AN OPERATION SO BIG, TWO NEWS DIRECTORS ARE NEEDED!!
CBS O&O needs another boss in LA
Category: Just Sayin’
IN 2024, EVERY LOCAL STATION WITH A NEWSROOM NEEDS A FACT-CHECKER
Networks as well…and here’s why
WE’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO THINK THE FCC NEEDS TO STEP UP
The Commission has an opening to send a message. Take it.
THIS CONTRACT HAS A SANTOS CLAUSE
See what we did there?
WHAT IF….????
An idea whose time should come
BUEHLER?…BUEHLER?…
Viewers have questions
HOW CAN WE TELL IT’S NOVEMBER?
Stories like this
ONCE AGAIN, TV NEWS EMBARRASSES ITSELF
When did street gossip and schoolyard rumors become news?
WHEN CLICKS MATTER MORE THAN FACTS, TROUBLE ENSUES
Three-quarters of U.S. adults say misinformation is leading to more extreme political views
WHITHER CHUCK TODD?
Washington media watchers seem to be rubbing their hands in anticipation of what MIGHT happen to longtime “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd in the wake of an executive shakeup at the venerable (75 ...
OMG!! HE DIDN’T FIX A YEARS-LONG PROBLEM OVERNIGHT!!!
It took Jeff Zucker about 9 years to lead CNN’s ratings into the septic tank, including an epic run of garbage news decisions in 2015-2016. And there is a Greek chorus of reporting out ...
IF THIS COMES AS A SURPRISE….UNDER WHICH ROCK HAVE YOU BEEN?
Dog bites man, the sun comes up in the east and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki has been hired by MSNBC. The preceding list comes from “most” to “least” surprising. She ...
WELL AT LEAST HE CONFESSED….
Every once in a while you run across a story that induces some serious head-scratching. Is this a story? Why is it a story? Is it funny? Sad? Ridiculous? A crime? A vendetta? Such ...
MEET THE NEW BOSS….SAME AS THE OLD BOSS?
Josh Palefsky has been bumped up to the top job at Nexstar’s KRON in San Francisco. He’s been the Assistant ND there for the last three years. Palefsky replaces his old boss, Aaron Pero, ...
“THE NEW STYLEBOOK’S HERE…THE NEW STYLEBOOK’S HERE!!!!”
Gather ‘round kids and let’s rejoice at the issuance of the 55th edition of the AP Stylebook – the almost-bible of those who still prefer a modicum of decorum, consistency and down-home literacy when ...
KDKA DOES A FAST WEEKEND ANCHOR SHUFFLE
His station bio says longtime KDKA fixture Paul Martino is sometimes referred to by local newspapers and the august “Wall Street Journal” as the Sam Donaldson of Pittsburgh. But then, that station bio also ...
MAD AS HELL, NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE
Even back in the pre-social media days, tv news viewers’ favorite pastime seemed to be offering critiques of the appearance of their newscasters. But it was shared within their family, their social circle, over ...
IT’S SAlSA TIME
Former KTRK (ABC) Houston reporter and CBS News Correspondent Vicente Arenas was thankful for a gift from a coworker. He’s now at KDVR (FOX) in Denver in case you are wondering. In all this ...
OH BOY. CNN ANOINTS ANOTHER GASBAG
If you watched CNN’s debate coverage the other night (and most of you didn’t), you got a chance to see their latest bloviating acquisition. And it didn’t take long, because he dropped out of ...
WELL, CAN HE?
KPRC sports reporter Ari Alexander has a special talent. He can list off all 45 U.S. presidents. In order. And the dates they were in office. In under 3 minutes. And 3…2…1….GO!
HMMMMM…..?????
A NewsBlueser is wondering if something is up behind the scenes at WINK in Fort Myers. Evening news anchor Bob Irzyk left rather suddenly last month after six years for (say it with us) ...
SEPARATED AT BIRTH?
We hear all the time that someone somehow stumbled upon their perfect doppelgänger. We’ll let you decide if San Antonio anchor Randy Beamer has found his. Beamer, of Sinclair’s WOAI, shared a photo on ...
“COVERING” THE NEWS
While Fox News actually did cover the entirety of Rep. Adam Schiff’s two-hour opening statement in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the coverage quickly devolved into something resembling an episode of “Mystery ...
OK, WHO’S NEXT?
