Profile: Alan Wang
Robert Carey
Issue date: 5/14/09 Last update: 5/6/09 at 2:15 PM PST
Section: Features
Luckily for Bay Area residents, San Francisco, the city with the largest Asian community in the country "took a chance" in 2005 and KGO installed Wang as the morning show anchorman. As a local reporter, not only does he enjoy having greater control over his stories, he loves the location he works in. "Audiences in the Bay Area are more laid back and sophisticated than other cities," he says. "They have a larger attention span and are more concerned about the content than audiences in Atlanta, for example."
Unfortunately for Wang, the journalism industry is not as prosperous as it once was; newspapers are closing down all over the country, and although television isn't being hit as hard, he feels the effects in his job.
As one of just three reporters KGO employs to cover the entire Bay Area, Wang says a typical day consists of often working solo on a project, writing a story, working the camera, interviewing witnesses, and editing the report in time for it to be aired.
However, his job isn't done there; the story must be altered for broadcast a few hours later, therefore it's back to the camera and editing equipment.
Of course, all this dedication doesn't guarantee his story will be make it to Bay Area living rooms; the KGO-TV news executive producer has complete control of what airs and might decide something more important is happening on the other side of the Bay, sending Wang back to the van to start the process all over again.
Clearly he has a passion for broadcasting and uses an extremely hands-on approach to his work, It's a job where he needs to feel people's pain to "get what's going on." Wang emphasizes that it's vital to provide the audience with what's important to them--although with limited resources, libel issues and a minuscule time slot, he's not always able to report everything he would like.
Television producers can sometimes be hypocritical when showing footage thousands of miles away; such as images of children in Africa dying and covered in flies seem to be fair game, whereas Wang is unable to point a camera at a blanket-covered shooting victim in the Bay Area.
Wang feels passionate about the increasing number of Internet broadcasters. He believes that journalists have a responsibility to their audience to be truthful, which can't be said of all Internet journalists. "Lots of information, from bloggers for example, might not be true; some of it is propaganda disguised as a news story."
Alan Wang has a lot of respect for his profession. To see for yourself, check out KGO-TV news on Saturdays. You'll likely see a man who approaches each story as a blank slate with the goals of presenting stories that are objective and unbiased.
Unfortunately for Wang, the journalism industry is not as prosperous as it once was; newspapers are closing down all over the country, and although television isn't being hit as hard, he feels the effects in his job.
As one of just three reporters KGO employs to cover the entire Bay Area, Wang says a typical day consists of often working solo on a project, writing a story, working the camera, interviewing witnesses, and editing the report in time for it to be aired.
However, his job isn't done there; the story must be altered for broadcast a few hours later, therefore it's back to the camera and editing equipment.
Of course, all this dedication doesn't guarantee his story will be make it to Bay Area living rooms; the KGO-TV news executive producer has complete control of what airs and might decide something more important is happening on the other side of the Bay, sending Wang back to the van to start the process all over again.
Clearly he has a passion for broadcasting and uses an extremely hands-on approach to his work, It's a job where he needs to feel people's pain to "get what's going on." Wang emphasizes that it's vital to provide the audience with what's important to them--although with limited resources, libel issues and a minuscule time slot, he's not always able to report everything he would like.
Television producers can sometimes be hypocritical when showing footage thousands of miles away; such as images of children in Africa dying and covered in flies seem to be fair game, whereas Wang is unable to point a camera at a blanket-covered shooting victim in the Bay Area.
Wang feels passionate about the increasing number of Internet broadcasters. He believes that journalists have a responsibility to their audience to be truthful, which can't be said of all Internet journalists. "Lots of information, from bloggers for example, might not be true; some of it is propaganda disguised as a news story."
Alan Wang has a lot of respect for his profession. To see for yourself, check out KGO-TV news on Saturdays. You'll likely see a man who approaches each story as a blank slate with the goals of presenting stories that are objective and unbiased.
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