WSB-TV - News Operations

News Operations

Currently, WSB-TV broadcasts a total of 41 hours of local newscasts every week (with six hours on weekdays and Sundays, and five hours on Saturdays); as such, WSB-TV is one of the few Big Three network affiliates to offer more than 35 hours of local news content each week and one of the few Big Three affiliates to carry a midday newscast on weekends. In addition, WSB-TV's weekend newscast output is larger than that of Fox owned-and-operated station WAGA (channel 5), which offers a larger overall weekly (and weekday) newscast output than WSB-TV. Appropriately for a station with roots in a newspaper, WSB-TV has a strong TV news tradition. It has led the news TV ratings in Atlanta for as long as records have been kept.

One factor behind its dominance is talent continuity. Many of the station's personalities have been on the air for 15 years or more. Monica Pearson (known as Monica Kaufman until 2005) had been the station's top anchorwoman since 1975, and was one of the first African-American female anchors in the South. Since 1994, her anchor desk partner has been John Pruitt, who started at channel 2 in 1973 before beginning a 16-year run at WXIA. Glenn Burns has been the main weatherman since 1981. Chuck Dowdle (previously on TV in Miami) served as sports director from 1985 until his December 2009 retirement. Pearson, Pruitt, Burns and Dowdle had been together since Pruitt's return to channel 2 in 1994 — longer than any news team in Atlanta. On December 17, 2010, Pruitt retired after 46 years in the business, as he anchored his final 6PM newscast. Two and-a-half years later, Pearson retired after 37 years in the business, anchoring her final 6PM newscast on July 25, 2012.

WSB-TV debuted local newscasts in high definition during its noon broadcast on September 27, 2006. It was the second in the Atlanta market to do so, behind WXIA-TV. It is also the second Cox station behind WFTV in Orlando to switch to HD. With the switch to HD came a new HD set and HD graphics from Giant Octopus, which are similar to those seen on WFTV.

In mid-November 2009, reporter Tom Jones and a cameraman escaped serious injury when the telescoping radio mast of their electronic news-gathering van (holding a microwave TV antenna for the remote pickup unit used for outside broadcasting) contacted 115-kilovolt high-voltage powerlines while leaving the Fulton County Jail. Georgia Power staff were surprised anyone survived, but the two were treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation at Grady Memorial Hospital and released later in the day. The massive electric spark caused an explosion, left a crater underneath the van, arced to and broke a water main, and caused a brief power outage; the vehicle was a total loss.

In July 2010, WSB-TV expanded its weekday morning newscast to 2½ hours, with the start time moved to 4:30 a.m. It announced a news partnership with Telemundo affiliate WKTB-LD on August 23, 2010. On September 29, 2010 beginning with the noon newscast, WSB-TV fully switched its graphics package from the 2006 Giant Octopus graphics to a new graphics package. WSB had already been using this graphics package since late 2009 for its promos. It features a sleeker "2" logo, located in the bottom right hand corner that is not solid but gray (later changed to gold). The news ticker used during the morning newscasts is a similar design to the one on Charlotte sister station WSOC-TV. Coverage by 615 Music is still used as the station's news theme with the package, but now news opens feature an animated "News Chopper 2" flying across the screen while views of Downtown Atlanta are displayed in the background; the graphics still consist of blue and red colors.

On November 23, 2010, WSB-TV announced that it will debut an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, that would replace Oprah when the daytime talk show ended its 25-year run; along with the additional newscast, WSB-TV announced that it will hire additional on-air and behind-the-scenes news staff members. The newscast debuted on May 26, 2011.