We’ve been guilty of being focused recently on the larger issues in the television industry. Issues such as the First Amendment and Free Speech, Media Ownership Concentration, and similar matters. Admittedly, we haven’t kept up with our primary focus here, which remains the television news business.

Let’s get back to that in today’s edition of The Topline, in which we focus on a particular news story that has unfolded over the past eight days in Albany, New York.

We begin on Tuesday, September 21st. A large police presence has gathered at a residential address in Albany to execute a search warrant related to what was identified as "suspected financial crimes." The next day, excavation equipment appeared at the site, and began working in the backyard. In the course of the following 36 hours, the bodies of two people were discovered and removed from the scene.

In a press conference on Thursday, September 25th, Albany Police Chief Brendan Cox announced that the investigation that led police to this address had been ongoing since May 21st. That is when police received a call from the Social Security Administration requesting a welfare check on Franz and Theresia Kraus, who, according to Social Security records, lived at the address where the warrant was served. The Chief says that the couple’s adult son, Lorenz Kraus, has been interviewed as part of the investigation.

Albany television station WNYT, the Hubbard-owned NBC affiliate in the market, reports that a source close to the investigation had confirmed to the station that Lorenz Kraus had admitted to killing his parents, suffocating his father, and choking his mother.

Shortly after WNYT broke this news, Lorenz Kraus arrived in the lobby of another television station, WRGB-TV, the Sinclair-owned CBS affiliate, where he was to be interviewed on camera by WRGB’s veteran anchor Greg Floyd. Kraus agreed to the interview after speaking with the station’s news director, Stone Grissom, by telephone. Kraus had emailed a rambling statement to the local television newsrooms and other local media outlets, requesting that they publish it. News Director Grissom told Kraus in their conversation that the station would publish his statement—but only if he would agree to be interviewed in person at the station.

Kraus agreed and said he was heading to the station. Grissom then alerted anchor Floyd, and preparations were made to conduct this exclusive interview. Kraus arrives shortly thereafter, and Floyd proceeds to conduct the on-camera interview. During the interview, Lorenz Kraus confessed that he killed his parents eight years earlier and had hidden their bodies. Kraus says he killed his parents “out of concern for their misery.” The interview ends, Kraus leaves the building, and is immediately arrested in the station’s parking lot by the Albany police department, and charged with the two murders.

WRGB then airs the exclusive interview in its Thursday evening newscasts and posts the full interview on YouTube, where it has been viewed over a million times.

While all that is a fascinating and still unfolding story, and a major “get” for WRGB, there is the proverbial “story behind the story” that we have found equally interesting. Two interviews with anchor Floys provide an insight into his thinking while conducting the interview. Molly McPherson is an Albany-based public relations professional who has a practice as a Crisis and Reputation Strategist. She has a popular podcast called “The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson.” In her podcast, which we have been fans of for a few months now, she breaks down contemporary events through the lens of her crisis PR experience. She also happens to be in a personal relationship with Greg Floyd.

In her latest edition of “The PR Breakdown,” McPherson interviews Floyd (whom she identifies as her boyfriend) about getting the exclusive interview and a follow-up jailhouse interview with Lorenz Kraus on the very next day. They also talk about Floyd’s personal feelings about the story.

WRGB also interviewed its anchor about his impressions after conducting the interview and how it had come together.

These two candid conversations with the news anchor provide an extra dimension for reviewing how the story unfolded and assessing its subsequent impact. Greg Floyd deserves much credit for conducting a probing, yet professional interview with little preparation and a growing recognition of the story unfolding right before him. As a journalist with 45 years in the Albany market (he started as an intern at WRGB before returning to be on the air), the two interviews with him are worth watching—along with his entire interview with the man now charged with killing both of his parents back in 2017.

At the time of this publication, Lorenz Kraus has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree murder and concealment of a human corpse. A Grand Jury indicted him on the charges late this Wednesday afternoon. 

Anchor Greg Floyd announced, some three weeks before this story began, with that report of a large police presence at that Albany home, that he will be retiring from his anchor position with WRGB-TV this December.

-30-