Jump to content

Out & About


TexasTVNews

Recommended Posts

Two weeks ago you'll probably remember that I posted that WCPO reporter Kendall Herold drove under the influence and the station took one week to report it.

 

Well this time around, WQAD (Moline, IL) main anchor Jason Fechner got charged with DUI and this time his station reported on it the same day during the 5PM newscast. However, viewers are angry WQAD chose to do this. So they took to Facebook to let WQAD know. Here's how it went down courtesy of TVSpy:

 

Viewers Express Anger After WQAD Reports Anchor Jason Fechner’s DUI

By Merrill Knox on January 7, 2014 1:50 PM

jason-fechner.jpeg

WQAD, the ABC affiliate in serving the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa, is facing some negative Facebook comments after reporting the DUI arrest of its main anchor, Jason Fechner.

 

Fechner’s co-anchor, Denise Hnytka, told viewers of Fechner’s DUI arrest on Monday’s 5 p.m. newscast, saying he had been arrested for driving under the influence overnight and was subsequently taken to the Rock Island County Jail, where he later posted bond.

 

After the report aired, WQAD got some negative feedback about the report on its Facebook page, ranging from “I thought it was kind of tacky how you announced the news about Jason Fechner” to “I think it was really crappy of you to publicly humiliate a fellow colleague like you did. We will not be watching your news cast anymore!! Very disrespectful.”

 

“Was a loyal WQAD watcher until tonight. Way to stay classy channel 8. KWQC will be number 1 in our house from today forward,” one commenter wrote. “Very sad that any producer thought what was done on tonight’s news was necessary.”

 

“If WQAD is going to announce this to humiliate someone that has served the public for all this time, the least they could do is give details….so tired of the news persecuting someone for an indiscretion when the REAL idiots keep doing it and do not get enough air time….WQAD needs to clarify why this was newsworthy,” another wrote.

 

TVSpy has invited WQAD general manager Jim Kizer to comment.

 

What do you think — should the station have reported on Fechner’s arrest? Let us know in the comments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But how is it humiliation? THat's the first time I've ever heard of viewers being angry about something like this. Generally the reaction is shock and disappointment over the employee that participated in whatever deplorable or illegal act that they did that resulted in arrest; followed by praise for their station to cover it, as it "gave them a sense of transparency" and "proved that just because you're in television doesn't mean that you're above 'TV law of things.'"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, I just noticed this article from my local newspaper the Express News and here I'll analyze it:

New Year's advice for our folks on TV : December 31, 2013 : Updated: December 31, 2013 4:32pm

In the spirit of New Year's resolutions, what would you like to see — or more important, not see — on 2014 TV?

 

What I hope we don't get is a repeat of the bigotry that was so rampant last year — particularly among reality stars. Are you listening, “Big Brother”?

 

It also would be lovely if S.A.'s local lifestyle shows diversified more. The opening chatter about the latest happenings and trends is OK, but does it have to lead into what frequently resembles a string of infomercials?

 

When KSAT debuts its own version late next year, here's hoping it tries for something different than what's already available.

 

Also, it would be cool if Jimmy Fallon, when he replaces Jay Leno as the host of “The Tonight Show” in February, delivered an hour that was snappier, more spontaneous and less formulaic than America's traditional late-night formats: you know, the monologue; celebrities promoting something; a musical act.

 

Have you seen “The Graham Norton Show” on BBC America? The flamboyant host usually brings his guests out all at once to see what happens. At times, he even involves audience members. The results are fun and unpredictable.

 

Here are more suggestions for the new year — amassed from Facebook comments and email, as well as my own thoughts.

 

Varied anchor hair ... and spectacles. In days of old, the regulation newscast coif for women was the bob. Today, nearly all wear their tresses very long with a touch of ringlet curl. A couple of exceptions are Deborah Knapp of KENS and Cynthia Lee of KABB. Even WOAI's Shelly Miles, who looked so cute in her former flapper do, has joined the long-hair tribe. Also: Glasses can add more interest. Leslie Bohl on WOAI's morning show, for instance, has been wearing stylish specs now and then and looks smashing. “I got a new pair,” she wrote in an email. “Funniest thing — I don't know the brand! All it says on the side is 'Joe.' My oldest daughter picked them out.” Joseph Abboud? Not bad, Leslie.

