WKMG's 'Make Ends Meet' initiative is changing lives in the community -- and it's just getting started

In March 2020, in the midst of a global health crisis, WKMG News 6 launched Make Ends Meet, a franchise spearheaded by investigative reporter Mike Holfeld, to help residents of Central Florida answer financial questions and budget their money throughout a pandemic.

But what it turned into was so much more.

As soon as Holfeld starting profiling struggling families, and their cries for help aired during the newscasts, the phones and emails began pouring in from viewers hoping to donate and lend a hand.

Once stimulus checks began rolling into people’s accounts, the donations surged even more from those hoping to donate the extra cash, to people who need it more.

So far, News 6 and Make Ends Meet have received $50,178 in donations.

Then, Holfeld began holding the Florida Department of Unemployment accountable for their system and response to those in need.

To date, Holfeld and his Make Ends Meet team have helped nearly 100 people, providing them the more than $540,000 they were due, which comes out to an average of about $6,000 per person.

News 6 is nine months into this project, which it plans to continue through 2021.

The goal now? Hit $1 million in recoveries.

When asked if she thinks the team can reach that benchmark, news director Allison McGinley said, “With the generosity of our community, I believe so. Since the introduction of the second round of stimulus checks, we have already started to see additional donations from viewers. So far, families have gifted in excess of $2,000, with several viewers offering funds in advance! I feel confident we will meet or exceed the $50,000 gifted by our News 6 community during the first nine months of this project.”

This proves it: Nothing is better than "Getting Results" for those in need, which is News 6's mantra.

Read some Make Ends Meet stories:

News 6, Addition Financial debut Make Ends Meet fund

News 6 debuts Make Ends Meet initiative to provide budget guidance for viewers

Florida's Fourth Estate: How Make Ends Meet got started

Furloughed bartender has been waiting on $6,500 in unpaid unemployment since May

WKMG-TV presented with national award for community service

WKMG-TV in Orlando has been awarded the Service to Community Award for Television in the Large Market category during the 2020 Celebration of Service to America Awards program, which aired Saturday night on stations nationwide.

Hosted by the National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation, the Service to America Awards recognize outstanding community service by local broadcasters.

“Over the past year, America’s local radio and television stations have demonstrated unparalleled devotion to helping families and communities in need,” NAB Leadership Foundation President Michelle Duke said. “We are pleased to honor these exceptional stations and to celebrate this year’s winners with viewers and listeners during the first-ever broadcast of the Service to America Awards.”

WKMG-TV’s award-winning community service effort, “Driving Change: Florida's Texting and Driving Law,” served as the force behind the win.

After WKMG news anchor Matt Austin was hit and seriously injured by a texting driver, the station initiated a relentless multi-faceted, multi-year campaign led by Austin to strengthen Florida’s texting and driving law.

WKMG gathered stories from viewers, created partnerships with law enforcement and legislators and confronted those lawmakers who were creating roadblocks to a piece of legislation designed to save lives on Florida's roadways.

After three years of work, on July 1, 2019, those efforts resulted in a new law, making texting and driving a primary offense. In the end, many legislators, including those who were originally against a more robust law, credit WKMG with being a major factor behind its passage: Passage of Florida Statute Section 316.305 and 316.306.

About Celebration of Service to America Awards

The 2020 Celebration of Service to America Awards, hosted by the NAB Leadership Foundation, highlight and honor exceptional community service exhibited by local radio and television stations across the U.S.

The 2020 event premiered Aug. 22 as a one-hour televised program featuring high-profile guests and award presentations in eight categories.

About NAB Leadership Foundation

The National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the future of broadcasting through leadership, diversity and community service.

News 6/360: WKMG presents a new, exciting way to view the news

WKMG News 6, the Graham Media Group-owned CBS affiliate in Orlando Florida, continues to transform the landscape of news viewing with the introduction of “News 6/360.”

Presented by the station’s website, ClickOrlando.com, News 6/360 is the first-of-its-kind newscast shot and produced entirely in 360 degrees. This new, interactive, immersive experience is designed to be viewer friendly, easy to use and will keep viewers coming back for each new newscast.

