As millions prepare for the solar eclipse on Monday, Buffalo news/talk station WBEN has been planning coverage of the event for the last three months. Going commercial-free isn’t an easy task but the team is ready.
WBEN Brand Manager Lisa Polizzi sat down with Barrett News Media for a conversation about what they have planned.
Krystina Alarcon Carroll: Tell me about your coverage plans for the solar eclipse on Monday.
Lisa Polizzi: So as soon as I walked in the door here about three months ago, I started planning. We started planning this big event. It’s historic. Once in a lifetime. Extraordinary coverage.
We’re really excited about it. Normally, we go live and local all day long, but on Monday, we’re going to take a step further and during the actual eclipse, the total time of the eclipse from 2 PM to 4:30, we’re going to go commercial-free. With that, we’re going to have reporters all over Western New York and Niagara Falls at the harbor. Our hosts are going to be out and we’re going to have experts talking about the events leading up to the eclipse, why this is so important, and why this is so special.
We’re going to have weather, because this is Buffalo and chances are it’s not going to be sunny. So we’ll be talking weather. We’ll be talking traffic. There’s supposed to be an unprecedented million additional tourists in our area because we are in the path of totality and that requires a lot of planning on our part when it comes to traffic. So they’re expecting traffic could be backed up or it could be impacted between 5 and 12 hours that day, which is a big deal. Schools are off.
They’re really telling people to stay home and watch the eclipse from home if you can. We’re kind of giving everybody everything that they need in one place.
KAC: Eclipse coverage sounds like a very visual thing. How do you translate the visual world into your radio format?
LP: That’s a great question. So we’ve partnered with the Buffalo Museum of Science, and we have scientists that are going to be coming on, breaking down kind of what you’re seeing when you’re going to see it and how long you’re going to see it for. [They will also be talking about] the phases of an eclipse and things like that.
So we’re going to give you a tour of what’s happening, through scientists and through crowd reaction, because we’re going to be in the spots that are going to be the most, populated in western New York for that time period.
KAC: Where are you planting reporters?
LP: So right now we have, one of our reporters going to be Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is expecting about a million tourists. So we’ll be there. That will be a really cool spot. Then we’re going to be on Buffalo Harbor. That’s kind of in the path right along the path of totality on the on the lake.
We’re going to be on a military ship that’s downtown. That’ll be really neat. One of our hosts who is a Medal of Honor recipient, he’ll be on the USS Little Rock. We have somebody at our local ballpark. So the ballpark is selling tickets, and they’re going to have people come in and watch because it’s a really good vantage point.
And then we have a reporter in our suburbs. So we’ll have a reporter in East Aurora, one of our local suburbs. There’s a big viewing party. Then we’ll have people kind of like where you can see the traffic and things like that.
So it’s going to be we’re going to be able to go kind of round robin and check out what everybody is seeing and check out the crowd reaction as the eclipse unfolds throughout the day.
KAC: Have you or your station ever covered an event as large as this before?
LP: I was thinking about that before we talked. I’ve been doing news for about 22 years. I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to really plan a big event like this. It’s nice to kind of have a long time to plan this. We’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes when it comes to, ‘Okay. We’re hearing that all traffic is going to be jammed up. And there could be situations with that.’ So we’ve done a lot of behind-the-scenes work on how are we going to get our people that are out in the field on the air without any disruptions. So there’s a lot of that in the background. So having the time to plan that was really nice.
Usually, we don’t have that kind of planning time for, for big events. But, an event of this magnitude, I don’t think it was actually maybe something about a quarter of the size was when Nik Wallenda walked over Niagara Falls. Maybe that’s a smaller, much smaller scale. I think, to me, that is the only thing I could really compare it to. So yeah, we’re we’re very, very excited.
KAC: What’s the advice you have for young people who are looking to follow in your footsteps and do big events like this?
LP: You can’t just walk in and expect to cover a major event or walk in and expect to plan a major event. I think with your local events, you want to start with reporting on local events that make sense and matter to people, and then eventually build up to the big events, the eclipses or other things that are happening.
KAC: Is there anything you’d like to add? Anything you think I missed when it comes to your coverage on Monday?
LP: This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’s going to be really special and we’re very excited. We’ve really done a lot of planning and I’m really excited to see how it unfolds. And you know what? We’re prepared for anything. When it comes to a million tourists and traffic and, you know, the crowds. So we’ve really we’ve done a lot of work to make sure that, our coverage is the best it can be.
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
