As the media industry gathers in Las Vegas for the NAB Show, Barrett News Media was able to catch up with some key speakers this week including Director of News and Programming at KNX News 97.1 FM, Alex Silverman. His talk is going to be focused on emergency preparedness for stations, something he’s worked under several times.
From reporting on disaster zones to managing a team during a catastrophe, Alex Silverman has worked through some of the toughest stories of our time, and it all began as a childhood dream.
“I always wanted to be in radio. Ever since I was a little kid, there was just something about it. Something about the power of audio and being in the car with my parents, listening to audio. It just made me feel like that was what I wanted to do with my life,” Silverman told BNM over a Zoom call.
While he never made it to be a sportscaster, he did attend Syracuse and worked at both a local news station and the school’s radio station. Silverman said, “[At the school station] I became their chief engineer and operations guy, and later, general manager. That’s where I started learning the technical engineering side of broadcasting and those are kind of the two worlds that I’ve been in ever since.”
From The Orange he went to Seattle, followed by stops in New York and Philadelphia before moving out to LA.
Alex Silverman will speak on planning and enacted emergency procedures using examples from his own career including covering Hurricane Sandy and COVID.
“I’m also going to be bringing in John Kennedy, who is Audacy’s Senior Vice President of technical operations, who oversees disaster planning for all 230 plus of our stations.”
Silverman went on to say, “I’m going to be talking about my experiences, and he’s going to be sharing some of his experiences, particularly things like Hurricane Katrina, which is probably the best example of a station actually having to implement its disaster plan for a long period of time and serving the community that way.”
Additionally, the pair will speak on how to know and what to do if you have a plan that might be faulty and not cover all you need.
“From my experience, sometimes what happens is the engineers and the technical people will put a plan together and it’s a really good plan on paper, but it doesn’t always take into account everything that is needed on the content side. Which is why collaboration between the technical side and the content side is so important,” Silverman said.
With his career straddling both the technical and content side, Silverman has learned how to pivot in emergencies including during COVID.
“When I was in Philadelphia, we had a studio at our transmitter site. But it couldn’t do all the things we needed it to do if we actually had to go there and we actually had to continue providing information to the public.
“As soon as we had that disaster plan in place, now we actually have to think about it. If one person gets COVID, the days when we thought that way, we have to abandon the facility, right? Okay. How are we going to do that? We’ve got to figure out how to get satellite feeds for our networks into this emergency studio at a different location. We have to figure out how to get phone calls and the app our reporters use. All those things.”
To get the full scope of how to plan for a disaster Alex Silverman believes, “Sometimes it’s not really thought about unless there is that collaboration between all the stakeholders at the in the newsroom.”
Throughout his career, the KNX News 97.1 FM leader has seen significant changes in the radio landscape.
“Just in the time that I’ve been in the business, the technology we use in radio has changed so dramatically. We used to — if we wanted sort of broadcast quality audio from a reporter in the field — carry around a clunky device. And now reporters will use an app on their phone and they’ll sound like they have studio quality audio.”
Alex Silverman also believes technology is changing the way radio is delivering content, “because we can’t just deliver it to them over the normal broadcast channels. We have to be everywhere. We have to communicate to people that we’re on all of these platforms.”
He believes the key for everyone to succeed on all platforms is to ensure we have good content. “Where I see the future of this business, it’s reliant upon people wanting the content, no matter what platform they are getting it on. So if somebody gets into their car and the first thing they see is CarPlay, we want them to be thinking ‘I’m gonna turn on 97.1.’”
For those looking to follow in Silverman’s footsteps, it’s simple. He believes this is an interesting time to be in the media. “A lot of people see it as a scary time because so many things are changing constantly. But there will always be a need for good content.”
He also noted how critical it is for those who want to be in the industry to be a true journalist.
“It’s a really critical time right now. We don’t have enough people who actually want to go into audio and video media to do real journalism. It was much easier to recruit journalists when I became a manager several years ago than it is now.
“So I would say anybody who has a real passion for true journalism, getting to the facts, letting the audience decide for themselves how to interpret those facts. There are so many there going to be so many opportunities. No matter what the platform is.”
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.
