NO POTTED PLANT Tonight at 9, Lester Holt will preside over what may be the most highly anticipated presidential debate in American history. The debate, the first between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Today Mrs. B wants you to look at three sets of words that sometimes cause some stumbling. "Incredible" means hard to believe. Heres ...
AILES TICK-TOCK For 20 years, Roger Ailes did as he pleased at Fox News. Then former anchor Gretchen Carlson sued him for sexual harassment?and suddenly Rupert Murdoch, whod long had his back, wasnt there. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." "Politics" is one of those words that can be either singular or plural, depending on the meaning you give it. When it refers ...
ANOTHER VIOLENT NIGHT For the second night in a row, Charlotte media outlets have walked the fine line between competing narratives in the fatal shooting of a black man Tuesday, which triggered protests and ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Autumn, or fall, officially began this morning at 10:21 EDT, to be exact, at the autumnal equinox. Autumnal is pronounced aw-TUM-nul. The word ...
RIOTOUS SMOTHERAGE Protesters blocked Interstate 85 in downtown Charlotte early Wednesday morning and clashed with police after the fatal shooting of a black man earlier in the day. The protesters (who soon became rioters) ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Today Mrs. B wants you to look at torturous and tortuous. That second "r" in torturous makes the difference in their spellings and ...
MILE-HIGH FISHBOWL Meagan OHalloran, an "award-winning" reporter for the past four years at Sinclairs last-place WZTV-17-Fox in Nashville (Market #29), will start October 4 as a morning news anchor at Tribunes KDVR-31-Fox in Denver ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Ring, rang, rung. Those are the principal parts of the verb "ring," as in: ~I ring the bell. (present tense) ~She rang the ...
KEY MAN CLAUSE It now appears Greta Van Susteren was the only Fox News employee who exercised the "key man clause" in her contract, which provided for an early exit in the event of ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B reminds you of how easy it is to mix up these two little words: its and its. Its is the possessive ...
TRUMP TV, FALSE RUMOR Donald Trump says Roger Ailes is "a trusted friend" and has offered "his experience and knowledge" during conversations theyve had over several weekends at Trumps golf club in Bedminster, NJ. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." When Mrs. B heard this, she dropped her jaw, picked it up, and ran to the keyboard: Mark and Is series will begin ...
NO CHANGE AT THE TOP Despite reports that 21st Century Fox planned to shake up the management team at Fox News after the presidential election, the company yesterday signed Fox co-presidents Jack Abernethy and ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." One of our Minnesota newsies asks Mrs. B how to form the possessive case of names that end in "s." Add an apostrophe ...
SELECTIVE AMNESIA Bill OReilly, appearing on NBCs "Today" show to promote his new book Killing the Rising Sun, was asked about Roger Ailess departure from Fox News, and Gretchen Carlsons sexual harassment claims. "I ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Today Mrs. B wants you to look at plural possessives. This sentence works well to help explain the rule: ~The Supreme Court agreed ...
ROGER AND OUT The Roger E. Ailes Newsroom sign and plaque were torn down Monday, and Ohio University President Roderick McDavis said the university will return the $500,000 donation Ailes made to his alma ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Were hearing "kool-aid" a lot these days, used like this: Last year at this time, I bought, drank and drowned on the Dolphins ...
WOBBLY REPORTING Fox News was first to report Sunday that Hillary Clinton abruptly left the Ground Zero ceremony in New York. FNC described the event as "what appeared to be a medical episode" and ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." A "wound" is usually thought of as an injury in which the skin is torn, pierced, or cut. For example: ~The dog bite ...
FILLED WITH REGRET HarperCollins, the publishing arm of 21st Century Fox (and the sister company of Fox News), has decided not to move forward with publication of Geraldo Riveras memoir Geraldo of Arabia, From ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Fifteen years ago Sunday, the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed after two hijacked passenger airliners were crashed into them. Part ...
LINGUISTIC FEINTS NBCs Matt Lauer was blasted on social media for failing to fact check Donald Trump during NBCs "Commander-in-Chief Forum" Wednesday evening. Lauer appeared flummoxed by Trumps linguistic feints and moved on without ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B has noticed confusion over "precedents" and "precedence." Lets begin, though, with the singular of "precedents." A precedent is an act that ...
UNSETTLING SETTLEMENT 21st Century Fox spent $20 million on Tuesday to settle a lawsuit brought by a former anchor, Gretchen Carlson, whose allegations of sexual harassment toppled the networks powerful chairman, Roger Ailes, and ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." One of Mrs. Bs readers in South Florida suggested this lesson. All right is always two words. (Delete "alright" from your sweet brain, ...
THE ENEMY WITHIN New York magazines Gabriel Sherman unleashed a cover story last week with new and sordid details of the tumultuous days following Gretchen Carlsons sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes in July. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B has noticed that some of you use "to" following "between" in a phrase having to do with a range of numbers. ...
SETTLE FOR LESS Megyn Kellys memoir, Settle for More, (HarperCollins) is due out on November 15. She has promised a full-on revelation of the "torment" she suffered last year at the hands of the ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." If youve been waiting with bated breath for Mrs. Bs next lesson, let it out. When you do something with bated breath, that ...