Using a single state-of-the-art 360-degree camera placed in the center of the News 6 studio, there is no control room to switch between multiple cameras and no floor director to queue talent. News 6/360 is a real, intimate experience in true storytelling, which allows the viewer to be present and interact with the content and the anchors by moving the camera with the touch of a finger or click of a mouse.

Hosted by News 6 anchor Ginger Gadsden and News 6 digital reporter Brianna Volz, viewers may notice them holding notes. That’s because there is no teleprompter for them to read. Ginger and Brianna interact with each other and the viewers off the cuff, giving the newscast a high-energy, less formal and more conversational tone.

“Harnessing the power of new technology isn’t an option, it’s a must in today’s world. Central Floridians expect to get the news that is important to them and their neighborhood whenever they want and however they choose to engage,” News 6 News Director Allison McGinley said.

“News 6 prides itself on being an innovator in creating and providing new ways for Central Floridians to view local news and locally produced entertainment content,” said News 6 Vice President and General Manager Jeff Hoffman. “It is important that we serve our community with important news and information any time and in every way we can. As people choose a variety of ways to receive their information, we want to make sure they know we are in those spaces with accurate, fact-checked and compelling information.”

“From the beginning of the newscast to the end, viewers can move the camera to see what they want to see, when they want to see it,” Gadsden said. “Because of that, we put a lot of time and effort into deciding what kinds of stories would compel viewers to want to interact with the newscast, new ways of telling those stories, how to showcase the video and even the graphics in an effective way. I am excited for our viewers to check this new extension of News 6 and I am proud to be part of such a new way of providing news to our neighbors.”

News 6/360 will release a new episode every week. Viewers can watch News 6/360 on their Android phones by going to ClickOrlando.com or their News 6 App. iPhone users can use the YouTube App and search ClickOrlando.com. You can also use VR goggles to watch the newscast.

News 6 and ClickOrlando.com have proven to be one of the most pioneering television and digital outlets for our Central Florida community. In 2017, News 6 and ClickOrlando.com launched “ClickO on the Go,” a 90-second newscast that uses today's top social platforms — specifically Instagram and Snapchat — to target a younger audience. The weekday series brings the news and weather our viewers need to the places they already are. It does so in a simple, yet engaging manner by being extremely conversational and packing the information into two-minute vertical video segments that drive users to ClickOrlando.com.

In an unprecedented digital and broadcast event, WKMG News 6 produced more than 100 hours of livestream content for ClickOrlando.com during the station’s annual coverage of the Lake Eola “Fireworks at the Fountain” on July 4, 2019. This online streaming project harnessed live video from more than 25 different camera angles and sources, allowing online viewers to be in the “Director’s Chair” and select from a variety of angles, including the first-ever streams directly from mobile phones of reporters and producers in the field.

The News 6 newsroom dedicated dozens of people to the event with new technology, producing a 10-hour, digital-first broadcast for the ClickOrlando.com website and News 6 OTT App (available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and more).

News 6 / 360 is LIVE! See it here.

WKMG instrumental in getting texting and driving bill signed into Florida law

WKMG-TV is pleased to announce that after nearly three years leading the charge to change the texting and driving law in Florida, a new bill has been signed into law.

This new law will make texting and driving a primary offense, which allows law enforcement to stop motorists who are texting while driving and write them citations.

Florida was one of only four states left in the country in which texting and driving was not a primary offense.

“It was a long and hard fight,” News 6 anchor Matt Austin said. “But now after nearly three years, 100 stories, more than a dozen trips to Tallahassee, and thousands of miles driving around Florida to track down decision makers, I am relieved Florida politicians finally did the right thing. They made safety a priority."

Austin has been the one of the driving forces in changing the law -- and one of the most outspoken proponents of this new legislation.

Together with News 6, his quest to create change began one night in September 2016.

In his car on the way home after the 11 p.m. newscast, Austin was stopped at a red light. Suddenly, there was a blinding blow to the back of his head. He was knocked unconscious. Hit full-force by a driver who never even tapped his brakes, Austin had been rear-ended by a driver who admitted he was texting and driving.

The impact was so forceful it sent his little girl’s car seat directly into the back of his head. When he regained consciousness, bloody and in a state of confusion, Austin struggled to dial 911. His immediate thoughts were, "My three little girls are usually always sitting in the back seat!"