In this election year, when an avalanche of political information will be cascading from online into newsrooms across the country, we hope that more local station groups follow the Tegna example to try and ...
SINCLAIR BOOSTS ITS MINIMUM WAGE TO $15/HOUR
First it dumped Boris Epshteyn as its laughingstock “chief political analyst.” Then it announced it planned to pour the resources previously wasted on Epshteyn into local “hard-hiting investigative” reporting. The rehabilitation tour evidently continues ...
AH THE PAIN
We’ve all been here. Maybe it’s a story you don’t want to do, or you are sick and trying to be a team player, you come on into work. There’s nothing worse than doing ...
DAY TWO: IS IMPEACHMENT JUST ANOTHER REALITY SHOW?
One would think, given these kinds of takes from “journalists.” We are so VERY sorry you were bored, Jeff. NBC News was also concerned over the lack of “pizzazz” while reluctantly acknowledging that there ...
RANKING THE TOP ANCHOR
So here is another one of those odd lists floating around on the internet, stuck somewhere between click bait and the buy one get one free pillow guy. It’s a ranking of the ...
REPORTER HELPS MOM
One of the toughest things in life is not only getting older, but watching those we love grow older. As problems arise, like Alzheimer’s, it’s kinda tough to deal with an elderly parent. Overall ...
WHO’S THE NEXT FOX GUY IN THE TRUMP CROSS-HAIRS?
A week after Shep Smith threw up his hands and abandoned the task of trying to make Fox News Channel accountable to minimal journalistic standards, the question arises: Is there anyone left at FNC ...
MOVE ALONG, NO CONSPIRACY HERE
Friday’s shocking announcement by longtime Fox News anchor and Trump target Shep Smith of his immediate resignation from the network came a year and a half after he’s signed a new multi-year contract at ...
TIME TO GROW SOME, BELTWAY REPORTERS
With the impeachment story expanding every day, at times hour by hour, Margaret Sullivan, media writer for “The Washington Post,” notes that this promises to be a touch, challenging time for reporters inside the ...
WE’RE WITH GRETA
We’ve observed countless times that, by and large, cable news has little to do with news and is more an exercise in demonstrating the lungpower of the occupants of its endless array of bloviating ...
9/11 REMEMBERED
For those of us working in TV News 9/11/01 was a day none of us will ever forget. And for all the younger journalist out there, let’s hope you never have to deal with ...
“YEAH…WHATEVER”
That appears to be the internal reaction to what seems to be an increasing number of phone calls from the media-critic-in-chief to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to complain that the network isn’t as ...
DIGITAL FIRST
All the stations in your market used to have a single goal: putting on the best newscast possible. Packages were designed solely for viewing on TV. There were intense editorial meetings as Producers argued ...
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES WHINE ABOUT NEWS MEDIA
The list of Democratic presidential hopefuls these days is longer than a college football training camp roster and, to be honest, when was the last time anybody paid any attention to the guys at ...
ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO (SEE NEXT STORY)
The three-week blackout of CBS O&Os on AT&T’s DirectTV and U-verse platforms is over. The multi-year deal announced Thursday also includes CBS Sports Network and Smithsonian Channel, with all stations returning to AT&T homes ...
TROLLS GONNA TROLL
Once again, a moron with a keyboard felt compelled to insult an on-air talent, this time targeting Lauren Linahan, morning meteorologist at Gray’s WTVM in Columbus, Ga “Oh, and tell your female weather forecaster ...
WE’RE JUST GONNA LEAVE THIS RIGHT HERE….
The lawsuit filed last week by 5 NY1 anchorwomen for age and gender discrimination certainly has engendered more than its share of reaction from the public and other members of the press. But the ...
THE CONSPIRACY CONTINUES
Look who is ‘looking out for you” by launching something aimed at one of her personal anxieties. Former current journalist-Alex Joneslike conspiracy theorist Sharyl Atkisson proudly announces the Wikipedia Correction Project, or WCP, if ...
LET THE PUSHBACK BEGIN
As “New York Times” executive editor Dean Baquet continues his navel-gazing to determine which cable news show are fit to host Times journalists, the debate grows over the inclusion by NBC News of MSNBC’s ...
LIKE ‘EM OR NOT PODCASTS ARE HERE TO STAY
One of my friends about five years back was breaking ground in the world of Podcasting. He said people like to listen to other people or watch online talk about a myriad of subjects. ...
