HATE-WATCHER IN CHIEF Welcome to Americas new reality. "For the next four years, we are living in a TV show that President-elect Donald J. Trump is simultaneously starring in, consuming, and live-tweeting," says New ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B has noticed some confusion with "then" and "than." Then is an adverb. It means "at that time" or "next." Than is ...
IN PURSUIT OF ME-AGAIN Despite an offer of more than $20 million from Fox News, Megyn Kelly appears to be listening to some surprising suitors, according to Vanity Fair. The anticipated auction for Kellys ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B hopes its not too late to give you a tip for your holiday cards. Shes guessing your family and friends will ...
SHES BAAAACK Amanda Davis, the alcoholic former news anchor for 26 years at Fox-owned WAGA-5-Fox in Atlanta (Market #9), starts January 2 as the new morning and noon anchor at Merediths last-place WGCL-46-CBS. She ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B knows you try to be sensitive in your choice of terms. So today lets review some of the words you use ...
NORAH FOR PELLY? Page Six floats the "EXCLUSIVE" rumor that Scott Pelleys time as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" is coming to an end, and he will move to "60 Minutes" on a ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Its the 75th anniversary of the day in 1941 that more than 2000 Americans were left dead ...
UNJUST ENRICHMENT We told you yesterday that Meredith Corporation had sued former reporter Nick Lulli for "breach of contract and unjust enrichment," after Lulli left WNEM-5-CBS in Flint-Saginaw (Market #72) this summer with nearly ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B so enjoyed an article titled "6 Grammar Points To Watch Out for in Christmas Songs" in "Mental Floss" that shed like ...
RELEASED FROM JAIL The felony trial of former Fox News correspondent Orlando Salinas was set to begin Wednesday in Christiansburg, Virginia. But, late Friday, Salinas was released from jail and his attorney says the ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Crisis is such a common word in our reporting. Mrs. B wants to be sure youre using the correct word for its plural. ...
RAUCOUS HECKLING CNN President Jeff Zucker was jeered and heckled by Republican presidential campaign operatives at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics campaign managers conference on Wednesday evening as he tried to defend ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Heres part of a press statement the National Transportation Safety Board made last week about the Chattanooga school bus crash that killed six ...
LEGENDARY EXECUTIVES Two of televisions most successful executives died this week. Grant Tinker, the former chairman of NBC, died Monday at his home in California. He was 90. Tinker was the driving force behind ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets look at two expressions that have the same root word but have different meanings: bullying and bully pulpit. Bullying is treating someone ...
STROKE OF LUCK Dawne Gee, the veteran news anchor at Raycoms WAVE-3-NBC in Louisville (Market #49) who collapsed during the 7:30 p.m. newscast Friday, had a stroke. Doctors in the emergency room at Norton ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." "Worser" is one of those words Mrs. B hopes will never come from your mouth or from your keyboard, unless its someones family ...
LIVID OVER LEAK Megyn Kelly says she was furious when word leaked out that she had spoken with attorneys this summer investigating allegations against Roger Ailes. "I was livid. I was livid," she told ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." A historic is a combination of words Mrs. B rejoices over. Take this example: A historic World War II boat that survived dozens ...
THE CUBA PLAN Patrick Oppman, CNNs Havana correspondent, is credited with first reporting the death of Fidel Castro late Friday night, after Raul Castro, Cubas current president and the brother of Fidel, made the ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Todays lesson on when to capitalize a title requires some concentration. The three points to remember are: (1) If the title appears without ...
MORE IS LESS Thanks to an all-out mainstream media blitz, Megyn Kellys memoir "Settle For More" debuted at #1 this week on the New York Times Best Sellers list, bumping Bill OReillys book "Killing ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." When you do those shopping reports today, Mrs. B wants you to know where the term "Black Friday" comes from. You might think ...
THE LONG GOODBYE Struggling against tears, Dick Goddard ended his 55-year run as Clevelands favorite weather guesser Tuesday night, telling viewers, "Be good to the animals and the four-foots." Tribunes WJW-8-Fox in Cleveland (Market ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. Mrs. B hopes if youre responsible for news graphics or web stories that youll capitalize both Thanksgiving and Day. ...
BEAT THE PRESS President-elect Donald J. Trump invited members of the New York television elite to Trump Tower yesterday for a closed door "off-the-record" meeting that many hoped would clear the air and establish ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." In newswriting youre always better off using short words in short sentences. Its the most effective way to tell a story. Newswriting coach ...
EARLY MORNING DEATH Don Logana, the popular morning news anchor at Raycoms WTOC-11-CBS in Savannah (Market #91), was killed in a grinding head-on collision near the Talmadge Bridge in South Carolina early Sunday morning. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B likes what Mark Twain said about his mother: She never used large words, but she had a natural gift for making ...
LOOSE LIPS Lauren Podell, a reporter at Graham Medias WDIV-4-NBC in Detroit (Market #11), "resigned" yesterday after it was revealed she used the word "nigger" in a private conversation with a newsroom colleague more ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Instead of wordy phrases, Mrs. B hopes youll start simplifying. Try these on: Instead of "as a means to," say to. Instead of ...
