The networks and Texas local television have done themselves proud in their coverage of the Sutherland Springs, TX massacre over the past couple of days. Especially the local stations in San Antonio. As ...
21st Century Fox stock took a 7% jump after news broke Monday the company has been holding “on-again, off-again” talks with Disney about selling off parts of the company. What Fox is NOT selling ...
Something like this can certainly mess up planning for the late newscast. A fire Friday night in Raleigh, NC forced the evacuation of the newsroom at Capitol Broadcasting’s WRAL. The alarm went out ...
Reporters usually don’t like to be the story. We say “usually” because we’ve seen more than a few examples of TV reporters today who seem to glory in being the center of their reporting. ...
Three time Chicago news director Carol Fowler has a new job as Senior VP of digital news products for the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times. Fowler was ND at WBBM, WFLD and WGN ...
Michael Sipes will start later this month as the new news director for Nexstar owned KLFY in Lafayette, LA. He's a former news director in Kansas City, Louisville, Wichita, Jackson, MS, and Colorado Springs. ...
Univision D.C. correspondent Lourdes Meluzá signed off for good last week, retiring from the network after 30 years. Meluzá became the network’s D.C. correspondent in 1993, covering the White House and Congress. Meluzá spent ...
Cord-cutting isn’t just a cable problem. Brian Lawlor, president of local media for E.W. Scripps, reported to investors that the company has seen a 2%-3% decline in subscribers to the cable and satellite ...
Yes, you can go home again. Emily Spain is coming back to Mizzou’s KOMU as nightside anchor after two years at Tegna’s WFMY in Greensboro, NC. Evidently she brought tears to the eyes of ...
A lack of funding and continuing interference by the state General Assembly over editorial control has forced the Connecticut Public Affairs Network to suspend operations of CT-N. The network was founded in 1999 to ...
The issue of journalists as union members came to the forefront last week when, just about a week after the New York staffs of DNAinfo and “Gothamist” voted to unionize, billionaire site owner ...
Two new reporters have been added to the growing CNBC Digital operation. Bloomberg News vet Alex Sherman, who will be covering mergers and acquisitions with a focus on tech and Silicon Valley venture ...
Social media certainly has opened the gates to a lot of boneheads who think they have somehow earned carte blanche to bully and insult public people. And sometimes, the boneheads get smacked around as ...
INGRAHAM-TRUMP And the 20th Trump interview on Fox goes to?. Laura Ingraham. Why not? It?s debut week for her new Fox News entertainment program and the interview likely brought in some winning numbers. The ...
SINCLAIR:?NO" NEWSMAX: "MAYBE" Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley threw some very cold water on one of the hottest rumors in media industry gossip circles: that the right-leaning broadcaster wants to scoop up free ...
No one will ever know you dont the difference between ?there,? ?theyre,? and ?their,? until the slip-up appears on a graphic or in your web story. And then, believe Mrs. B, youll hear about ...
TRIBUNE CEO ALREADY GONE Bruce Karsh must really feel the Sinclair-Tribune deal is a lock. The Tribune CEO stepped down from his post and the Tribune board at the end of the week, and ...
?F&F? OFFERS DIVERSION While the three broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC and even local TV stations were continuously delivering updates on the indictments handed down against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his aide ...
When to use ?lie? and ?lay? is one of the most challenging lessons in grammar. And even the best writers have trouble with it. Take a look at this sentence: ?Lie? is the verb ...
STONE: LIFETIME TWITTER BAN Trump adviser and professional bad dresser Roger Stone has been permanently banned from Twitter after a series of manic and vulgar tweets Friday in the wake of CNN?s exclusive early ...
O?REILLY DUMPED AGAIN A look at the best-seller lists shows that people are still falling all over themselves to buy Bill O?Reilly?s ghostwritten faux history books. ?Killing England? has been on the NYT bestseller ...
PAIS FOLLY First it was dumping the "main studio" rule. Get ready for another nail to be driven into the coffin of local tv. Especially news FCC Chair Ajit Pai yesterday unveiled plans to ...
Sometimes people get "conscience" and "conscious" mixed up. Just in case you have ever been one of those people, or might be one of those people, please pay attention. Conscience is your sense of ...
?MAIN STUDIO? RULE KILLED That bell you hear tolling is tolling the beginning of the end of local tv journalism as we know it. The Sinclairs and Nexstars have been among the leaders in ...
O?REILLY BLAMES GOD Six sexual harassment claims. Somewhere in the vicinity of $50 million in payouts to victims. And somehow, the easily-loathed, monumentally arrogant Bill O?Reilly wants us to believe HE?S the victim here. ...
