MIA in Williamsport

Did you know WBRE has a bureau in Williamsport? It's hard to know, because the station hasn't used it in a while. Even though they covered the Susquehanna Health System announcement last week, there was no sign of Lorena Beniquez, their central PA reporter. Her bio is still on WBRE's website, so it's not as if she was canned.

Bureau neglect seems to be a common problem with WBRE. They had a much-ballyhooed grand opening for their Stroudsburg newsroom over the summer, and even hired two one-man-band reporters to staff it. But they're not in any rush to use it.

Where are they now?

Because weekends are typically slow, here's a weekly feature I'll do. Every Saturday, I'll highlight a former WNEP/WBRE/WYOU personality, and see what they're up to now. This idea was taken from the Arkansas TV News Watch site.

Today, we feature Jane Adonizio, former reporter and anchor for WYOU.

Adonizio started her career as a reporter for the Times Leader. She spent most of her television career with WNEP, as an anchor and reporter, and a host for the short-lived P.M. Magazine. After a stint as the public relations director for the Boscov's department store chain, Adonizio returned to TV as the noon and 6 p.m. anchor for WYOU. She left the station in 2004. Apparently, some station managers weren't sorry to see her go.

Where is she now? Adonizio owns her own television production and consulting company, See Jane Productions, in Kingston.

UPDATE: I can't confirm if that's Jane posting in the comments, but in the interest of fairness, here's what WYOU employees had to say about her.

WNEP Extra?

WNEP has put out a newsletter of features and other promotional information about the station, called "WNEP Extra." PDFs are available on their Web site, unless you were somehow mailed a copy. If you haven't seen it, well, you're not missing much, except for Julie Sidoni's beer biscuit recipe. Half of it promotes WNEP's news programming, while the other half promotes "Commander in Chief" and "Desperate Housewives."

Is this just a test run, or will "WNEP Extra" be a monthly feature?

Moving to Moosic

Longtime WBRE assignment manager Mike Remplewicz has jumped to WNEP, tipsters say. He replaces Carl Abraham, who was promoted to assistant news director.

Did you know it snowed today?

Sure, it was only in the northern tier of the state, but that didn't prevent everyone from making a big fuss of it. WNEP, WBRE, and WYOU led off with it on their 6 p.m. newscasts, though WNEP devoted most of their first block of news to it. Were two live shots really necessary for a maximum of six inches up in the higher elevations, where it typically snows?

You have to feel sorry for Joe Holden though. WBRE's newest reporter had to do his snow day standup with only light flurries and no snow on the ground. I wonder whose bright idea that was?

Here's a look at what each station ran at 6 p.m.

WNEP

Snow coverage with two live standups

Hughesville student deaths

Scranton KFC robbery

Valley Crest vote with live newsroom standup

Williamsport hospital plans

Susquehanna County welcome center

WBRE

Snow coverage with live standup

Scranton flood prevention plans

Plymouth Township fire

Talking smoke detectors

Williamsport hospital plans

Valley Crest vote with live standup

Illegal dumping

WYOU

Snow coverage

Lackawanna County food bank surplus

That's right, only two stories on WYOU, unless I missed something switching between channels. But they did break to a commercial before the other two.

Moving up

Former WBRE-TV reporter Justin Pizzi is now at NBC's owned-and-operated WCAU-TV in his hometown of Philadelphia. He joins former WBRE anchor Dawn Timmeney, who now anchors WCAU's morning show.

Audio 101

Nexstar Broadcasting may want to train their new one-man-band reporters in basic production values. Tonight, Laurie Monteforte's story on WYOU-TV's 11 p.m. newscast had a lot of audio problems. By that, I mean I could barely make out what was being said, because there was too much static.

How the package actually made it to air baffles me.

UPDATE: According to Monteforte, the audio problems were caused by the transmitter at the Pocono bureau, and not through a lack of "basic production values."

WNEP to hire from within

WNEP-TV appears to be looking to hire from within for their weekend p.m. anchor slot vacated by Megan Dardanell, who is now doing PR for Allegheny County. A station tipster says interested reporters are being allowed to anchor a weekend shift, with news director Dennis Fisher selecting the best of the groups.

Welcome to Beale's Bites

I'm a reporter in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton market. For reasons that I hope are obvious, I will not reveal my identity or that of my employer.

While I'm not a "disgruntled journalist," I am upset with the direction that the news business is heading. Being honest about this field isn't easy, as company executives don't normally like the truth, but hopefully this site will allow me to do that.

Here's the plan: every week, I will post my thoughts, opinions, and views about the state of the news, both television and radio. I may even cover newspapers if there's something that interests me. If you have something to say, or have information to share, please e-mail me at bealesbites@gmail.com. Your anonymity will be assured if you wish. Or I can respond to your comments on this site.

Finally, if you're wondering about the name behind this site, find a copy of Network, and watch it.