My career as a business continuity professional began in the days immediately following September 11th, 2001. At the time, I was a news assignment editor at WABC's Eyewitness News in New York. And like most assignment editors, I kept voluminous "panic books," big red loose-leaf notebooks of key contacts I'd need quickly in any emergency. When the Twin Towers fell, WABC's general manager at the time, Tom Kane, came into the newsroom.

Faithful readers of my blog posts know my fondness for WKZE-FM, licensed to Salisbury, CT and operating from studios and transmitter site just across the NY/CT in Red Hook and Millerton, respectively. 981KZE is a labor of love for its new owners, Andy and Katie Gladding -- who literally have poured everything they have -- finances, passion, effort, thoughtfulness, mission, vision and purpose into this Class A radio station and its webstream.

As this writing, much of the east side of Manhattan is tied in knots, after contractors noticed support columns bending and floord buckling at an office tower being converted to residential use. The location, at the former Pfizer World Headquarters at East 42nd St and 2nd Ave, is directly across the street from WPIX-TV and NewsNation's New York headquarters. And that building -- PIX Plaza -- has been evacuated.

As I write this, Enid, Oklahoma -- with a population of more than 50-thousand people -- is picking up the pieces from the devastating tornadoes that leveled parts of the community last night. KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City quotes the Garfield County emergency manager as reporting that at least 10 people were injured in the Gray Ridge neighborhood in Enid. He said that they had minor injuries.

As a consultant now, I tend to avoid bad-mouthing anyone else in the profession. There is great value in being what I like to call a "knowledge evangelist." Someone who has learned great lessons as a practitioner and now wants to share what s/he knows with others willing to pay for that expertise. And I surely believe in the value of outside perspectives when seeking to solve seemingly intractable problems.

IYKYK. If you know...you know that the federal agency with THE best reputation for shooting straight is the National Transportation Safety Board. Their processes are legendary -- and as consistent as any you will find in either the public or private sector. That ALONE puts them in rarefied air. They follow an established routine, they set a table of achievable expectations -- and on that table rests the reliability, consistency, transparency and trust that puts the NTSB at the top of the governmental pantheon when it comes to its work, and the protocols that govern it.

CBS News management today announced the shutdown of all CBS Radio News operations as of May 22nd, part of a broader round of job cuts that, according to some reports, will reduce headcount at CBS News by about six percent. CBS News was, for decades, regarded as the gold standard of broadcast journalism, on both radio and TV. And the voices of CBS Radio News -- from Edward R.

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War is a lesson in contingency planning. A lesson in the need for robust strategy and tactics. A lesson in the importance of defining normalization, timing it -- and then executing it. In other words, it's having answers to the question, "and then what?" once the crisis has passed. Broadcasting writ large, and perhaps radio most specifically, has been historically bad at answering the "and then what?" question.

We just don't learn. For the umpteenth time this year alone, major news has broken during off-hours -- overnights, weekends and holidays -- when newsrooms are thinly staffed. This past weekend, it was a war between us and Iran that has now involved many of our allies in the Mideast -- and threatens to become a wider, protracted conflict. Good thing many stations program live, local news early in the morning...even on weekends.

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Seen outside my local ACME supermarket in nearby Mahwah, NJ today: A sign decalring a "Storm Alert" -- a bright yellow reminder to shoppers that NOW is the time to prepare by stocking up on essentials. Smart radio operators are doing the same thing...reminding listeners that a potentially catastrophic winter storm is putting itself together and marching ferociously eastward. And that your local radio station is the place to be for the latest forecasts and information. This one will affect a lot of people in a lot of places. Southwest. Midwest.

We all remember those classic Verizon Wireless commercials. You know the one with the "Test Man," played by actor Paul Marcarelli. For about a decade in the 2000s, we saw him galavanting all over the place, cellphone in hand, asking, "Can You Hear Me Now?" The phrase became part of our pop lexicon. And it helped Verizon Wireless cement its reputation for scale and reliability in the ever-more-competitive cellular telephony space. But just yesterday, a big crack developed in that brand's cement... as an estimated 1 million or so VZW customers suddenly had the telephone side of their smartphones bricked.