?Continuously? means uninterrupted. ?Continually,? on the other hand, means frequently repeated. When Mrs. B hears "Well have continuous coverage of this story," she has to stifle a giggle. And you might hear this on ...
Thirty. Two. Million. Dollars. Wrap your head around that. ?The New York Times? is really failing upward these days. This weekend?s bombshell from the Times detailed how internet personality Bill O?Reilly, back in the ...
IS THERE A CURE FOR FAKE NEWS? Are we ever gonna get past this ?fake news? thing, complete with bots, troll farms, and whack jobs on both political extremes with access to social media. ...
TWITTER IGNORED WARNINGS Another cautionary tale of the increasingly obvious shortcomings of social media when it comes to policing themselves and the people who use them. We remember a Twitter account called @TEN_GOP and ...
With tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, and flooding comes damage. Mrs. B wants you to be clear that the noun "damage" is not the same as the noun "damages." "Damages" is a legal term. Damages are ...
SCARAMUCCI PULLS OFFENSIVE POLL We?ll be honest. We?ve missed ?The Mooch?. Anthony Scaramuccis willingness to run his mouth combined with his inability to get it right are an entertaining combination. This time around, his ...
GOOD JOURNALISMS POWER The aftermath of a joint ?60 Minutes?-Washington Post report which demonstrated how the powerful drug lobby and members of Congress conspired to fuel the nation?s opioid crisis, in turn demonstrates the ...
Today Mrs. B wants you to look at three sets of words that sometimes cause some stumbling. ?Incredible? means hard to believe. Heres an example in a tease: ~AT 11:00, the incredible LEGO animal ...
TUCKER HEAL THYSELF We think it?s pretty much a given that NBC News botched the Ronan Farrow piece on Harvey Weinstein that it could have had exclusively and, instead, handed off to ?The New ...
NOAA NOMINEE HAS CLEAR CONFLICT Continuing the Trumpian tradition of nominating people to run agencies they hate and would like to dismantle, the president has nominated Barry Myers to head up NOAA, the National ...
AMENDMENT-CHALLENGED It was post-war presidential Harry Truman whose favorite saying was "If you cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." And so another day, another ?modern day presidential? tweet from the White ...
?Politics? is one of those words that can be either singular or plural, depending on the meaning you give it. When it refers to a set of political stands, it takes a plural verb. ...
NBC PASSED ON WEINSTEIN STORY The dam has now broken on Harvey Weinstein stories after years of silence about what appears to be the worst-kept secret in Hollywood. Why was this open secret avoided ...
ESPN SUSPENDS JEMELE HILL The other shoe dropped on Jemele Hill Monday as ESPN suspended her for two weeks for violating the company?s rules for using social media. No, it wasn?t the result of ...
?Ring?, ?rang,? ?rung.? Those are the principal parts of the verb ?ring,? as in: ~ I ring the bell. (present tense) ~She rang the bell. (past tense) ~We have rung the bell. (past participle) ...
SINCLAIR PROMISES MORE NEWS…IF Those pesky ownership limits that pose an obstacle to Sinclair?s takeover of Tribune were kind of glossed over in the company?s final answers to the FCC. But the company promised ...
TRUMPS 1st AMENDMENT PROBLEM There have been many weeks over the past 10 months in which a particular week has been labelled ?the worst week? in this Administration. This week is another candidate. A ...
TILLERSON UNDER FIRE So did Secretary of State Rex Tillerson call his boss, the President, a ?moron? or not? NBC News was the first to say ?yes?, saying Tillerson was on the verge of ...
One of our Minnesota newsies asks Mrs. B how to form the possessive case of names that end in "s." Add an apostrophe plus an "s." Take the name James, for example. ~Jamess brother ...
TRUST IN MEDIA GROWS The media has always been the preferred target of unhappy politicians and other public officials, but it has never been tested to the extent it has over the past 18 ...
THE AFTERMATH 59 dead. 527 wounded. ?I have no idea who I operated on,? said Dr. Jay Coates, a trauma surgeon whose hospital took in many of the wounded after a gunman opened fire ...
Today Mrs. B wants you to look at plural possessives. This sentence works well to help explain the rule: ~The Supreme Court agreed with a federal courts decision to throw out Californias ban on ...
50+ DEAD IN LATEST MASS SHOOTING All cable and broadcast news operations scrambled overnight to provide coverage of still another mass shooting ? this one in Las Vegas. More than 50 people were killed, ...
EPSHTEYN IN RUSSIA PROBE HEARING How many tv chief political analysts can you named who have testified behind closed doors in a congressional criminal probe? Well, there?s Boris Epshteyn and? That?s it. Epshteyn, whose ...
CRANE COLLAPSE KILLS THREE Horrifying news from Miami, where late yesterday afternoon, three men died while working on a TV transmission tower for Sunbeam?s WSVN and Berkshire Hathaway?s WPLG in Miami Gardens. The tragedy ...
