Last night, severe weather hit the Midwest spouting tornadoes and thunderstorms. It led to a delay at the Los Angeles Dodgers-Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. It led to WGN which was airing the game to go into Weather coverage, but when the game resumed, it stayed with local news. Of course you know where this is going. Fans got angry and bashed WGN on Twitter.
The station later put up a double box showing the radar and the game, but the audio of the game was silent.
On Tuesday, WGN General Manager Greg Easterly went on a local radio show to apologize for breaking into the game.
Easterly: “I apologize to fans who missed out on Cubs game. I don’t want to have to apologize to people who didn’t know tornado was coming"
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) June 23, 2015
WGN was providing a public service by breaking into the Cubs game and granted, the station did not shuffle it to another channel (it probably didn’t have any options to do so). The game was also on the radio, but yes, fans like to watch rather than listen, but for the General Manager to have to apologize for providing a public service, you’d rather be safe than sorry.
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About Ken Fang
Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.
He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.
Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.