As I write this, the tragic news out of Minneapolis is still developing, where an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in her 30s amid circumstances that are murky at best. Video posted to social media show agents behind and to the driver's side of a car that appeared to have been blocking a street. We don't know what, if any, orders were given to the driver...but it APPEARS that no agent was directly in front of the car when it accelerated and drove away, two shots were fired, and the car crashed into another a short distance down the street.

If you’re still among the news executives in at this moment in time still says, “Eh, weekends…they’re the same everywhere,” it’s time for you to leave the busine…

If you're still among the news executives in at this moment in time still says, "Eh, weekends...they're the same everywhere," it's time for you to leave the business. In the pre-dawn hours of a Saturday night on New Year's weekend, the US invaded Venezuela and extracted its president to face a US narcotics indictment. Did you have an on-call list of academics "smart" on Venezuela and military experts locked and loaded for just such an eventuality? (The signs and signals have been coming from Washington for weeks, if not months now.

Well, another "storm of the century" has come and gone here in the Northeast...and like clockwork, radio and TV have ramped up coverage to tell us snow is white, it's sticking, plows and salters and out, and you be careful out there. Better yet, stay home...and watch TV or listen to the radio...so we can tell you the same things over and over again and sell spots at the premium rates that news commands. Memo to news directors, EPs, assignment editors, anchors, correspondents and meteorologists: You can and MUST do better than what I've seen and heard today: Reporters pointing at traffic and warning us that it is slippery, or showing us the pavement and praising road crews, or -- dare I say it -- laying down and making snow angels on live television.

It's said that television came of age during the Kennedy assassination, when the earth-shaking news forced the medium to do what to that point it had never done: Provide continuous live coverage of a breaking news event with few if any standing plans, resources - or technology -- in place to do it. It wasn't just TV that came of age in that moment -- a young generation growing up on the medium also came of age in that instant.

It's one of those days. One of those weeks. When it seems the world can't get its paws off the breaking news button. And radio stations, especially, are at yet another moment of reckoning. As I write this, a manhunt is underway for the police impersonator who shot and killed the speaker emerita of the Minnesota House of Representatives and her husband in their suburban Minneapolis home -- and who shot and wounded a state senator and his wife in their home before escaping a gunfight with real police officers.

Ok...you're forgiven if you live mostly in an analog world and are NOT familiar with World Backup Day, which, as I write this, is today, March 31st. It's the 2011 invention of a Reddit group that thought it would be a good idea to elevate the importance of backing up critical data on computer systems. And if you've astutely noted that it takes place one day BEFORE April Fool's Day...well, that's no accident.

For those who don't know -- allow me to introduce you to an amazing life-saving technology. The original social network. No wires. Goes anywhere. Works when nothing else does. In fact, sometimes it needs only sunlight or a handcrank or two to operate. We call it "radio." And again, it has proven itself a lifesaver and key information link for the thousands of victims displaced in the Los Angeles wildfires.

Imagine an area the size of San Francisco burned to the ground. There's actually no need to imagine it. That's the state of play right now in and around Los Angeles. Five uncontained, uncontrolled wildfires that have raged for days during what is normally the quiet season for wildfires in southern California. Infernos that have put radio, TV and streaming platforms to the test.

For New Orleans, this is no happy new year. At least 10 dead, perhaps 35 or more injured in what is looking more and more like a premeditated act of terrorism, carried out as revelers celebrated 2025 along the Crescent City's famed Bourbon Street. Reports to this moment are that a man in a pickup truck accelerated through throngs of New Year's revelers in the French Quarter, running down men, women and children, before firing an assault-style weapon at police, wounding at least two of them, before he himself was killed.

For the first time since 2005, Christmas and the first night of Hanukkah coincide. For Christians, a celebration of the birth of Jesus. For Jews, a celebration of triumph over tyranny. As a Jewish business continuity professional, I've always loved the Hanukkah story: The victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire -- and the intrusion of Hellenistic influences over Judea -- in 165 BCE.

...Because Life's Easier When You Have a Plan