Tag Archives: O. Kay Henderson

Best tool for the job (Example #2)

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Radio Iowa News Dirctor Kay Henderson covered the Iowa GOP and Democratic State Conventions today in Des Moines and her “tool of choice” was her blog.

Kay is not double-jointed (as far as I know) but she has a knack or skill (super power?)…she can type blazing fast. Her posts from the conventions are not verbatim but they’re damned close.

As I read them, I was reminded of an earlier post here at smays.com where I pondered the best tool for covering a live event. I guesss a live video or audio feed of these speeches would have been cool but I think I can make a case for Kay’s posts being “better.” I mean, Jesus, the speeches are on line before the applause dies down.

This is what happens when you equip a really good reporter with a blog.

Radio Iowa interview with Laura Bush

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O. Kay Henderson’s exclusive interview with the First Lady continues to generate interest by other media outlets. She’s scheduled to appear on C-SPAN’s “Road to the White House” (a weekly look at the candidates, issues & events shaping the 2004 Presidential race). The program airs Sundays on C-SPAN at 6:30pm ET & 9:30pm ET.

How do you build web traffic?

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1. You can buy ads in the Super Bowl. You can rent billboards on the Interstate. You can trade links with a thousand websites nobody gives a shit about.

2. Or you can create unique, compelling, relevent content. People interested in that content will tell other people interested in that content and on and on.

If you can’t do #2, it doesn’t matter if you can do #1. And the music comes out here.

If you watched any TV news (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) during the past 24 hours you might have seen the story about Laura Bush commenting on The Memos. The audio was from an interview the First Lady did with Kay Henderson, the news director of Radio Iowa, our statewide radio news network headquartered in Des Moines. Apparantly, this was the first comment by someone in the Bush camp on “the documents.” Just about every news organization in the country picked up Kay’s piece. And she had the savvy to send them all to RadioIowa.com.

Naked Cowboy

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“Before I start telling you about the protests, the Broadway show and my next door deli, I must tell you about the Naked Cowboy. He’s a nearly-naked guy who stands in the middle of Times Square (in the island in the midst of the street), plays his guitar and sings. He wears a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and white briefs with the words “naked cowboy” on the rear which kind of reminds me of the sorority girls at college who would have their sorority’s greek letters plastered to the back of their shorts or sweats. Not a good idea to call attention to that area. Unless you are the naked cowboy.” 

Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson blogging the convention in NY.

Convention blogging

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Three of our reporters are heading for Boston to cover the Democratic Convention. As reporters for state news networks, they focus on the state delegations and do a lot of their work at the hotel where the delegates are staying. Along with our “regular” news coverage, each of the reporters will take a stab at blogging the four-day event as well. Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson posted some wonderful reports (via email) from the 2000 convention, but we just didn’t have tools (or the word “blog”). The other two guys are experienced reporters but are new to this kind of writing (as far as I know). Should be interesting.

 

Radio Free Iowa.

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They’re holding a little shindig in Des Moines on Sunday to mark the 15th anniversary of Radio Iowa. It’s one of the networks our company owns and operates and I’m going up for the party. Two of the original staff (O. Kay Henderson and Todd Kimm) are still with the network. That still seems amazing to me. I drove about 40,000 miles back and forth (up and down) across Iowa that first year, signing up radio stations for the network. But it was pretty easy. They all got idea and were eager to have such a service. I really believe I as the one –smartass that I am– that suggested Radio Free Iowa for the name. Once they threw out “Free,” the rest stuck.