WAR IN THE FOX HOLE The cold war between Bill OReilly and Megyn Kelly heated up Tuesday, the day both were out promoting their new books. OReilly, appearing on "CBS This Morning" to pimp ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." The Oxford Dictionaries, both the U.S. and the U.K. versions, have chosen "post-truth" as their 2016 international word of the year. Editors say ...
QUIET EXIT Gwen Ifill, the longtime print journalist, political commentator, and newscaster for PBS, died yesterday in hospice care. She was 61. Less than a year ago, Ifill was diagnosed with endometrial cancer (inner ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." "Utilize" is a useless word for people who are trying to show off. It means the same thing as use. Most of the ...
CHANGING THE RULES The kinder, gentler version of Donald Trump was on full display Sunday on "60 Minutes." This is the same Donald Trump who pledged during the presidential campaign to change the libel ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Hats off to a Jacksonville station that used the correct "versus" in a headline: 1 man injured in motorcycle versus car crash (news4jax.com, ...
FRAMED, HE SAYS Jim Van Fleet, who was fired in September after five years as chief meteorologist at Tegnas WTSP-10-CBS in Tampa (Market #11), sued the station two weeks ago, claiming breach of contract, ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Veterans Day is today, and Mrs. B reminds you of the correct way to write it. Veterans Day has no apostrophe. ~Well send ...
OUT OF TOUCH The countrys major news organizations faced a question from their readers and viewers on Wednesday that was laced with a sense of betrayal and anger: How did you get it so ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wants you to take a look at this: "The rumors were true," she declared of the split after an introduction that ...
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG "All the dazzling technology, the big data and the sophisticated modeling that American newsrooms bring to the fundamentally human endeavor of presidential politics could not save American journalism from yet again ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B heard an anchor on her local NPR station refer to people who live in Florida as Floridans. The correct term is ...
THE GRAND FINALE As television news gears up for tonights big Presidential Election finale, an intense public distrust in the media is threatening the networks traditional role as election night scorekeeper. "There is a ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." As you cover the election tonight, a phrase you might be using is "neck and neck." Please be sure the word that joins ...
CROSSING THE LINE This will be remembered as the year the news media shot itself in the foot. In the primaries, television networks lavished exposure on Donald Trump in order to capitalize on the ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Each is always singular when it is the subject or comes before the subject it modifies. And these pronouns follow the same rule: ...
GROPED AND OGLED Megyn Kelly claims in her coming memoir that former Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes repeatedly sexually harassed her soon after she joined the network as a Washington correspondent in 2004. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Daylight-saving time, or DST, ends Sunday at 2 a.m. So does daylight-savings time, daylight saving time, and daylight savings time. The Associated Press ...
UNEXPLAINED VARIATION There is no doubt ESPN has been shedding cable subscribers at an unprecedented rate. The Disney-owned network has lost roughly 7 million subscribers in just a few years, and a recent survey ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." A note from a former TV newsie in Omaha begins todays lesson. Mrs. B: Can you please revisit the topic of "first ever" ...
NBC BOSTON After nearly a year of rumors and a bitter court battle, NBC announced yesterday that it will launch a new TV station in Boston (Market #9) on December 31, 2016. It will ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Some of Mrs. Bs readers have asked about a Latin term the Surly Editor? uses every now and then: What does [sic] mean? ...
UNEXPECTED TURN Vanity Fair, which last week painted a scenario in which Megyn Kelly was the apple of everyones eye at CNN, ABC, and Fox News…this week tells a different tale, in which CNN ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B is in a tiz today about "trooper" and "trouper." She keeps reading one when it should be the other. A "trooper" ...
$PORTS BUBBLE The collapse of ESPNs cable subscriber base has suddenly accelerated. For the past few years, the network has been shedding roughly 300,000 viewers per month. This past month, the worldwide leader in ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Halloween is a shortened version of All-Hallow-Even, which means Eve of All Saints. Tuesday, November 1, is All Saints Day. It commemorates saints ...
DISSATISFACTION NETWORK Win or lose on November 8, the Donald Trump presidential campaign has built a direct marketing operation that could either power a future TV network…or finish off the Republican party. The original ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets review some terms related to the migrant crisis. Youve been seeing and hearing sentences like this one: Officials have said that there ...
COVETING MEGYN Megyn Kelly is in "active" contract talks with Fox News, reports corporate sibling The Wall Street Journal. And Rupert Murdoch is staying abreast of the talks "every minute of the day." Kellys ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." It happens every year around homecoming. You hear the Latin words for graduate(s) mangled. Mrs. B wants you to take a minute out ...
QUIETLY SETTLED Our long national nightmare has ended. Alycia Lane has settled her lawsuit with CBS, just days before it was to go to trial in Philadelphia. Lane filed the suit eight years ago, ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." A careful writer, and Mrs. B hopes you are, makes sure that "only" lands in the correct place. Look at how the placement ...
