My 2 Cents: Was 'Tulsa Tower Man' Worth Our Live Coverage?

For most of the afternoon we brought you live coverage in one form or another of the escalating drama half way up a Tulsa radio tower. It was not something we rushed into.

Tuesday, August 16th 2011, 11:59 pm

By: News 9


Kelly Ogle, News 9

For most of the afternoon we brought you live coverage in one form or another of the escalating drama half way up a Tulsa radio tower.

It was not something we rushed into.

Every day since William Sturdivant climbed the tower we've discussed how to handle it.

We've repeatedly debated how to tell this very bizarre story without exploiting the man's misery.

Each day he spent climbing around and sleeping in that radio tower without food or water generated more interest from around the world, and obviously great concern among many of our viewers.

This afternoon, when the exhausted man appeared to be near his physical limit, and a police negotiator in a bucket truck seemed to be making progress to end the standoff we cut in with it, and continued to provide regular cut ins, more than any other station.

We also split the screen with live video of the standoff sensing it was about to end.

When I say "live" I mean live with a long enough delay that we could drop the feed if the worst happened, someone had their finger on the button all afternoon.

All of us here were on the edge of our seats hoping for a positive ending to a very sad story, and I'm sure our viewers were too.

And when he stepped into that bucket we were relieved.

It wasn't an easy call, but I think it was worth covering live, what do you think?

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