UNNECESSARILY PARTISAN Elise Labott, CNNs global affairs correspondent, was handed a two-week suspension yesterday for tweeting: "House passes bill that could limit Syrian refugees. Statue of Liberty bows head in anguish." CNN, apparently, considered ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wants you to look at two sets of words that are often confused and misused. To indicate something indirectly is to ...
SCUD DUD REVISITED Remember Arthur Kent, the Canadian-born former NBC News foreign correspondent who acquired the nickname "Scud Stud" when he reported during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, often going live as Iraqi Scud ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B wants you to look at this sentence in a story about an Illinois law that requires cities with less than 10 ...
BUYING SPREE On the same day Nexstar Broadcasting agreed to reopen negotiations on its unsolicited bid for Media General, Nexstar announced the purchase of four local TV stations owned by West Virginia Media Holdings. ...
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 ...
BACK AND FORTH Media General unanimously rejected a $1.85 billion buyout offer from Nexstar Broadcasting on Monday because it "significantly" undervalued Media General. But the two sides agreed to engage in private negotiations, even ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Instead of wordy phrases, Mrs. B hopes youll start using simpler ones. Instead of "as a means to," say to. Instead of "at ...
LIVE FROM THE BUSHES CNN came dangerously close to violating journalism ethics regarding hostage-taking situations and terrorist events Friday in Paris by live-broadcasting French counter-terrorism measures as they were happening. CNN producer Pierre Buet ...
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 ...
DOLLARS AND SENSE The 11-member Media General board of directors will meet today in Richmond, VA to hear from company advisers, who are reportedly set to recommend opening negotiations with Nexstar Broadcasting Group Inc. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B recently heard "broadcasted" on her local public radio station. The university broadcast journalism student anchoring a newscast didnt know that the ...
DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION According to the US government, distracted drivers cause more car accidents than drunk drivers. "Distracted driving is any activity that could divert a persons attention away from the primary task of ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets look at some p-words that sound alike but have such different meanings. First two nouns: piece and peace. A piece is a ...
NEWS TERRORIST Gabe Caggiano, who was once described by colleagues as "rude, unprofessional, sexist, belligerent, hot-tempered, and more than a little scary," will go on trial next month in Texas on a federal charge ...
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 ...
CLOCK IS TICKING NBC-affiliated stations yesterday began posting the FCC-required equal-time notice, triggering a one-week window in which other Republican presidential candidates can claim 12 minutes and 5 seconds of free NBC air time, ...
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 ...
ITS ALIVE!!!! The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has revived Alycia Lanes lawsuit against CBS-owned KYW-3 in Philadelphia (Market #4) and her former co-anchor Larry Mendte. In February, the Superior Court ruled that a lower-court judge ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets look at some old-fashioned words that still pop up in our stories and be sure you know what they mean. Yore means ...
IN PURSUIT OF POP Former CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin hammered the news media yesterday for its wrongheaded pursuit of ratings, during an event sponsored by the University of Chicago Institute of ...
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 ...
CANDY CONCERNS A man in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania (pop. 6,072) found a "needle-type item" inside wrapped candy bars given to four children on Halloween night. He filed a police report. The story then hit ...
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 ...
ERRORS AND FAILURES Kyle Clark, an "Emmy? award-winning" anchor and reporter at Tegnas KUSA-9-NBC in Denver (Market #17), apologized on the air Monday night for a botched "Truth Test" report that was riddled with ...
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 ...
STABBED IN THE HEARTLAND Sam Quinones, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who took a leave of absence from the paper to write a book about the new American middle-class addiction to ...
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: ...
BEHIND BARS Raise your hand if you saw this one coming. John Ahrens, a soon-to-be unemployed meteorologist at Cox-owned WSOC-9-ABC in Charlotte (Market #22), spent the second weekend in a row in jail, charged ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Founder and flounder, as verbs, are often confused. Founder literally means to fill with water and sink. Whether or not the discovery is ...
WEATHER JEOPARDY IBM is willing to pay more than $2 billion for the digital assets of The Weather Company because it needs data to fill Watsons brain. Watson is a computer system capable of ...
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 ...
TOSSED OVERBOARD IBM yesterday entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Weather Companys mobile and cloud-based web properties, including WSI, weather.com, Weather Underground, and The Weather Company brand. Financial terms were not revealed, ...
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. Sunday, November 1, is All Saints Day. It commemorates saints ...
PARDON THE INTERRUPTION After a marathon 14 innings, the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets 5-4, to take a 1-0 lead in the World Series. If you tried to watch the game ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Incredible means hard to believe. For example: ARTIST DESIGNS ELABORATE, INCREDIBLE JACK-O-LANTERNS (headline, abc7.com, 10-16-2015) Incredulous means skeptical. ~We were incredulous about his ...
