ns8401

The neighborhood reporters thing isn’t actually a bad concept. WXYZ is giving its plethora of reporters each a beat. And it’s sending them out to rustle the bushes for stories in their assigned area. All but a handful (5 or less) of their air talents are not from Detroit so the reporters they are hiring know the area. If you do it right it’s pretty workable. They haven’t reduced anchor time and the quality is much improved overall. So if done well it’s a win. Certainly an improvement over all the failed Scripps ideas.

Good for him getting out there like that then.

Too bad they clip sports out of their on demand recordings. Is third fiddle at WLS a step up from Sports Director at WBBM?

WXYZ has added Jolie Sherman as a reporter. She came from WVIT in Hartford, CT.

No wonder you need a microscope to see Live! On their logo.

Well actually the fact they had a prescence in Denver and that they bought McGraw Hill’s stations in 2011 are unrelated. Unless you know something the rest of us don’t. All shots aside… when Scripps Networks Interactive spun off the TV stations was when things started falling apart. Those purchases just put lipstick on a pig.

Where are my manners? Good point.

I would imagine a fire sale would be in order and the stations would be spread to the four winds ownership wise. The networks would be behind apoplectic if stations went dark.

They can leave every days report on millions impacted by a sprinkle in their old digs too while they are at it.

I bet Scripps gets broken up at some point. Expanding with the crappy groups they purchased over the years was dumb. No offense to the KMGH or WTMJ fans out there.

I feel gipped a little then... I think WXYZ used some hybrid of both. That might have been due to WJBK's getting Eyewitness News first. The results of doing that are.... interesting.

You aren’t the first person I’ve heard say that about WPVI. I don’t doubt WABC is the strongest station in New York for a moment.

Ok well… in that case it’s just typical overdramatic stuff. It’s typical of some stations out there. I think I like my version better said as a joke. Also glad to hear you at least have a toe hold in what you’re talking about. Although subjective im of the mind that WABC doesn’t have the best product of the original circle 7’s. It’s not bad by any means but it’s just kinda there. Some of that is the overdramatization and iffy anchoring.

Those folks contributing a lot to the economy is also an objective fact. Regardless of status their working means they are contributing and the folks who are working are undoubtedly scared currently. Those are gonna be uncomfortable statements for some people but they are just like the earth being round. That’s why I used it as an example. I’m sure you can find an actual example where he really throws an opinion in there but that simply wasn’t it. Let’s say somebody gets beat up real good and he says “I hope the jerks get what’s coming!”… that might start to blur the lines a bit. I mean if you go to some corner and see folks working doing landscaping there’s at least a chance they are not legally authorized to work but it’s not reasonable to say they aren’t contributing to the economy because [insert flat earth denial reason here]. The first clip you posted didn’t actually include what you were talking about at all by the way. It seemed like a normal intro and then an ABC News sourced report about the fires. I didn’t see where he actually made an off hand remark about whodathunkit in LA. One thing I’m curious about… do you actually work in the news business?

I agree that he kind of whips out the uh’s and ah’s and hesitations when he truly goes off script. His delivery is also a little halting in the first place and his voice isn’t gonna be blowing anybody away in authoritative depth like a deep deep baritone voice might.

And that’s all perfectly fine. But I think the sarcasm went past you with the fire thing. That’s yet another old fashioned thing to do. He isn’t actually surprised there is a wildfire there. It was a joke. The NBC clip is an example of modern robotic news…. They have all the emotion and delivery of a Vulcan. At least the Vulcan has funny hair and does the eyebrow thing at crazy statements. I would assume they don’t do a ton of happy talk there. This desire for everything to be perfectly neutral like we are putting all of these stories through some sort of arbitration is relatively new and is to some extent a reaction to a carefully crafted narrative of “bias” intended to partially neuter the media. Basically get them so scared they simply won’t report certain things. It also leads them to treat all sides as equal… all sides are never equal, rather there is some sort of spectrum to it. So if our story was about the earth being round vs. flat and a protest by flat earthers turning violent would a hypothetical station have the responsibility to cover the message of the flat earthers straight simply because it is their point of view? Or should the anchors barely contain their laughter at the idea and point out six ways to Sunday in 20 minutes of team coverage why they are wrong? And of course WABC wouldn’t be in the position it is if people watched him and exclaimed “ that biased jerk Bill Ritter is on where’s the remote????”. It’s pretty obvious the audience likes the way he does it and complaints are inside baseball or they already watch one of the other stations. If his flowery delivery and 80’s word choices verifiably cost them cash he’d be turned into a robot really fast.

I would like to point out as well that what he is doing in the fire story is the kind of thing done back 30-40+ years ago and was not only accepted but EXPECTED. People tuned in just for that kind of stuff. The movie Anchorman is partially based on and is an exaggeration of the way they talked on the air. The immigrant example is almost certainly 100% in the copy by the way. He didn’t ad lib that. It’s just an old school way of writing it. The cousin of that is the “happy talk” you get at the end of some emotionally gripping story where the anchors do some bantering back and forth giving a thought or two on it. I don’t know if every station in the world uses it but many do (did?). The flowery intro would be in the copy and then they would ad lib the comments at the end.

With all due respect that off hand remark about immigrants is fairly widely reported and accepted as factual so it’s not exactly inserting biases into the equation. If the appeal was more emotional that would be perhaps biased. But those folks having all kinds of jobs others won’t do is a perhaps dirty but known thing. I don’t see that as in any way being inappropriate.

Scripps has begun doing a rejoin to their newscasts from the A to B block… “You’re watching 7 News Detroit (news logo up there) then the lighthouse effect and “part of the Scripps News Group” with the new Scripps logo on screen. I will say WXYZ’s quality is up a surprising amount and Scripps appears to be working fairly hard at making improvements to the product. It’s probably the best it’s been in 17 years or so. Surprising credit to them. Their new news director seems to have helped as has making their most senior reporter an “executive reporter” overseeing the other reporters as a manager. On the downside the 11pm is still recorded as are the weekend evening newscasts and it’s blatantly obvious at times because things get cut off accidentally in transitions. Better than nothing though.

That first one “war in the West Bank” just in looking at it not running to YouTube to check has an old school vibe to it.

Longtime reporter and sometimes anchor on the weekends Sean Ley is out at WDIV. He had been there quite awhile. https://deadlinedetroit.com/articles/32852/veteran_wdiv_reporter_shaw_ley_has_left_the_station?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2naw3empcOFqsokqTqdyRkSENgmldi9ucmzvghDcLdaj3-WWI8vzW3Ho4_aem_xuNgmXO3l38JjUpzEsR9Jw Meanwhile WXYZ has added Demetrios Sanders as a reporter. He comes from WOOD in Grand Rapids.

I don’t know how it is elsewhere but my experience has been a lot of folks becoming municipal spokespersons and or starting some communication strategy thing.

Someone should give them some advice… The graphics for the headlines and the show title above it look like something a high school student who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota watching news on the cheap would make. WDIV doesn’t have these yet to my knowledge (haven’t looked lately) but it would fit right in with the rest of their ailing product. The buyouts last year were most unkind to them quality wise.

The image of the two anchors looking at him while he says his spiel for whatever story they were talking about almost screams “Hi! Boy are we glad to have you over here now!”.

Christie McDonald has apparently left WDIV after about 2 years there… she’s been off and on in Detroit TV since the 90’s having worked a number of years at WXYZ and later at WTVS doing public affairs programming.