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They are all trying to play the victims in this situation and I don’t feel a single ounce of pity for them. Fire them all if you must.

Another one that Gray has let go of: KCWY - Cheryl Hackett, morning anchor and lifestyle reporter KALB - Also I know Tom Konvicka, chief meteorologist, and Al Quartemont, news director, both left on September 15. They have not disclosed if the mandate is the reason and that they were fired, but there is wide suspicion it is.

WOW! This could be Weigel's biggest acquisition yet (in terms of price)...... They're acquiring PMCM's WJLP for $62.5M! The deal also includes NYC LP outlet WNWT-LD. So PMCM has now sold both of its TV stations. WDPN was sold to Marantha Broadcasting (owners of WFMZ) in 2015 for $25M.

It had been talked about for a while, but Mark Alford really is leaving WDAF-TV after 23 years. His last day is October 12.

Saw it last night. A step in the right direction for sure. Was glad to see the WLNY bug implemented again. Maybe in the future, as COVID eases out, we might see more. I honestly wish the WCBS/WLNY duopoly was as good as the KCBS/KCAL duopoly.

And speaking of Amanda Barren, she was indeed fired for not getting the COVID vaccine. Read more at https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/west-virginia-anchor-also-fired-for-violating-gray-tvs-vaccination-mandate/235445/.

The fights over exemptions seem like most were bogus or cop-outs anyway. Unless you're Amish or something like that, the chance of a legitimate religious exemption is zero as no organized religious body has said no to vaccines (they have either encouraged or at most been neutral) - independent evangelical churches don't count there. As far as medical exemptions, they are only likely if someone is allergic to it or had a serious reaction in the past from a different vaccine, which applies to less than 1% of the population. That may be about 50 people, at the most, at all Gray operations combined. I know Tegna's mandate begins November 13 and Scripps has theirs on December 1. Meredith aligned them with Gray (which makes sense).

The Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband has begun debate on a bill (HR 4208, an amendment to Section 331 of the Communications Act called the ‘‘Section 331 Obligation 5 Clarification Act’’) that would, in principle, force Fox to adhere WWOR to commitments to offer at least 14 hours of New Jersey-focused local news programming per week (seven of which have to be scheduled between 6:00 p.m. and midnight ET), maintain a broadcast studio in Secaucus (WWOR has been run out of WNYW’s Fox Television Center facility in Manhattan since FTS sold the since-demolished 9 Broadcast Plaza facility to Hartz Mountain Industries in 2018), file local programming disclosures with the FCC (including how programming aims to satisfy the local content requirements), and consult with community leaders on the type of local programming should that would be featured. The bill is backed by four Democratic Congressmen representing New Jersey: it was introduced in the House by Reps. Bill Pascrell and Albo Sires, and in the Senate by Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez. (Menendez, in particular, has been the most fervent critic of FTS’ management of WWOR, particularly since its news department was shuttered nearly a decade ago in favor of the now-defunct Chasing News.) At least two Republican Congressmen seem to be making it about the bill targeting a Fox-owned station: Energy & Commerce Committee ranking member Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) claimed it was “another attempt by Democrats to disregard the First Amendment, this time telling broadcast stations what type of news programming to distribute,” and Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) claimed the bill was another Democratic effort to “counter news programming they simply don‘t like.” (The FCC has previously maintained local programming requirements for television stations, and Long made an apparent conflation of FTS with Fox News, despite the fact that the cable-based Fox News Channel offers conservative content by format, while Fox O&O newscasts largely are traditional local news operations, and ignored that the bill aims to enforce WWOR to offer New Jersey-based content it isn’t currently providing and hasn’t for some time and doesn’t dictate that the content hew to a particular political lean.)

Switched over to sister station Telemundo 47 for a bit and I must say their studio looks better than WNBC's. WNJU's set gives a terrace with a view kind of feel. I like that Ch 47's video wall occupies the entire shot, and you don't see the frames or wooden bottoms like Ch 4's set.

I question the WYMT petition. It's a mountainous area where UHF signals don't move too well - VHF signals, while technically not as strong in the immediate area, penetrate more of eastern Kentucky, and that is an area of high poverty (which explains why the Lexington stations practically ignore the area).

For the most part, most everyone you see on-screen on a newscast has been vaccinated because they didn't want to broadcast from home or be distant on the set any longer, and already had their celebrations of such in April and May; I know of nobody in eastern Wisconsin who has left their station outside of the regular old reasons and openly shared when their teams were all past the inoculation period. The hold-outs seem to be that side of broadcasting that think of it as a 'calling to God' and that they can somehow convert people reporting on a five-car accident or consumer reporting (the type that seem to pack a lot of 'news/talk' conservative radio station newsrooms), and think they're just that 'one big story' away from getting on Fox News or will personally oust Raymond Arroyo or Pat Robertson. Outside a few true exceptions where they cannot actually get the shot due to medical reasons, and along with the general public, they are few and far between, but can get the news on their side since they know the emotional tricks of doing so.