KDKA Pittsburgh

She moves from the ND slot at WTHR Indianapolis to lead the news efforts at CBS’s Pittsburgh O&O.

Anne Linaberger is out as news director at the CBS O&O in Pittsburgh. She is the second staff member to leave the station since the July arrival of Jay Howell, who replaced Chris Pike as vice president and general manager.

At both of these Pennsylvania stations, large studios, big video arrays, easily changed graphics packages and quick-change studio lighting make it possible to produce much more than news from their new sets without placing an excessive burden on their production staffs. This is the final part of a four-part Special Report on news sets. You can read the other parts here.

In newsrooms across the country, Facebook’s instant video option might be changing the way we consume social media. Reporters need only a smartphone camera and Facebook account to capture live, unedited video that can be viewed on their personal or station’s pages and websites. Consider it the visual equivalent of listening to the police scanner. Above, Kristine Sorensen, host of KDKA’s Pittsburgh Today Live, points out items for the upcoming show as she does a Facebook Live intro before broadcasting starts. (Darrell Sapp photo)

Monday morning’s implosion of a Pittsburgh area 94-year-old bridge was the perfect TV news storm. The logistics of covering this blink-or-you’ll-miss-it event involved reporters and cameras from three stations in pretty much the same locations, but what viewers saw on TV and on the stations’ websites was surprisingly varied.

Just in time for the latest sweeps period, Pittsburgh’s WPXI (NBC) and KDKA (CBS) unveiled state-of-the-art sets on Monday. And what will the well-dressed newscasts be wearing this fall? In a word, screens. KDKA used Devlin Design for its new look, while WPXI turned to tech company Orad.

Some 80 broadcasters, politicians and rado buffs gathered last Friday in the close-in Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg to rededicate an historical marker recognizing the work of Frank Conrad in developing commercial radio and to build support for a National Museum of Broadcasting. The marker will be erected near where Conrad’s home and garage/workshop once stood. Among the speakers was local Congressman Mike Doyle (above), who endorsed plans to reconstruct the garage (now disassembled and in storage) as the museum centerpiece. “You have my support in seeing this dream become a reality.”

At 2 p.m. on Oct. 17 — 95 years to the day of Frank Conrad’s historic first radio broadcast of what would become KDKA — a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker will be rededicated in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg where Conrad made the broadcast from his garage.