set-wgn-morning-news-falls-silent\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&#8594;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2475"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2488,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475\/revisions\/2488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}