The driver who hit Austin was not ticketed for the crash. The police at the scene said there was nothing they could do under the existing law. While at home recuperating from a severe concussion and 10 stiches to his head, viewers began asking why Austin wasn't at the news desk. He shared his story via social media and the flood gates opened.

Austin heard from people who had experienced similar situations, and those who had even tragically lost loved ones. He knew he had to be their voice.

Austin’s journey to drive change began the very next day, a journey News 6 has called “Driving Change.” The initiative's goal has been to make texting and driving a primary offense in the state of Florida.

“We started by bringing awareness to the holes in the current texting and driving law,” WKMG news director Allison McGinley said. “Then we knew we had to share the stories of those who had been directly affected by texting and driving. That included our own Matt Austin, who testified before the Florida Legislature's Judiciary Committee in Tallahassee.”

“This crisis we have in our state right now of texting and driving wound up in my back seat,” Austin said before the Judiciary Committee.

“Matt Austin told his story and that of many Floridians endangered by those who text and drive," Vice President and General Manager Jeff Hoffman said. “His commitment to see this through over a nearly three-year battle represents the very best of all who get results for WKMG News 6.”

News 6 almost saw a victory in 2017, but the bills to toughen the texting and driving law died in both the state House and Senate committees. There was a glimmer of hope again in 2018 when the House overwhelmingly approved a bill that would finally make texting and driving a primary offense, but it was stalled in the Senate.

This year, both the House and the Senate worked to pass a bill to bring Florida in line with the 44 other states. That bill was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 17, 2019.

“As a local television station, this is the role you hope you can play for the community you serve," Hoffman said. "You see a problem, and together with your neighbors, you work to solve it. When you can ultimately change laws that can save lives, well, that is what good journalism is all about. That is what being of service to your community is all about."

The entire timeline of Matt’s Austin’s fight to bring this bill into law can be found by clicking or tapping here.

WKMG lands major 'Celebration of Service to America' win

Graham Media Group's WKMG-TV has been selected as the "Service to Community" award-winner in the large-market television category, for its work serving as a legislative lifeline for first-responders.

The National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation (NABLF), formerly the NAB Education Foundation, just this week revealed the winners of the 2019 Celebration of Service to America Awards, which recognize outstanding community service by local broadcasters.

WKMG-TV presented a series of investigative reports featuring first-responders diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, providing a platform for these men and women to expose the state’s failure to recognize PTSD as a real medical injury.

Under Florida law at the time, workers’ compensation insurance was not available for those diagnosed with PTSD unless they could prove they were also physically injured during the emergency call.

The station’s reporting began with the story of one of the officers assigned to remove the dead from the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

This segment led to a flood of responses from first-responders struggling with PTSD who had been afraid to come forward.

On March 27, 2018, then-Gov. Rick Scott signed the Workers’ Compensation Benefits for First Responders Act into law.

Scott said WKMG-TV’s reporting was instrumental in the passage and signing of the new law.

WKMG, among the other winners, will be honored at the Celebration of Service to America dinner, held June 11 at The Anthem, a riverside venue in Southwest Washington.

“America’s local radio and television stations have a deeply rooted commitment to public service,” said NABLF President Marcellus Alexander. “This year’s STA winners epitomize broadcasters’ devotion to positively impacting their communities and creating a lasting difference. We look forward to recognizing their exceptional work.”

From August 2016 through March 2018, WKMG-TV investigated and presented its series of reports. Florida first-responders and their families reached out to WKMG-TV to help them bring awareness to people quietly suffering with PTSD.

News 6's reporting marked an opportunity to build community awareness of the unseen injuries that left a trail of broken souls and suicides. It all began with Orlando Police Department first-responder Gerry Realin, one of the seven assigned to remove the dead from the Pulse Nightclub. His story led to a floodgate of first-responders struggling with PTSD, but afraid to come forward. That was the constant theme of the reporting, and the evidence was clear: These victims needed someone to recognize PTSD as a real illness deserving of medical compensation.

“Stories about the people affected made the difference," Scott said. "That’s how legislation gets passed.”