 

Cut down on crime. “We are continually bombarded with the latest shooting, wrong-way drivers, a convenience store being robbed,” wrote Bob Stewart. “I have family in for Christmas, and their comments and impressions (while watching our news) is that our city is an unsafe place to be, and that is simply not my San Antonio.”

If you must cover so much crime, added Jewel Barnett, at least “talk to the families who have been affected ... so their ideas to improve the community can be shared.”

 

Live up to your channel name. “The Travel Channel is a meager version now of a food channel,” said Juliane Sullivan. “They formerly had lots of interesting travel features. Now it's just 'Man v. Food' and other dudes eating insects and roadkill.” Gilder McCarroll also had this message for HLN and CNN: Cut down on trial coverage, other shows and specials. “I miss 24-hour hard news!”

 

Sex doesn't sell ... news. I'm forever hearing complaints about our newswomen wearing clothes that are too tight and revealing. Also, “tone down the makeup,” Kathy Cardenas urged, and get rid of that bed head, suggested Danny Newberry. “I like well-groomed anchors.” On a positive note, people have noted how much more polished Karen Grace, KENS' weekend co-anchor, appears these days since she started trading trendy for classic.

 

Not a day of rest. “Have the flagship newscasters anchor Sunday through Thursday instead of Monday through Friday,” Ryan Evans wrote, adding it makes more sense to have the “big guns” on air when prime-time viewership is the highest.

 

Get the names right. “All our newspeople should take a crash course in pronunciation of San Antonio streets and Hispanic names,” suggested Diana Aguirre Martinez.

 

Less chitchat on the news. “Some is fine,” Glenda Wolin remarked, “but sometimes it sounds like their own private cocktail party.”

 

Accentuate the positive. We need “some good news to balance all the bad,” said Patty Trevino.

 

Keep it local. Steve Trevino and others said they want fewer stories from out of state that don't impact San Antonio or the nation — such as a car wreck in Montana or elsewhere. Just because there's arresting video of a car crashed into a tree, added Mary Lou Hymel, doesn't mean we need to know about a drunken driver in Podunk, Ark.

 

OK? Happy New Year!

