BC Business
Jill Krop rose through the ranks as reporter, host and news anchor at Global BC, and last April was named its first female news director and station manager. Over her three-decade career in journalism (including 20 years at BCTV/Global), she has seen the disruptive impact of technology on her industry. When cell phones allow anyone to broadcast news, and every organization has a Facebook page and a Twitter account, how does television remain relevant? “Really basic storytelling,” she says. “I think that’s the appeal. Everybody now is putting out information. But the thing that we do is bring context, hold people accountable and get to the bottom of things.” Krop took over at a time when ratings of B.C.’s most-watched local newscast were sagging. She rearranged some of the best-known personalities at the network, making Sophie Lui a co-host of the News Hour, and also boosted online news coverage. In a time when animal videos score millions of hits, she is mindful of eroding standards. “I’ve had to take producers to task for some of the lighter stuff. I’m like, ‘we didn’t need a dog wedding on TV!’” But while she defends old-fashioned news values, she has also welcomed change. During last summer’s forest fires in the Okanagan, a vacationing meteorologist from Global Calgary broadcast a story by iPhone. “In the old days, we would have had a crew there, a professional camera, equipment, a microwave truck. Instead here’s Jordan with an iPhone. He provided our viewers with unbelievable first-person accounts. To me that was a huge, ‘yeah, ok, we don’t need to cover it the way television has traditionally covered these stories.’ That’s part of the disruption I’m embracing.”
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