Worst newscast in history

By adamg on Tue, 03/21/2006 - 9:23am

Carpundit: I hate Fox25. It's the TV equivalent of the Herald. Without the real journalists.

My standard newspaper disclosure.

Topics:

Media

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WFXT

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Comments

Yes, but whats the alternative

By Cranky Blogger on Tue, 03/21/2006 - 12:13pm.

Yes, Fox 25 is awful. But, the alternative, Channel 56 last night led off with yet another story about a misprinted telephone number that led to a porn site. Who cares! And it's no better at 11:00. I usually start with admittedly awful Channel 7 until they do something ridiculous. Then switch over to 5 until I can take Ed Harding no longer, then to 4. 4's a little better with Jack Williams back, but at some point they will do something stupid too. NECN is the only place with any sense at all of news judgement, but as a rabid channel flipper, by 10:00 I have already caught snippets of all of their stories throught the night.

There is no hope.

Channel 5 had that stupid porn-number story too!

By adamg on Tue, 03/21/2006 - 12:26pm.

Just not as the lede, the wusses. Truly an awesome report. First they showed some marketing major calling the number. Then, to show us what a real reporter's reporter he is, Jorge Quiroga dialed the number himself, you know, just in case the marketing major was lying to him. And when he connected, you could see him recoiling in disgust as he listened to a recording that said something like "You have reached the HOT Hotline" - like he'd never heard anything so outrageously offensive in his entire life, and you could just tell that the second he was off camera, the first thing he'd do is spray his hands with Lysol and then rub them with sandpaper to try to get the stench off.

Of course, the whole thing could have been reduced to a 10-second story - "Citibank Visa says don't call the number on its mailing because you'll get a porn site" - and then Ed Harding would chuckle and show us the latest cow stuck in a sinkhole in California, but he was off last night and besides, where's the entertainment value in that?

They didn't even hear any porn!

By Cranky Blogger on Tue, 03/21/2006 - 1:45pm.

They just got a person telling them it was going to be a port site if they didn't hang up!

How many of these stories have you seen in the past month?

Looks like the marketing major has learning one thing about marketing. How easy it is to get yourself (or your product) on all the local newscasts.

Jorge used to be a serious reporter too, didn't he?

Jorge is not alone

By timlav on Tue, 03/21/2006 - 4:15pm.

I wonder how many of these TV journalists look at their body of work today and wonder when the hell they stopped being journalists? One evening about two years ago I was in Malden and saw an NECN truck circling the block near the high school. The reporter followed in a separate car. I knew the area, so I figured I would see if they were lost. The reporter told me they were looking for something "that really looked like Malden" to have in the background for their live shot.

Since then, I've noticed most live shots don't serve any purpose to the story, except to say, "Live! in Malden." Most of the time, especially for the late news, they are standing in front of a police station or town hall that is dark inside while the reporter does VO over B-roll. It's really quite pointless.