  1. News to me KSAT is starting up their own lifestyle show later this year. I wonder where they would put it. At 9 they currently air Live with Kelly and Michael which does very well in the ratings here. I do not think a local production would catch on and I know quite a few people who would rather watch Live than a local production. Can't really do anything at 10 because of the View and at 11 they air The Chew on a one day tape delay to accommodate their noon news. So airing it at 2 or 3 would be more realistic. Anyways it would be interesting to see what ends up happening there. Of course they are moving in to a brand new and much bigger building in the spring so they actually have space to do a lifestyle show. Hopefully a real news set accompanies the new building.
  2. Surprised by Jeanne Jakle's (the author) comment: "It also would be lovely if S.A.'s local lifestyle shows diversified more. The opening chatter about the latest happenings and trends is OK, but does it have to lead into what frequently resembles a string of infomercials?" The whole point of these shows is to be an infomercial. That's another reason "Live" does better than KENS and the Sinclair duop's shows.
  3. Regarding the comment about crime: I totally agree with that guy. All the newscasts here (with KSAT and KABB being the worst offenders) in one way or another, portray the city to be ridden with crime and there is a world of crime right outside your doorstep, but that can't be further from the truth. Yes, crime happens but not every street corner like the newscasts here make it out to be. Literally, the rundowns of KSAT and KABB are more-so, shooting, fire, wreck, burglary, arrest, etc. KENS and WOAI do try to cover more substantial news but still cover quite a bit of crime. And now with Sinclair owning both WOAI and KABB, WOAI has definitely added in more crime to the mix. And no, they will not interview the victims/their families to get their take. That requires effort, and the whole point of covering crime is that it requires little effort. Just send a photog, shoot some video, shoot some police spokesperson answering questions, trim it down. Boom. Done.
  4. I agree on living up to the channel name. Are you listening "Weather Channel"? As for Travel Channel mirroring Food Network more and more, well Scripps Networks owns Travel now. All of the Scripps networks (as well as most cable networks) are unwatchable now as they rely too much on reality based programming (boo) and not on real shows like in the past.
  5. YES to the revealing clothes. I do not watch the news for that reason; I watch to get informed in a direct and unbiased manner. Remember when women had to wear a suit but now just about anything goes for them (especially the bare arms)? Yet men still have to wear a suit and tie...
  6. What's the point of anchoring Sunday through Thursday? Who really cares who's anchoring what day as long as a newscast is there? I think stations should still do the Monday through Friday scheduling and let the main team spend time with their family on the weekends. Weekend anchors are usually younger.
  7. I agree 100% with this comment: “'All our newspeople should take a crash course in pronunciation of San Antonio streets and Hispanic names,' suggested Diana Aguirre Martinez." As I've said before, Jessica Headley the traffic anchor for KABB couldn't and still can't pronounce Hispanic names properly. She's a great traffic anchor, that's just the one thing she needs to work on. There are other personalities from out of town that came here too and well they can't pronounce them properly either. But Headley is one of the worst offenders. Danielle Saar is another one from out of town who's not very good either. Contrast that with Shelly Miles who's been here almost 15 years or Officer Marcus Trujillo/Detective Robert Dart on KSAT 12. Those three excel at it. BTW, all stations should copy KSAT and use real police officers to do the traffic. Quality of the traffic report is so much better versus someone who is there merely as "eye candy".
  8. I agree with the chitchat thing. I am sick of happy talk on the evening news. Just give us the news. Now on the morning news I think the relationship with the viewer is different. I believe the atmosphere is different and there I think it is OK to deliver the news while having a conversation with them at the same time. The people who do morning news tend to be very versatile, as I've seen them smiling during the morning news (unless there's a serious story of course) but during the noon news they keep a straight face the entire time. Again the audience is different. Usually people watching the local noon news are doing so from work.
  9. Positive news? Haha, look at WJZY in Charlotte who has definitely been emphasizing positive news over the negative. Look where they're at, especially on the weekend shows.
  10. I couldn't agree with that viewer more. YES YES YES to more local coverage. Just say no to national and world news during the local news. You can get that somewhere else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The colder than usual weather hit KMOV especially hard last night as a water pipe burst, flooding their newsroom.

 

http://www.kmov.com/video/featured-videos/Pipe-burst-in-News-4-newsroom--239240941.html

 

Meredith: Ugh... :bang: did you guys purposely do this so that we would have to invest in your station and maybe do some renovations :wacko: too? sigh...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess after the Tribune acquisition, High Point, NC's WGHP will expand its midday and 6pm newscast by a half an hour each. B&C states today that it will expand its noon newscast during the 12:30pm half hour, and expand its 6pm into the 6:30 half hour (competing with the national news that airs on channels 2, 12 & 45, at that time). These expansions will be implemented on February 3rd.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Morning news anchor Mark Hayes has left KXAS NBC 5. After over a year or so at NBC 5; Hayes as parted ways with the NBC O&O. Hayes joined KXAS after a decade with WAGA FOX 5. His bio has been removed.
  • Stefanie Bryant has joined Shreveport's KTAL NBC 6 as the new morning anchor. Bryant came to KTAL from Little Rock's KTHV as a weekend anchor and reporter.
  • Anne Craig will succeed Sonia Baghdady's 5, 5:30 & 11pm anchor position at Hartford's WTNH ABC 8, while Ali Reed will take the helm as morning anchor for Good Morning Connecticut.
  • Former FOX News reporter Scott Brown has returned to Buffalo and he'll be the new Investigative reporter at Buffalo's WGRZ NBC 2.
  • And finally Charleston's WCHS ABC 8 is finally adding a early evening newscast. WCHS will launch a weekday 5pm newscast stating next week (1/13), An hour of Judge Judy will move to 4-5pm next week.

All the comings and goings are courtesy of our friends at TVSpy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had heard KMBC/Kansas City would replace its departing meteorologists with a guy from KMIZ who is barely out of school. It looks like they will bring on two weathercasters after all, presumably the younger guy for weekend morning and the KWTV guy for weekend evenings, which is what he does now.