Mrs. B reminds you of how easy it is to mix up these two little words: ?its? and ?its.? ?Its? is the possessive form of ?it.? Usually an apostrophe signals possession, but not for ...
FOX NEWS ADDS TO DAYTIME Fox News has done just about all the tinkering it can with its prime-time lineup, so it?s turning its sights to daytime programming. Harris Faulkner will take her weekday ...
Home Page Issue # 4,241 Tuesday, September 26, 2017 Comment ?MEGYN KELLY TODAY? DEBUTS ?I am done with politics,? Megyn Kelly told the in-studio crowd during her debut hour on Monday morning. ?Megyn Kelly ...
When Mrs. B heard this, she dropped her jaw, picked it up, and ran to the keyboard: Mark and Is series will begin tomorrow. ?Is? is not an acceptable substitute for "my." ~Marks and ...
MEGYN KELLY?S BIG DEBUT ?Today?s Take? went out with a whimper Friday morning. The cast didn?t even get a goodbye cake. This morning, the much ballyhooed replacement, ?Megyn Kelly Today? debuts in the 9 ...
FOX TO LAUNCH 11 PM NEWS On October 30, the same day that Laura Ingraham launches her new 10 pm hour on Fox News Channel, she will also be serving as the lead-in to ...
MARIA?S DEVASTATION It could be months before power is fully restored to the battered island of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. The storm left Puerto Rico completely without power. Maria is ...
A "wound" is usually thought of as an injury in which the skin is torn, pierced, or cut. For example: ~The dog bite left the child with a wound that will take a while ...
FOX WANTS LAWSUIT TOSSED We?re still waiting for Fox News to deliver one of those impressive ?tick-tocks? as to how their discredited Seth Rich story ever saw the light of day. So far, no ...
INGRAHAM COMING TO FOX NEWS The deal is done, the ink is dry and on October 30th, Laura Ingraham will take up residence in the weeknight 10 pm slot on Fox News Channel. ?The ...
Mrs. B has noticed confusion over "precedents" and "precedence." Lets begin, though, with the singular of "precedents." A precedent is an act that sanctions later similar acts. ~Reporters and photographers set a precedent when ...
CHOPPER CRASH KILLS REPORTER Painful news to report as the staff of Nexstar?s KRQE in Albuquerque, NM is mourning the death of Bob Martin, reporter and pilot of the station?s helicopter. That chopper crashed ...
THE HILL SAGA In Jemele Hill news, her apology to ESPN for putting them through another political wringer has been accepted by the WorldWide Leader?. But then "Think Progress" reported ESPN tried to pull ...
ESPNS PREDICAMENT The fallout from ESPN Sportscenter anchor Jemele Hill?s ill-advised Twitter argument in which she ended up labeling the president a ?white supremacist?, and the networks subsequent wrist-slap continues. Late last night, Hill ...
One of Mrs. Bs readers in South Florida suggested this lesson. ?All right? is always two words. (Delete "alright" from your sweet brain, please.) But take a look at these "a"-words that work both ...
FOX-SKY DEAL ON HOLD The standards of Fox News are going to be examined in Britain, where it is no longer available, as a condition of 21st Century Fox?s long-proposed, often-stalled $15 billion takeover ...
IRMA?S LEGACY Irma is now a tropical depression, making her way up through Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee Tuesday morning. Winds are in the 25-30 mile an hour range and the storm is still dumping ...
Mrs. B has noticed that some of you use "to" following "between" in a phrase having to do with a range of numbers. For example: The storm surge could be between six to 12 ...
IRMA BY THE NUMBERS Hurricane Irma is now a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 85 miles per hour. At 7 this morning, Irma?s center was 60 miles north of Tampa and moving ...
HERE COMES IRMA Hurricane Irma is now a strong Category 4 storm with winds sustained at 155 miles per hour. But Irma is now number three on the list of longest-lived Category 5 hurricanes. ...
IRMA MAKES HER MARK Up and down the Atlantic coast and especially in South Florida, residents are preparing for the absolute worst as Hurricane Irma makes her way west through the ocean, a storm ...
A message from one of Mrs. Bs friends in Albuquerque addresses a subject you may have wondered about, too: Are the words "deadly" and "fatal" interchangeable? I recall reading somewhere that theres a subtle ...
DACA DEMISE DRAWS MEDIA RESPONSE Depending on your media source, the decision to end DACA, starring a suddenly camera-shy President Donald Trump and his Attorney-General drew wildly different responses. The program allowed about 800,000 ...
