ns8401

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.

That implies they have a file of those somewhere. Somebody grabbed the wrong Friday.

That last part I’ll never understand… unless he’s terrible at finances he’s made of money… so he could take that kind of pay and be fine. It’s that kind of thing that makes the press releases about how much they love making a difference ring slightly more hollow. There are a lot of normal folks whose HOUSE is worth the same money he’d make in a year.

Entertaining the thought for a minute… is 32 still the cellar dweller with poor quality relative to the other stations in town? My knowledge of the other stations is pretty out of date.

What if he just wants to ride off into the sunset? The guy is 69… it’s check your watch to see how much longer he can do this time.

I know of at least one station that used the 5pm anchors for the noon newscast back in the day… that may be 6 of one and a half dozen of the other to do it that way. It saved killing the morning folks in terms of a grueling day.

Joel Sebastianelli is joining WDIV from Buckeye Cable Sports Netork as the weekend sports anchor. Hobie Artigue will officially become the weeknight sports guy.

Thank god nobody put you in charge of say product safety or getting potholes fixed.

Really it says something about humans being creatures of habit. Like anything else disrupting routines is usually a net negative.

Yeah one of the more enjoyable things about this week and next is seeing weird things like the lead sports anchor doing the 6pm newscast as an anchor or some young street reporter giving it a try when few are watching anyways. It’s a break from the mundane.

If you listen closely to what she says some of it sounds a little poorly worded at times too.

There is a reason a lot of TV folks hang around past their expiration dates. Many of them will go until they literally can’t anymore.

WXYZ Has added former WJBK reporter Randy Wembley who spent 10 years there before leaving in 2023.

Good reason for that…. She did a program on public TV that was current affairs focused.