BROMANCE ENDED? Roger Ailes is no longer advising Donald Trump in his race for the presidency, and the two longtime friends no longer speak, according to New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman. The reason ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wonders if youve noticed the words "council" and "counsel" misused. A council is a group of people appointed or elected to ...
NEW ENERGY AT FOX After a traumatic summer of turmoil, Fox News is counting on tonights final presidential debate to slingshot it into a new generation of relevance, away from two decades of knuckle-dragging ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B appreciated seeing this correct use of "comprises": Terrence M. Cunningham delivered the remarks in San Diego at the International Association of ...
OVER AND OUT Billy Bush is officially out at NBC. The network announced the news Monday after several days of negotiations over the terms of his departure and less than two weeks after a ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Squash is a kind of vegetable (though from a botanical standpoint, its a fruit). And squash is a racket sport thats played with ...
PAID IN FULL? Suspended "Today" show host Billy Bush is expected to settle with NBC for the full lump-sum value of his three-year employment contract, said to be worth in the neighborhood of $10 ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets look at two sets of words that sound alike but have such different meanings. "Addition" is the process of adding (one plus ...
BILLY DIGS IN Billy Bush has lawyered up. And his exit from NBC News isnt going to be as amicable as many had hoped. Bush has hired prominent Los Angeles litigator Marshall Grossman, one ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." The Daily Skimm is an email newsletter written in a sassy, irreverent way–something Mrs. B finds appealing first thing in the morning. But ...
ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY Al Roker will be missing from NBCs "Today" show for at least the next two weeks. He had right knee replacement surgery Tuesday at a New York hospital. "I feel ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. Bs inspiration for todays lesson is this email: All too often I hear reporters use the terms "jail" and "prison" as if ...
BUSH WHACKED Billy Bush is negotiating his exit from NBC. Four days after the explosive Donald J. Trump "Access Hollywood" tape was made public, Bush and NBC are working out the terms of his ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." No one will ever know you dont the difference between there, theyre, and their, until the slip-up appears on a graphic or in ...
PUBLIC LYNCHING On the first day of Billy Bushs suspension from NBCs "Today," Matt Lauer took the day off. (Go ahead, say it. We know you want to. "Where in the world is Matt ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." When to use lie and lay is one of the most challenging lessons in grammar. And even the best writers have trouble with ...
BURNING BUSH Billy Bush has been suspended from the "Today" show. "Let me be clear… there is simply no excuse for Billys language and behavior on that tape," according to a memo from Noah ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B and the Surly Editor? are fortunate. Hurricane Matthews fury spared NewsBlues International Headquarters. Other than wind shearing off the top of ...
SETTLED AMICABLY Toy manufacturer Hasbro and Fox News "star" Harris Faulkner, embroiled in litigation for over a year, announced Wednesday they had reached a settlement agreement. The full details were not disclosed, but Hasbro ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Sometimes people get "conscience" and "conscious" mixed up. Just in case you have ever been one of those people, or might be one ...
STAYING PUT Anderson Cooper has signed a new "long term" deal with CNN and has taken himself out of the running for the "Live with Kelly" co-host job. He will continue to appear on ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." A reader in DC asks Mrs. B to remind you of the difference in regime, regimen, and regiment. A regime is a form ...
RETALIATORY HIRE CNN has hired Buzzfeeds so-called "K-File" team, a crew of four young journalists who have regularly broken big political news stories this year by researching candidates past statements and actions. The addition ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B reminds you that theres no such thing as "a phenomena." And theres no such thing as "phenomenas." A phenomenon is a ...
ON THE BEACH Roger Ailes is moving to Palm Beach. The Fox News founder is the secret buyer of a breathtaking six-bedroom, ten-bath, 12,747-square-foot modernistic beach front home with sweeping views of the Atlantic ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Some pronouns are always singular, and neither is one of them. For example: ~Neither of the cameras is working. These are other pronouns ...
DEBATE WAS RIGGED In the immediate aftermath of Mondays first presidential debate, Donald Trump said he thought NBCs Lester Holt did a "great job" as debate moderator and asked questions that were "very fair." ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wants to get a couple of things straight today. The noun "kind" is singular. So, say or write "this kind" or ...
SLIPPERY POLLS Dana Blanton, the vice president of public-opinion research at Fox News, sent a memo to network producers and the politics team on Tuesday reminding them that unscientific online polls "do not meet ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Heres what Mrs. B has heard on the air when photos of suspects are shown: These ones are who police are on the ...
DEBATABLE RESULTS The first presidential debate was watched by nearly 84 million television viewers, according to Nielsen, making the clash between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump the biggest audience since televised debates began in ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Continuously means uninterrupted. Continually, on the other hand, means frequently repeated. When Mrs. B hears "Well have continuous coverage of this story," she ...
DEBATABLE SUCCESS Mondays highly anticipated presidential debate was like no other in the television era. It featured the first female presidential nominee of a major party facing off against an alpha male businessman with ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." With tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, and flooding comes damage. Mrs. B wants you to be clear that the noun "damage" is not the same ...