LIVE AUDIENCE Starting Tuesday, September 6…the same day Michael Strahan makes his "official" debut on "Good Morning America," ABC will add a live 100-person audience to the last half-hour of the show. "GMA" hosts ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." A message from one of Mrs. Bs friends in Albuquerque addresses a subject you may have wondered about, too: Are the words "deadly" ...
LONG GOODBYE Bob Long, the legendary NBC news director who retired in 2009 after six years at KNBC-4 in Los Angeles, died Monday of unknown causes. He was believed to be in his 70s. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Voil?! is a French interjection used to call attention to something. Pronounce it vwah-LAH. Thats a "v" sound before the "w" sound. And ...
SLEAZY MEDIA Donald Trump finally did an interview last week with someone other than Fox News…and it did not go well. CNNs Anderson Cooper was relentless in his questioning of the Republican presidential candidates ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets look at a couple of French words some people are mixing up: masseuse and masseur. A masseuse is a woman who gives ...
ARMED AND DANGEROUS When staffers cleaned out Roger Ailess office at Fox News, they found two loaded handguns (a Glock and a Smith & Wesson) hidden in a door. "Roger has a permit for ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets talk about the difference between "premier" and "premiere." A premier (without the "e" on the end) is someone who leads a government. ...
LEGAL MORASS DEEPENS Judd Burstein, the New York lawyer representing Andrea Tantaros in her sexual harassment suit against Fox News, tells the Washington Post, "Mondays lawsuit was only the beginning. In the next few ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." "One in" any number you can think of always takes a singular verb. Good for this Indianapolis station: Preliminary data released by the ...
THE CABLE GAME The sexual harassment lawsuit filed Monday by former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros contains an allegation that caught quite a few folks off guard and, quite frankly, took a big chunk ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets review some terms we use in covering the legal system. Only police can book a suspect. Its then up to the district ...
LOCHTE MESS MONSTER NBC, the exclusive television home of the Olympics, found itself on the wrong end of Ryan Lochtes dubious tale of a gunpoint robbery in Rio de Janeiro last Sunday. And as ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wants you to look at two expressions that sound alike but have different meanings: "jury-rigged" and "jerrybuilt." Something rigged up temporarily, ...
TRAUMATIC MISCHARACTERIZATION One of the strangest stories of the Rio Olympics got even stranger Wednesday evening when Brazilian authorities removed two American swimmers, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, from their flight home, seized their ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." It was probably just a slip of the tongue, but an NPR reporter in Milwaukee said, "The gunman was armed." And a West ...
AILES JOINS TRUMP Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chairman ousted last month over charges of sexual harassment, is advising Donald Trump in preparation for the first debate with Hillary Clinton, September 26 at ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Heres a message Mrs. B received from a Cleveland reader: This question was raised recently: Which is the correct word? The victim was ...
NEW FOX STATIONS BOSS 21st Century Fox yesterday continued a rearrangement of its top executives. Sharri Berg, who joined Fox News Channel in 1996 as a satellite operations manager, was named chief operating officer ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Use "farther" when youre talking about physical distance, a distance that can be measured, as in: The line has allegedly stretched farther than ...
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE Late Friday afternoon, 21st Century Fox officially promoted two longtime executives to co-president of Fox News, replacing Roger Ailes, who had resigned three weeks earlier. Bill Shine will be in charge ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B has heard this kind of construction a few times lately: I wish I would have done more research before I went ...
SETTLEMENT TALKS 21st Century Fox is preparing to reach financial settlements with nearly a dozen women who have come forward to publicly accuse former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. According to ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." When Mrs. B read this, she sprang into action with a lesson on "nauseous" and "nauseated": Monitor your symptoms: If you feel dizzy, ...
UNRAVELING BLACK OPS Roger Ailess black ops tactics against New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman were apparently more menacing than just online smears and negative Google ads. Politico quotes a source close to high-level ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." You may have wondered why Zika virus is capitalized. Its name comes from the Zika Forest of Uganda, where the virus was first ...
FOXS SPYGATE Brian Stelter, the host of "Reliable Sources" on CNN and a former media reporter for The New York Times, says Fox News used a female employee to "gather intel" on him a ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B knows you hear it a lot, and maybe have even said it or written it, but "convicted felon" is redundant. A ...
ANOTHER ACCUSATION Andrea Tantaros, the conservative political analyst and commentator who co-hosted a noon show on Fox News Channel until she was quietly removed in April without explanation, now says she was taken off ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." "Hanged" is the word to use when youre talking about suicides or executions. So lets correct this headline in a recent edition of ...
ROGERS BLACK OPS Former Fox News chairman-CEO Roger Ailes used the news divisions budget to advance his personal agenda with political-style Nixonesque campaigns against his foes, according to a report Sunday by New York ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B is about to literally explode with joy! Literally? Really? That would be a mess. The truth is Mrs. B is figuratively ...