NEWSBLUES PARENT BUYS MEDIALINE RWI Digital Communications, the parent company of NewsBlues, today announced its latest acquisition – on-air talent platform MediaLine, Medialine has been around for the better part of four decades and, ...
Voil?! is a French interjection used to call attention to something. Pronounce it vwah-LAH. Thats a "v" sound before the "w" sound. And the emphasis is on the second syllable. Please do not say ...
NORMALITY SLOWLY RETURNS Six days after Hurricane Harvey slammed into shore in Texas, the waters are receding and Houston?s mayor Sylvester Turner says the city is now largely dry. Two neighborhoods, Kingwood and West ...
HARVEYS TOLL SO FAR Harvey is now dumping heavy rain in several Gulf states. So far the worst storm in more than a decade to hit the US has driven more than 30,000 people ...
Lets review some terms we use in covering the legal system. Only police can book a suspect. Its then up to the district attorneys office to file a charge. Just because a person is ...
HARVEY?S HORRIFIC LEGACY Harvey?s not done yet and the effect of the storm will be felt for years to come. What is now left of Harvey made another landfall this morning at about 4 ...
HARVEY: STILL THE STORY Harvey by the numbers: 11,000,000,000,000 ? Gallons of water Harvey has already dumped on Texas 13,000,000 ? Number of people under flood watches or warnings 450,000 ? Approximate number of ...
Mrs. B wants you to look at two expressions that sound alike but have different meanings: "jury-rigged" and "jerrybuilt." Something rigged up temporarily, and often ingeniously, is jury-rigged. For example: ~Thanks to duct tape ...
HARVEY?S FURY A look at Hurricane Harvey by the numbers: 27.04 – Inches of rainfall that fell in southeastern Harris county from early Friday morning through early Sunday morning. 9 – Days of heavy ...
BROKAW FIRES BACK Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw is the nation?s anchor emeritus these days and, as such, is a de facto spokesman for working journalists Earlier this week, the President spent an ...
SINCLAIR DEFENDS ITSELF There will be no future for local television unless Sinclair is allowed to merge with Tribune Media. Or something. That is the gist of what Sinclair Broadcast Group is telling the ...
When Mrs. B read this, she sprang into action with a lesson on "nauseous" and "nauseated": Monitor your symptoms: If you feel dizzy, nauseous, have a headache, or muscle cramps, find a cooler location ...
FOXS CARL CAMERON RETIRES Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent for Fox News from the day it signed on, is retiring. He actually joined the network in 1995, a year before it went on the ...
HOW MEMES ARE BORN Yesterday?s eclipses got universally rave reviews, unless clouds moved in to obscure your view. And it provided some moments that instantly went viral. Like WGN weatherman Tom Skilling, tearing up ...
You may have wondered why Zika virus is capitalized. Its name comes from the Zika Forest of Uganda, where the virus was first isolated in 1947. West Nile is a region in Uganda, and ...
GREAT AMERICAN ECLIPSE Today?s the day. Starting at about 1:15 PM Eastern (10:15 AM Pacific), and for the next hour and a half or so, cloud cover permitting, everyone in the country will ...
VICE NEWS GOES VIRAL Vice News became the news this week with its viral 22-minute documentary on the Charlottesville ?rally? last weekend. Correspondent Elle Reeve was embedded with the white supremacist leaders who helped ...
REPUBLICANS GO SILENT The lifeblood of cable news is talking heads. The lifeblood of politicians is face time on television. It should be a marriage made in heaven. But today, cable news has a ...
Mrs. B knows you hear it a lot, and maybe have even said it or written it, but "convicted felon" is redundant. A felon is someone who has been convicted of a felony. Lets ...
PRESSER GOES OFF RAILS Yesterday, there was a news conference during which President Donald Trump was going to address the nations infrastructure needs. White House aides tried to play down expectations. They said plans ...
THIRD TIME?S A CHARM. It took 48 hours and a telepromptered, carefully-curated script, but there was finally a White House statement Monday that fully addressed the white supremacist-driven deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia over ...
Mrs. B has heard this kind of construction a few times lately: I wish I would have done more research before I went out on that story. If she would have asked me, I ...
CHARLOTTESVILLE HORROR Cable news threw out the regular schedule this weekend as, beginning on Friday night, Charlottesville, Virginia became a focal point. On CNN, you couldnt escape Wolf Blitzer. The sounds and images were ...
CNN DUMPS JEFFREY LORD Last week, pro-Trump pundit Kayleigh McEnany resigned from CNN via tweet and embarked on her new career as Trump TV anchor. This week, Jeffrey Lord, the reliable comic relief member ...
BOLLING SUES FOR $50 MILL The other shoe has dropped, at least partially, as suspended Fox News host Eric Bolling filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against the reporter who wrote the story about ...
