New York Times asking for help & you gotta love this country!

My lovely and talented bride keeps a close eye on the stock market and I get a daily report of how the NYT stock is tanking. It’s down about 50-percent since 2002. We bought into it for many years through the employee stock purchase plan. I should have dumped it when [...]

Newby the Weather Dog and Happy Belated Earthday

I’ve read that animals can detect earthquakes well before they happen. We’ve got a dog that alerts us to tornado warnings. Newby, one of the Scottish Terriers we rescued and who is the official guard dog at stately Larksmith Manor, started howling Tuesday night around 8:45. Seconds later we started hearing [...]

Could the clock be ticking already on the ND down on the river?

Anybody who has been around the station down on the river in Memphis knows that the ND’s post is considered by many there to be the fast track to a GM spot. Many folks don’t realize that the station on the river is the “flagship” station and many broadcast corporate honcos have offices there. It [...]

Reality check on the Gulf Coast

I just got back from the Gulf Coast where I had a major reality check about the progress since Katrina. It’s like building a castle one grain of sand at a time. I will admit it’s a situation that has been out of sight and out of mind since about December. If [...]

More competition on the horizon for local news

Nothing like competition to shake things up in TV newsrooms and it appears things will be shaken up in the not-too-distant future. I’ve been told that WPTY is advertising for morning show producers and a photographer to get things working by early August. It’s supposed to be a show with real news and [...]

I just can’t listen to the cockpit voice recordings from that hijacked plane on 9/11

The big news of the day has been the playing of the cockpit voice recording from that hijacked plane that crashed into a field before it could get to its apparent destination of Washington, DC. I just can’t listen to it. I have muted the TV whenever that segment of the news has [...]

"Perhaps in no other type of news programming is on-air chemistry as important as morning television."

“Perhaps in no other type of news programming is on-air chemistry as important as morning television.”That was the quote from a Los Angeles Times article on the pairing of Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira on the Today Show. The article went on to say that the Today show built its huge winning streak largely [...]

Look what happens when I leave town for a couple of days

I traveled to Western Kentucky on Thursday and apparently missed a major weathergasm here in the Midsouth with a tornado reported over Germantown, tornado warning sirens blaring in the Memphis area and breathless wall to wall coverage from the TV folks. A friend of mine telephoned me while he was traveling from [...]

Nothing like a little competition in local newsrooms and not everyone at CBS is happy about the arrival of Katie.

Time was, those folks who really cranked out the effort in the local newsroom might be named “Employee of the Month” and get a free lunch or perhaps get a pat on the back and an “atta boy”.But the news director at WFTV in Orlando has kicked it up a notch. Reporter and Photographer [...]

Snakes on a Plane, No Big Surprise Down on the River and Katie’s Coming

What took them so long. I expected the announcement more than a month ago that Claudia Barr would be made permanent female anchor down on the river. She has history with the GM, (I’m told they went to high school together) she has name recognition and they had a great book in February. [...]