URGENTLY WRONG A funnel cloud formed over New Orleans Thursday afternoon, and high winds and heavy rains from an accompanying thunderstorm caused several abandoned buildings to collapse. There were reports of at least two ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." "Fewer" refers to the number of something and is used with plural nouns. In this Minneapolis stations headline, the plural noun is "tickets": ...
INVESTIGATION EXPANDED The internal investigation at Fox News by the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is continuing, two weeks after the resignation of Roger Ailes, but has veered off into a ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B knows you have important places to go and important people to see, but please take a minute to check your pronunciation ...
PREMATURE CLOSURE Attorneys for the Manhattan law firm Paul, Weiss, who have been conducting a month-long internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and other workplace issues at Fox News, have not spoken to ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." In another pronunciation lesson, Mrs. B invites you to read this: Are Donald Trumps hotels an early casualty of one of the most ...
BAIL DENIED Despite having a job, strong ties to the community, no history of drug or alcohol abuse, and no prior felony arrests, former Fox News correspondent Orlando Salinas was denied bail Monday and ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B begins todays lesson with a pronunciation quiz. Please read the following aloud: ~The burglars found the cache, grabbed the jewelry, and ...
ROGERS TORTURED ANGEL Laurie Luhn, a former director of booking at Fox News, has come forward to spin a tale of sexual harassment by Roger Ailes that lasted more than 20 years. Executives at ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Do you remember what an irregular verb is? That means it doesnt form its past tense by adding -ed. "Shake" is an irregular ...
SATISFIED AND VALIDATED Speaking publicly for the first time since the Roger Ailes departure, Gretchen Carlson described how it felt to see her former boss humiliated in the national media. "At first, satisfaction ? ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." These convention events described as "historic." Are they? Or are they "historical"? Mrs. B wants you to look at the difference today. "Historic" ...
INTERNAL DIVISION Fox News employees appear to have chosen sides in the wake of Roger Ailes. The New York Times reports on "a continuing split inside the network, with one camp of old-guard Fox ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." It was in July of 1965 that, under the leadership of President Johnson, Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security ...
WEST NILE VIRUS Mike Tsolinas, the former "Emmy? award-winning" morning meteorologist at Scripps-owned KTNV-13-ABC in Las Vegas (Market #40) who died Monday after being taken off life support, suffered from a mysterious illness that ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B is all about immigrate and emigrate today, with some history thrown in. Immigrate means to come into a country that one ...
WOUNDED BEAST "What would you do if you were Roger Ailes?" asks Michael Wolff in an essay about the future of Fox News, posted overnight in The Hollywood Reporter. "Much of your life has ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Resolutions, amendments, ordinances, and rules are adopted or approved. Bills are passed. Look at this headline from a Richmond stations web story: Congress ...
SYSTEMIC HARASSMENT Rudi Bakhtiar, who spent nine years at CNN before joining Fox News in 2006 as an international correspondent, says she was fired in 2007 by Roger Ailes after she complained about alleged ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." "Whos" is a contraction of the pronoun "who" and the verb "is," as in: ~Whos going to do the headlines from the newsroom? ...
FALL FROM GRACE In a hastily called 4 p.m. staff meeting and conference call Thursday at Fox News headquarters, Rupert Murdoch, the 85-year-old media mogul who started the conservative cable news network 20 years ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wants to go over a common usage mistake, or maybe its just a spelling issue. One of the meanings of lose ...
NEXT MOVE FOX With Roger Ailes apparently heading for the door, and many of the Fox News stars eyeing a similar exit, the powerful conservative news network must decide what to do next. Megyn ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Heres something Mrs. B just learned that might be new to you, too. And she has Paul Brians to thank for it. The ...
GOLDEN PARACHUTE Roger Ailes is in the final stages of negotiating his exit from Fox News. In a post that appeared briefly on The Drudge Report yesterday afternoon, it was revealed that Ailess separation ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Surplusage. Mrs. B gets all tingly-toed saying that word. Its one newswriting coach Merv Block introduced to her. Surplusage means excess, more than ...
AILES EXIT IMMINENT Rupert Murdoch and his two sons, Lachlan and James, have agreed that Roger Ailes needs to go. The question is when and how. After reviewing the initial findings of the internal ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." If you feel badly, that means your sense of touch isnt working so well. You would have a hard time learning to read ...
GOP INFOMERCIAL The 2016 Republican National Convention (branded "Make America Great Again") begins today in Cleveland with a speech by Willie Robertson, the star of A&Es hit series Duck Dynasty. He will be followed ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets review some plurals you might be using soon. The plural of attorney general is "attorneys general." Its a term used in this ...
CONSPICUOUS SILENCE Fox News colleagues are angry that Megyn Kelly has remained silent on the sexual-harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes. "Megyn is being selfish," a network insider told Lloyd Grove of The Daily Beast. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wants to do some repetitive partying with you today, just to reinforce some terms. Its the Democratic Party and the Democratic ...
QUESTIONS BEGIN The investigation of Fox News chief Roger Ailes is under way. Lawyers from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison began meeting yesterday with Fox employees to interview them about sexual harassment at ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." If Mrs. B hadnt checked under the hood, she might have driven off with the kitten nestled on the engine. See how that ...