 

(edit to add: if this is true.)

 

http://t.co/zMmdEfJKsW

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I had heard KMBC/Kansas City would replace its departing meteorologists with a guy from KMIZ who is barely out of school. It looks like they will bring on two weathercasters after all, presumably the younger guy for weekend morning and the KWTV guy for weekend evenings, which is what he does now.

 

(edit to add: if this is true.)

 

http://t.co/zMmdEfJKsW

 

I'm pretty sure it is. Bottomline was practically the only source for reliable Kansas City media news until he stopped...but of course the only thing he ever really talked about is KMBC. He even admitted that he glorified them because they "deserved it."

 

Anywho, I really don't think I'll like that Neville kid. His youth is painfully obvious, but then again, so is Michelle Apon's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WATN is continuing its expansion of its local sports programming by starting a new, weekly Sunday night show beginning this week. The interesting angle: It will be a show purely dedicated to local basketball coverage, called "Local Hoops Live", in similar vein to its "Local Prep Live" that ran during the high school football season. It's unclear whether it will be a separate show from its newscast, or have a 10:15 start time - running until the normal 10:35 newscast time as "Local Prep Live" did.

 

We'll see if it catches on, but this is a very smart move by them for the Memphis market to focus in on basketball as a weekly show.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

WATN is continuing its expansion of its local sports programming by starting a new, weekly Sunday night show beginning this week. The interesting angle: It will be a show purely dedicated to local basketball coverage, called "Local Hoops Live", in similar vein to its "Local Prep Live" that ran during the high school football season. It's unclear whether it will be a separate show from its newscast, or have a 10:15 start time - running until the normal 10:35 newscast time as "Local Prep Live" did.

 

We'll see if it catches on, but this is a very smart move by them for the Memphis market to focus in on basketball as a weekly show.

 

That and the two University of Memphis coaches' shows WHBQ does every week during basketball season, but it'll be interesting to see how WATN manages to do its Sunday night sports show if their intent is to cover all levels of basketball and not just at the prep or college level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Meteorologist Kate Thornton leaves WICZ in Binghamton, NY and joins WSYR in Syracuse as the weekend meteorologist, replacing Julia Weiden who left to go to a station in the Southeast (we still don't know which station, but we do know it's in Mississippi).

 

Dave Eichorn their former chief met now covers weather at 5:30, 10, and 11pm. Dave Longley the current chief moves to noon, 5, and 6pm. And Jim Teske who used to just cover noon weather now does The Morning News. So they've basically filled all the vacancies now.

 

EDIT: Not quite. Looks like sports reporter Lindsay Liquori is no longer with WSYR either. Her bio has been stripped from their site. The last time she tweeted was Jan 7, so this must've been fairly recent. There appears to be no article elsewhere confirming this however. Her job has been posted.

 

They also have not yet replaced Caroline Gable's position (traffic reporter and Bridge Street host). And they're looking for another reporter still. So three vacancies at the market-leading Nexstar station.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

That and the two University of Memphis coaches' shows WHBQ does every week during basketball season, but it'll be interesting to see how WATN manages to do its Sunday night sports show if their intent is to cover all levels of basketball and not just at the prep or college level.

 

I agree. Some weeks it would be easy to know what gets more coverage but how its balanced will be interesting to watch. They're claiming it will cover everything from Grizzlies to Tigers to preps and SEC, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

That doesn't happen every day... WJW anchor Bill Martin ordered pizza during tonight's 5pm newscast.

LINK: http://fox8.com/2014/01/10/special-delivery-anchor-bill-martin-orders-pizza-on-air/

 

Either it was a slow news day or this was a clever ad placement cooked up by the sales department...

 

 

Nor does this happen everyday ... somebody gave Ernie Freeman a hug on camera this morning.

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/video?clipId=9716658&topVideoCatNo=230026&autoStart=true#axzz2q2jrGPeF

 

"Good Morning Memphis After Hours"? I'm guessing they're copying Fox and Friends' "After the Show Show". Not as entertaining though...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • rkolsen pinned, featured and unfeatured this topic
  • rkolsen locked this topic
  • rkolsen unlocked and pinned this topic

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using TVNewsTalk you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.