LABOR IN THE LIVE TRUCK Jenny Doren, an "Emmy? Award winning" morning reporter at Tegnas WFAA-8-ABC in Dallas (Market #5), had one of those grinding days on Friday, fronting countless live shots as storms ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Heres a question from a South Carolina reporter about a subject that may have stumped you, too: Politics is/are a nasty thing, but ...
THE BATTLING AHRENSES John Ahrens, a meteorologist for the past nine years at Cox-owned WSOC-9-ABC in Charlotte (Market #22), is due in court today on a domestic assault charge brought by his estranged wife. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." With another hurricane comes damage. Mrs. B wants you to be clear that the noun damage is not the same as the noun ...
WRENCHING CHANGES ESPN is laying off about 350 people this week, roughly 4% of its global workforce, as the pressures of huge programming costs and a declining subscriber base hit the business that seemed ...
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 ...
PROLIFIC REDHEAD In the spring of 1976, Paul McCartney returned to the US for the first time since the Beatles breakup with a new band called Wings. It was big news at the time. ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Couple is a collective noun, but its a tricky one. Mrs. B appreciates Bryan Garners explanation in his Garners American usage. As a ...
TRUTH BE DAMNED According to the Internet Movie Database, there are 51 films or television episodes named "Truth." But theres only one that CBS doesnt want you to see. "Its astounding how little truth ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B invites you to look at some gender-neutral terms today. Within the military, service member(s) is now the accepted term, as opposed ...
PARKING LOT FUMBLE Undefeated Michigan State, ranked 7th in the nation, played arch rival Michigan Saturday in Ann Arbor with a national ESPN television audience looking on. With 10 seconds left in the game, ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B heard from a reader with a question about making family names that end in "s" plural and also possessive. I was ...
NO-TELL MOTEL Former HLN anchor Lynne Russell and her husband, former CNN correspondent Chuck de Caro, have sued the Motel 6 national hotel chain and its affiliates, the Albuquerque motel manager, a security company ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Irregardless is a nonword. If youve used it, regardless or irrespective is the word you meant to use. Youll find other words in ...
ON SECOND THOUGHT Media Generals proposed $2.4 billion acquisition of Meredith Corp. took a surprising turn late yesterday. The two companies agreed to share certain non-public information with Nexstar Broadcasting Group, the third player ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." The word pair can be singular or plural, depending on its use. If pair means a unit or a set, it takes a ...
TOPPLED CORNERSTONE NBC proudly announced yesterday that Donald Trump will host "Saturday Night Live" on November 7, exactly 365 days before election day. This is the same network that, just 105 days ago, fired ...
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 ...
GOING CHEAP David Clark, the president of the Weather Channels television division, has confirmed yesterdays report that Sam Champion is getting his own weekly, long-form primetime weather interview show…starting in January. But, in Clarks ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B begins this lesson with an email plea: This is making me crazy–CNN anchors and reporters keep misusing the term podium during ...
PRIMETIME SAMMY For reasons that remain wholly unclear, The Weather Channel has decided to give Sam Champion his own weekly, long-form primetime weather interview show…starting in January. "Its something Ive dreamed about for a ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Group is one of those collective nouns that can be either singular or plural, depending on how you use it. If the group ...
FOX DETENTE Megyn Kelly, appearing on PBSs "Charlie Rose" show, talked about her tough questioning of Donald Trump at the first Republican debate and revealed why the red-hot war of words between her and ...
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" ...
GUILTY AS CHARGED A federal jury yesterday found Matthew Keys, the former social media editor at Tribunes KTXL-40-Fox in Sacramento (Market #20), guilty of computer hacking under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act. In ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." We hear it all the time: "theres a lot of." But sometimes it should be "therere a lot of." How do you know ...
OFF THE ISLAND When last we heard from Steve Barrett, an "investigative" reporter at WFTV-9-ABC in Orlando (Market #19), he was confronting defense attorneys for accused child murderer Casey Anthony outside the Orange County ...
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 ...
BLOWING SMOKE Your Surly Editor? blew coffee out his nose this morning when he read that Brian Burrows, the president of IBEWs striking Local 98, had the audacity to send a letter to the ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets be sure youre using the correct preposition. ~Perhaps you have an aversion to seeing blood. (It might even make you feel woozy.) ...
HISPANIC ENTITLEMENT Franklin Leal, an "Emmy? nominated" producer for the Spanish language Telemundo sub-channel at Sinclairs KEYE-42-CBS in Austin (Market #39), has sued Sinclair for what he calls a "hostile and toxic environment" at ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." You may have wondered why Ebola virus is capitalized. The Ebola virus first appeared near the Ebola River in Zaire. When diseases are ...
