TL plays catch-up on Sweeney firing
The Times Leader follows up on what Beale's Bites first told you about: Vince Sweeney's been fired from WBRE. Oddly, the article doesn't mention that Jason Knapp was canned as well.
UPDATE: Tom Carten points out the CV's Tube Talk column had news of this yesterday. I can't find Tube Talk on the CV's website anywhere! Do any of you know where it can be found?
UPDATE: Tom Carten points out the CV's Tube Talk column had news of this yesterday. I can't find Tube Talk on the CV's website anywhere! Do any of you know where it can be found?
posted by Howard Beale at 11:31 AM
29 Comments:
Geri Anne Kaikowski's "Tube Talk" had a fairly large piece yesterday (Thursday) on the firings. She also mentioned the addition of two new reporters at 16.
[Requisite "Truth in Advertising" disclaimer here: I am a writer for the CV, although doing a weekly big band music column hardly meets the criteria for biased.]
Is her Tube Talk column online anywhere? I can't find it on the CV website, which led me to think Tube Talk was dead. I guess not!
There certainly seems to a large matter of sematics on this issue. Whether it's "fired, terminated, laid-off, axed...etc..." Does it really matter ? What it comes to is these guys' contracts were up, and they were not renewed.
I think the key is that Sweeney probably went to the paper, in combination with the fact that he took vacation time til the end.
Therefore, it was a much more immediate effect, than Knapp, who may try to leave gracefully (a la Star Jones and The View maybe?)
Beale....you freakin' kill me!
Are you a gossip column or a news source????
You seriously can't be in this to report on who's staying/going....remain true to your calling...GOSSIP!
Leave the "real" journalism to us here in the "real" world.
Here is a definition of journalism: "Written material of current interest or wide popular appeal." Is this not what this blog is providing?
Lighten up. It's only TV! If you don't like what is being posted, don't visit this site.
Neither of these gentleman were presently under contract. Both had been without contractual obligation for varying amounts of time. And you think Sweeney went to The CV just to say, "no comment." Uhh, that really doesn't much work, now does it? Kaikowski predictably devoted 98% of her column on the firings to the "official handout" from 62 S. Franklin.
Love all the guesswork going on here. No one has all the details right. "These guys contracts were up...", Knapp's was. Sweeney's been without a contract for years.
The story in the paper came from the Kevin and Nancy Morning Debacle on WILK and the so-called grapevine, not because any parties involved "went to the paper".
Love the 5:21 comment from someone who fancies him or herself a "real" journalist. It's showbiz not journalism in this and most markets and if you believe otherwise you're deluded.
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5:21 said:Leave the "real" journalism to us here in the "real" world.
Real journalist at first break: "That story's coming right up!"
Commercial break.
More news.
Real Journalist: "That [same] story after this!"
Commercial break.
More news.
[Same scenario to -:15 sec.]
In other words, when you hear the first tease, you can take a quick nap, balance your checkbook, walk the cat, get a snack and clean the cellar -- cause you're not going to see the piece until just before the cast ends.
Thank goodness for real journalists.
[This is a joke guys and gals. I just finished recording my show and am still in a broadcast state of mind.]
Howard:
Many weeks I search for the Tube Talk column online and it's nowhere to be found on the CV site.
Get this: The CV site has a "Columnists" link on the main page, which takes you to the specific columnist's page, shows you their picture...and nothing else. So, if you desire a black and white JPEG of Geri, it's all yours. Just don't try to read her column online. Ah, Times-Shamrock quality shines again. Their papers' websites can't rub the ink off the soles of The (Allentown) Morning Call's shoes.
Since The Times-Trib dropped the reprint of Tube Talk and On the Air in the Saturday papers, we in Scranton have no local TV or radio coverage at all anymore. Whoever is running the Lifestyles shop basically dumped all TV coverage after Rich Mates retired due to illness.
(But we get all the friggin' G-Mac that can fit in the news hole.)
So, Tube Talk is alive and well (ahem)...in print. Meanwhile, The Times-Trib still has Brian Monahan's photo featured on the Weather page along with the other WYOU meteorologists. Nevermind that he shifted to WBRE about two years ago and left this market for Florida earler this year.
Mediocrity...thy name is Lynett.
I can't speak for the other columnists, but I know mine is online every week under the "Entertainment" link. There's no column title when you go down the selections, just the headline which, this week, is "June Allyson was known as the sunny girl of movies."
Don't really know why mine is in every week and the others aren't.
It's "The Wax Museum," written by Jan Souther. (Back when the strike began and the issue was hot, I was writing under three names and, to separate the newspaper from the school, used pen-names. Everybody knew who I was, but the names gave a bit of professional distance.)
Showbiz? Absolutely. If it were true journalism: No more "news" breaks (which provide no news; they're teasers only) during prime time commercial breaks; no more hawking of holiday music CDs; no more chit-chatting toward the end of the nightly "show;" and no more info regarding an anchor's wedding plans.
Showbiz first and always, in service to the ratings book.
Word out there is that some recognizable faces have been seen in BRE/YOU's studios and offices these past weeks, getting interviewed for new slots. Anyone have any tips?
Lots of sour grapes here from print people. Here's a T-L EXCLUSIVE-EXCLUSIVE-EXCLUSIVE: no one who works for one of the local rags can call him, her or itself a "journalist."
They're all upset because they used to sit in the front row at the news conferences (excuse me, "press" conferences) and the heavy hitters used to pay attention to what they had to say.