BY ANY OTHER NAME….
Over the years, we have noted that sometimes the stars align and we have reporters and anchors working in a market in which their name is delightfully relevant. Such as in South Florida, where ...
THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE FOR SAM CHAMPION
Sam Champion is returning to where is all began more than three decades ago, to Disney flagship WABC in New York. He’ll work on the morning and noon editions of “Eyewitness News” where he ...
HERE’S YOUR JEREMY KAPPELL UPDATE
Jeremy Kappell, who got bounced as chief meteorologist last January at Hubbard’s WHEC in Rochester, NY, is hoping to walk across the street to become chief met at Nexstar’s WROC. Nexstar posted the job ...
ANOTHER CABLE NEWS CHANNEL? FFS, PLEASE…
Here is just what we need – another all-news channel. Swell for a minimal number of jobs. Bad for our thought processes. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts disclosed that the communications giant “is exploring launching ...
TAKE THE DESK, LOSE THE EXTRA ANCHOR
Any trace of Bianna Golodryga’s brief tenure on “CBS This Morning” is quickly being eradicated. But one thing that is sticking around – the wingless desk that was adopted when a previous regime placed ...
AND THEN THE VIEWERS
We’ve all taken calls like this before, or at least most of us have. Right in the middle of a breaking news story, when your station goes wall to wall, the calls come in ...
A WARNING TO COX MEDIA EMPLOYEES
Things that make you go “Hmmmmmm…” “Apollo [Global Management – the prospective new majority owner of Cox Media] paid bonuses Dec 2018. Their insurance asset management subsidiary, Athene Asset management hasn’t been paid yet ...
STILL MOST TRUSTED
All of the “Expect Mores,” “On Your Sides,” and “Looking Out For You’s” can’t dislodge PBS from the top of the heap as the most-trusted media institution in the country. A weighted online survey ...
THE DANCING JEFA
We once heard of a news director who used a Razor scooter to navigate around the newsroom and the station. We knew another one who let off steam by occasionally tossing wastebaskets around the ...
A FOX FOR FOLKS FEELING FOX NEWS IS TOO FEY
The “Baltimore Sun’s” David Zurawik recently took a trip to “Fox Nation”, the streaming service recently launched for folks who are offended by the presence of Shep Smith, Juan Williams and Chris Wallace on ...
BUSYBODY BONEHEADS CAN’T BODY SHAME THIS HOUSTON ANCHOR
We still can’t get over boneheaded viewers who think they’ve got something useful to say when they try to body shame on-air talent. And it’s especially outrageous when the person they are attempting to ...
I KNOW….LET’S HIRE ANOTHER TALKING HEAD
Former MSNBC weekend host and Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign spokeswoman Karen Finney is the latest addition to the overflowing bench of CNN bloviators, gasbags and time-killers. She, of course, is honored. “Honored to join ...
CONTROVERSIAL BEFORE IT EVEN LAUNCHES
Take a former NPR executive fired last year over sexual harassment allegations stretching back decades, and a former Fox News executive fired over a column widely panned as racist and homophobic and put them ...
GRAY-RAYCOM GETS A PROVISIONAL “THUMBS-UP”
Last week’s pre-weekend late-afternoon news dump included the news that the Department of Justice had given the greenlight to the Gray-Raycom merger. But a few strings are attached. Nine of them to be exact. ...
WE’RE WITH HER
Gayle King can sometimes set our teeth on edge, but we have to admit she hit us where we live when she decided she couldn’t ignore the banning of a holiday standard. King kinda ...
DO WE CALL IT FOR WHAT IT IS?
The “LA Times” uses the doctored video of Jim Acosta’s tug of war with a White House aide to launch a lengthy piece on similar events over the past couple of years in this ...
“I STILL WOULD MAKE A LOUSY NEWS DIRECTOR”
We ran across an interesting opinion post over the weekend that, quite honestly, sums up the problem of tv news – to a certain extent, local news and to a much greater and detrimental ...
NOPE, IT’S NOT THE BEST OF JOURNALISM
Yes, Jim Acosta had some legitimate questions. But when questions turn into statements and eventually, monologues, then, yes, there is room to criticize the reporter. And that is not to defend the suspension of ...