HURRICANE EXTENSION With the FCC weighing policy changes to discourage those ugly blackouts caused by unresolved retransmission consent negotiations, Dish Network and Tegna agreed late yesterday to extend their carriage contract for a week, ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Repeat after Mrs. B, please: Drink, drank, drunk. Drink is an irregular verb. That means it forms its past tense and its past ...
MOCKING SUSPENSION Frank Coletta, a veteran morning news anchor at Sinclairs WJAR-10-NBC in Providence (Market #52) was taken off the air and suspended last week after several complaints of "inappropriate behavior" by his new ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Lets be sure to pronounce Hurricane Joaquin wah-KEEN. That said, Mrs. B hopes you wont be careless with your contractions. Have you ever ...
BLONDE ON TOP Alissa Reitmeier, the blondiful former Miss Missouri Teen USA who joined Merediths KMOV-4-CBS in St. Louis (Market #21) 18 months ago as a morning traffic reporter, has been promoted to the ...
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 ...
REVENGE OF THE NERD Matthew Keys, the quintessential social media journalist and former online news producer and digital content creator (web producer) for Tribunes KTXL-40-Fox in Sacramento (Market #20), went on trial Monday in ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Todays lesson is on capital, capitol, and Capitol. A capital is a place serving as the seat of government in a nation or ...
STRIKING OUT On the eve of Pope Franciss historic visit to Philadelphia (Market #4), nearly 65 photographers and cameramen from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers went on strike against NBC-owned WCAU-10. IBEWs Local ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B appreciated a sentence in a recent edition of TheSkimm: This is a historic visit for a historic pope who has made ...
MID-LIFE QUEST When last we heard from Jeff Varner, one year ago today, the "Emmy? nominated news anchor, reporter, TV host, producer, writer" and former "Australian Outback Survivor" contestant had decided to quit as ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Heres a question from a news manager in Louisiana: Mrs. B: Our morning anchor received this message this morning from a woman he ...
INEXCUSABLE IGNORANCE Late Tuesday night, Tribunes WGN-9-CW in Chicago (Market #3) did a quick news reader about the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for the Jewish faith. To illustrate ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Before we get started with todays lesson, lets be sure youre pronouncing the name of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, correctly. Its she ...
RELAXED AND POISED "Good day. Im Brian Williams at MSNBC headquarters. In a short time, Pope Francis will arrive in this country for the first time," Brian Williams began yesterday, making a carefully orchestrated ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Autumn, or fall, officially began this morning at 4:21 EDT, to be exact, at the autumnal equinox. Autumnal is pronounced aw-TUM-nul. The word ...
PLAYING THE LONG GAME After seven months of making news, Brian Williams will return to covering it today at 3 p.m. Williams will anchor MSNBCs rolling coverage of Pope Franciss historic weeklong tour of ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B shares this email from a promotions producer in Charleston, South Carolina, who is campaigning for the correct supposed to and used ...
BACK TO THE FUTURE Brian Williams walked his daughter Allison Williams, 27, down the aisle at a star-studded wedding ceremony Saturday on a private 15-acre ranch in Wyoming. Allison married Ricky Van Veen, 34, ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B ends her fractured phrases series today. She hopes its been fun for you, too. Heres the last list. curve your appetite, ...
ANOTHER SHAKEUP Next week, MSNBC will begin its refocus, returning to news in the daytime. "This is a page turn for MSNBC and all of NBC News," said NBC News President Andy Lack. Starting ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." By popular demand, yet another list of fractured phrases awaits your perusal. And Mrs. B is excited about these. thread a fine line, ...
POKING THE DONALD Last week, Donald Trump sent a letter to Jeff Zucker noting that CNNs inflated ad rates were due entirely to Trumps own colorful personality. "While I refuse to brag," he bragged, ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." It takes two to tango. Have you heard that phrase? It comes from a song in the 1950s used for most anything that ...
SURVIVOR GRIEF Vicki Gardner, the woman who survived an on-air shooting three weeks ago, says gunman Vester Flanagan never said a word as he calmly shot and killed reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Mrs. B does hope youre enjoying this series as much as she is. Here it is, todays list of fractured phrases. play it ...
GROWING GRAY MATTER Another day, another major merger and acquisition in local television. Gray Television, an Atlanta-based company that owns and operates television stations in 49 medium-size markets, has agreed to pay $442.5 million ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." A jamb is the vertical part of the frame of a door or window. Mrs. B hopes you wont confuse it with the ...
CRISIS ACTOR It has been 19 days since Alison Parker, 24, a reporter at WDBJ-7-CBS in Roanoke (Market #69), and her photog, Adam Ward, 27, were shot and killed during a 6:45 a.m. live ...
MRS. Bs GRAMMAR YAMMER "A PBS mind in a Twitter world." Another day, another list of fractured phrases. Mrs. B is not advocating your using any of these phrases, but if you do use ...
