wabceyewitness

I meant to comment on the coverage yesterday but forgot to. I completely agree. I know that anchoring breaking news without a lot of new information being provided could be tough but WABC’s coverage was certainly not up to par especially for an event of that magnitude. Shirleen should be able to handing solo coverage of breaking news at this point. She did not come across as being able to do that, given yesterday’s coverage. Lots of stumbling through words, long pauses, “ummmmsss”, and in one remark to former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, “totally!” It just felt that she was out of place and it’s unfortunate because she is a good anchor. I turned off WABC and watched FOX5 and WNBC for the rest of the morning.

The ending montage never aired on the 6:30 eastern live feed.

Camille Edwards is on an extended vacation thru January 2, 2018, per FTV Live. This comes after a rare visit to the station by ABC president Ben Sherwood.

Even if more talent leaves WABC — they won’t suffer. In the last 14 years, they’ve had three different 11pm coanchors, two different 6pm coanchors, 2 different 5pm coanchors, 3 different noon teams and 4 different morning teams. On top of that, a good number of long time reporters left while new, younger ones have joined the team and the weekend teams change every few years. They’ll survive a few more changes. That said, I do hope some behind the scenes changes occur as things don’t seem as great as they usually are at WABC.

Nice promo. I think I’ve seen it before.

Right now, Rebecca Campbell is above Dave Davis. She’s the former WABC GM who is now the head of the Disney/ABC O&O Station Group... but she is leaving her post next month to become the head of Disney’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations.

Here is the official complaint filed by Laura Behnke. It is worth the full read and names several other on air talent in it, including Lori Stokes and alleged reasons for her departure and the insinuation that Dave Davis should’ve been fired over it. http://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2017/11/24/and-here-is-the-lawsuit-against-wabc-and-their-news-director

This would never happen — but if they could poach Charlie Gibson out of retirement as a temporary anchor, he’d be a great fit. Another good move would to just have Norah O’Donnel and Gayle King anchor together until they’re ready to welcome a new person to their desk.

Probably still not being allowed back to work by her doctors. The upside is we get to have Diana back on the 11pm news again as she has been tapped to fill in very often these last two months.

I wonder if Laura will stay. The Post article mentions the statement from ABC saying her contract expires in a few weeks and they’ve offered her an opportunity to stay in her current role with a pay increase. With this now making headlines, and it being publicly known that he feels she deserved the job, I wonder if she and ABC will instead negotiate an exit or go ahead with her remaining on air with everyone knowing she’s not happy with her current position. In all honestly, while I was surprised that she was passed over for the job, Ryan Field is doing a better in the position. It’s not because he’s a man, it’s because he’s a better anchor and shows much more chemistry with the rest of the team than Laura ever does.. and she’s been there for longer. On the other hand, Michelle absolutely did deserve the weekday morning position.

I always wonder why the head shots are edited so much that they appear so poorly on the station websites. Use the white background or, if they want the 7 branding, get the ABC photographer to take a photo of the talent with the set or somewhere in the building with the 7 logo behind them.

Danielle Leigh is the new investigative reporter for the "7 On Your Side" team that includes Jim Hoffer and Nina Pineda. She fills the investigative reporter spot left vacant long ago when Sarah Wallace was forced to leave and before "7 On Your Side" encompassed both consumer news and investigative reporting. Here is a Facebook Live interview that Diana Williams did with Danielle to introduce her to viewers:

Yes, that too.

Saw that, too. It's also been posted to abc7ny.com for a while now. Wonder which outside candidates they will do internal testing with. When Steve Bartelstein was fired, they tested Lori with Don Dahler who was with the network at the time.

Exactly, thank you. I guess my original response of "it's awful" wasn't clear enough for others lol.

Nope. Lara is with the network for GMA and has a side deal with HGTV hosting and producing shows. Sam was with the The Weather Channel until leaving at the end of 2016.

Unlikely because it's awful or was there another reason?

Nobody is getting anything yet. It's literally been less than two weeks since anyone inside and outside WABC knew Lori was leaving. Testing will go on for weeks and most of what you're seeing now is long-planned substitutions for the late August vacations that are squeezed in before the fall season starts.

Right. Because what viewers want is a complete overhaul of the top rated weekday morning, weekend morning and weekday evening newscasts.....

Agreed. I think FOX learned their lesson when they tried Good Day Live. If FOX wanted to try another national network morning show, they'd pull in FOX News talent or format Fox & Friends for the network.

If Lori is in fact going to GDNY, I've suspected that WNYW is expanding the show or adjusting the format to better compete with "Today" and "Good Morning America". I don't think they'll tinker with moving Gregg and Rosanna around.

Ken said in his Facebook Live that they are trying out anchors and we'd see a rotation over the next few weeks. RE: Jeff Rossen -- he was a close second to Ken for the job. He started looking for other opportunities after being passed over which is how he ended up at NBC.

It's August. It's always like this.

Likely they wanted to return to having two investigative reporters and one dedicated consumer reporter; the same set up they had for years before Sarah Wallace left.

CeFaan Kim is now a full time reporter for WABC.