Newspapers? Going, going, and soon-to-be-gone once we find a better way to read the news while sitting on the crapper.
Can you say, "10-cents-off orange juice coupons" boys and girls?
And how DO you spell "Soduku?"
Best papers in the region in terms of coverage and servcice: the Press-Enterprise and the Morning Call.
Ummmm....some recognizable faces?
Well let me tell you: after talking to some people at 16, they have their problems AND there are a few reporters making tapes BUT there is NO WAY they'd want to jump into the nightmare known as Channel 50. They are making tapes to leave this market.
Old Faces in New Places? HA HA Perhaps this was a move to free up money to hire Joe Zone back into the market. And with the I-Team back, perhaps we can get Pete Yaksick's agent on the phone.
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7:24 said: Newspapers? Going, going, and soon-to-be-gone once we find a better way to read the news while sitting on the crapper.
Dunno. That's been said for a while and, yes, the fundamental concept of what a newspaper is has been changing in recent years. What it will be in the future is anyone's guess, but we will still be reading one.
We will be reading sports and sports analysis, but not weather. We will be reading whatever news broke overnight and/or did not make the 12 minutes, whatever, it's allotted locally. There's a reason ads on the obituary page are priced at a premium; people go there.
And you can read the newspaper at your own time on the crapper, at work, in a diner. Can't do that with tv.
I'm not an apologist for newspapers, but am pointing out that they're not about to disappear. Each one will evolve or die and I'm betting "evolve" to some new form is the road.
The way I get it, sports will be taking a greatly diminished role in the new WBRE format, and will disappear completely from WYOU's format Mon-Fri. Press-Enterprse? Great paper? Hardly. The Morning-Call, okay, great paper...
If that big lantern head Yaksick comes back, I'm opening a tanning bed place on S. Franklin. Or was that from a can? He was kind of orange.
If 22 is really planning (as rumored) a dinner-hour talk/call-in show, there's only one person with the contacts, the local knowledge, the smarts and the edge to pull it off: Kevin Lynn.
He's also way too smart to put his male member in that meat grinder.
The sniping and shit slinging in this comment section reminds me of the newsroom on the brink of collapse (just like the society outside of it) in George A. Romero's (original and superior) DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), in which the GM was demanding that they keep outdated (read: dangerous) supers on the air telling citizens where to go during the national emergency.
When the director barked back at the Manager that the sups were outdated and asked him if he was willing to risk people's lives; his response was something to the extent of, "If we don't keep running those supers nobody will watch us. The people will tune out!" At that point, the director asked him, "Are you willing to kill people for ratings?" (I paraphrase).
That reminds me of what's happening in the WB/Scranton market's television news.
As a bit of irony, the station in DAWN was called "WGON," as in "Gone." i. e. KAPUT.
The television "news" situation is definitely in similar chaos, without the benefit of a zombie plauge (the zombies, instead, run the stations!)
TIP ***
Looking online for resume tape tips (hint hint another ones heading out the door soon) I ran into this page, with a 'reporter' in NYC, with a WBRE mic flag throughout her entire tape. If you click on her picture, you can watch the video. I just thought it was weird, did she have permission???
I hear that WYOU is dropping Sports (to a point). Was told Mike Conigliaro will anchor the weekend sports and report sports during the week. It seems Sid Michaels is the man out. He may have to go to WBRE. So much for not switching on-air talent.
Newspaper people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones at broadcasters.
I stopped subscribing to any local paper some time ago, about the time they became irrelevant. The two or three important local stories they might accidentally cover each day I can get off their web sites in thirty seconds without smudging my hands.
(Remember the ad campaign a couple of years back that suggested the reason to subscribe to one local paper was that its ink didn't smear?)
State/national/international? Google News.
Somehow I find myself able to live without "Dear Abby," without the editorials written by folks who have been picking their own belly-button lint for too long, without the horoscopes, without the Soduku game, without the Mike Royko wannabe columnists, without the recipes, without the travel columns, without the birth announcements, without the obituaries, without the real estate transactions, even without the comics.
Come to think of it, I do just fine without the local papers. I don't have that many fish to wrap.
And if the circulation figures are to be believed, thousands of people a year are making the same decision.
What gives 7:59pm ? Did you just tune in ?
Switching talent has been happening over there for years.
Jason Knapp
Stacey Weaver
Brian Monahan
Sure, the years are spread apart, but don't act like it's never happened.
Kevin Lynn? Bright guy. One sentence is all you ever need know about the man - More trouble than he's worth. As to Sid going over to WBRE, Deathstar never offers options. Whatever Sid's future is, he'll have zero say in the matter, the deal is already done.
Kevin Lynn? Please. Who wants a bitter, angry, left-wing also-ran on their TV at dinner time?
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9:13 said: Somehow I find myself able to live without "Dear Abby," without the editorials, [snip here, snip there] without the birth announcements, without the obituaries, even without the comics. Come to think of it, I do just fine without the local papers.
Oddly enough, people who listen to my radio reading service (the visually impaired, elderly and homebound) do so because they want most of what you do not. The reason? To stay in touch with the community around them.
Yeah, I check my news sites seveal times a day, look at the weather map ditto, and there are newspaper sections I never check. But it does keep me informed, just as I try to keep my impaired listeners informed.
YMMV, natch.
9:06!!!!!!!!!!
come on, you say 16ers are leaving (or want to).
does this mean anyone of consequence, or some talking head from the 5 or the 6
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