Al's Morning Meeting

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Scripps Television Station Group pulled together an investigation into national restaurant chains by involving eight stations in eight cities. The project investigated whether menu items listed as low-calorie and low-fat really are. They tested food from big name restaurants (that also happen to be among my very favorite troughs) including Chili's, Applebee's, Taco Bell, On the Border, The Cheesecake Factory and Macaroni Grill.

Individual stations bought the food and then had its contents tested at a lab. They found the food was loaded with way more fat and calories than the menus advertised. In some cases, dishes contained more than triple the amount of fat.

Here's what one of the stations, KNXV in Phoenix, did with the results. Here is WCPO in Cincy's page, here is WEWS in Cleveland and WFTS in Tampa.

I am interested in this story not just because of the subject but because of how Scripps put the project together. To learn more about it, I interviewed Lana Durban Scott, director of news strategy and operations for Scripps Television Station Group, by e-mail.

Al Tompkins: What is the advantage of having many stations involved rather than having individual stations launch [investigations] on their own?

Lana Durban Scott: The advantage of having many stations involved is that we were able to broaden the scope. Had we tested in individual markets, it could have been ignored by the restaurants as an isolated issue in a particular market. By testing in cities across the country, we were able to establish a pattern which then made the story have a much bigger impact.

What challenges arose?

Durban Scott: The challenges were making sure every station followed the exact same protocol when buying the food, packing the food and shipping the food to the lab. I can't say enough about how our stations worked together to overcome these challenges. We would start an e-mail thread with a question and then encourage everyone to hit REPLY TO ALL with their thoughts. We had weekly conference calls until last week to touch base and go through the details, assigning different stations different parts of the project. For example, so that eight stations weren't calling all of these companies, our station in Phoenix (KNXV) took that on, making one call for the group. What was nice was when our investigative producer wasn't hearing back from a couple of the chains, she reached out to the group and asked each station to individually call the restaurants they tested in hopes of putting pressure on the corporate offices to respond.

These are all fairly major chains. Have you taken any heat from them for your findings? What has the reaction been from the restaurants themselves?

Durban Scott: Taco Bell has challenged us from the beginning. They demanded to see proof that we ordered off their Fresco menu; They wanted receipts, but we actually had three stations that videotaped themselves ordering from the low-fat, low-cal menu so there was no gray area. Taco Bell also challenged our lab and their testing protocol. The company that owns Chili's and Macaroni Grill apologized to their valued customers, saying, "We will be working to reinforce these menu standards and retrain heart-of-house team members on item preparation." No company would go on camera with us for the story.

How can it possibly be that the restaurant's published numbers are so far off?

Durban Scott: The best explanation we've come up with for why the numbers are so far off is the differences in how each restaurant prepares the food. The nutritionist we interviewed in Cincinnati showed us how even adding an extra teaspoon of oil to a dish can drastically impact the nutritional numbers.

What have you learned by doing this project that other groups could adapt?

Durban Scott: I think one of the best things we've learned as a group is how much can be accomplished when ALL resources are maximized. For Scripps, this has truly been a broadcast division collaboration. Bonnie Barclay, our corporate marketing consultant, assigned one creative services department to produce one promo instead of each station creating their own separate promos. Bonnie also helped coordinate the Web/marketing effort. Our interactive team, led by Adam Symson, was able to work with us on creating the special "What's on the Menu?" section, which includes a Web exclusive package on how our testing was done, all of the full restaurant statements and the full spreadsheet of our test results. We have taken the traditional model of working within network affiliations (ABC, NBC) to the next level by looking at our station group as a network full of resources.

Is this a future model for investigations, chain-wide projects rather than just local projects?

Durban Scott: This is definitely a model for future investigations! We've already discussed ideas for July and November!