*NBC Bay Area/KTVU surreal in the wrong way: Several of you contacted me and I saw what you saw.
I turned to KTVU at 10 Wednesday night and watched their news. Within ten minutes they ran a story about Twitter amnesty. What was odd is the KTVU story was word for word verbatim the same as the NBC Bay Area story I saw only a few hours earlier.
Identical.
I can think of no reason why two unaffiliated local news stations would have the exact same script for an entire story unless one copied the other. I backed up my DVR and confirmed it. Not sure who copied who (perhaps KTVU aired it earlier in the evening and NBC copied them). Either way, something is odd.
*NOVEMBER SWEEPS: KPIX was better than expsed but still poor across the board; ABC7 better than expected; KRON and NBC just ok --KTVU, helped late by World Cup Fox coverage.
What did they serve? Old turkey on stale bread?
ReplyDeletethey always have a fabulous catered feast..it always runs out because people love it and pile their plates high..nothing new
Delete"I can think of no reason why two unaffiliated local news stations would have the exact same script for an entire story unless one copied the other."
ReplyDeleteWas this a reporter story of just an anchor read, and if the former, who was the reporter? The two stations don't share reporters. Or maybe this is a new gimmick.
Speaking of gimmicks, the new style of writing and anchoring on KPIX with Sara Kardashian—I mean Donchy—is meant to imitate the way people do spontaneous short form videos on social media. They're trying to transport that to TV—probably Lisa White's brilliant idea—and it sucks. I notice Goodrich, Hackney, Cook and others with some measure of self-respect refuse to participate.
“Not sure who copied who (perhaps KTVU aired it earlier in the evening and NBC copied them)”
ReplyDeleteI think we know who the culprit is. NBC Bay Area news was fully staffed and ready to go as they went on air immediately following football.
KTVU on the other hand was a one man show with Frank Malliprop at the helm for 90 minutes (ouch!). On a holiday I’m sure ktvu had a couple of junior writers on shift who were too lazy to write original copy. Figured no one watches ktvu anyway so likely no one would notice the blatant plagiarism.
You're generous.
DeleteI don't think KTVU has a "couple" of junior writers on shift normally. They try to fill the time with as much fluff content that doesn't require writers or editors as possible, and when they're out of that, they rerack yesterday's stories, the day before's stories, the week before's stories...
Mouse ran out of cheese eh? Well, lets see? People are hungry and underpaid. I imagine, whatever was left out for the peasants to fight over, found its way into purses and backpacks to take home.Bad Mouse! KTVU must have recently hired some displaced Twitter employees. Getting paid to do nothing. Probably at the wine fountain or sleep rooms.Writing copy is work.Let someone else do it. Now where is my yoga mat?
ReplyDeleteVerbatim or you know....we don't need FIVE news channels all running the same shit every single day at the same times.
ReplyDeleteBurp
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was an Associated Press or Bay News Service piece of wire copy that was not re-written. Both stations are subscribers to BOTH services.
ReplyDeleteIt happens all the time....
AP moves a piece of copy...and every station in the country runs the same stuff.
It has a name...
"Rip and Read".
^^^^^ Exactly this.
DeleteI would bet all my leftovers that some lazy scrub in each newsroom picked up a 'national' news story. ctrl C and ctrl V...... viola! "Copy is written boss! Have a great weekend! whoosh!"
ReplyDeletectrl V is for cretins! Shift+insert yeeeaarghhhh!!!
DeleteAnd yet I highly doubt this is the first time ktvu has done this. I’m surprised we haven’t heard of this more often given the utter incompetence of ktvu ‘writers.’
ReplyDeleteas someone who’s worked in the business for years my guess is that they both got the same press release. Or ap story and they just copy and pasted it. There’s no way they’d look at each other. They just both used the same source and were both so lazy that they didn’t change a word. It’s just incredible to me how far ktvu has fallen. They used to the standard not just in the Bay Area but across the country
ReplyDeleteThey weren’t afraid to go left even if every one else was going right. They were leaders not followers. But now they’re just like any other station. They just follow. It’s really sad.
Personally I haven’t watched since mark and Frank left. They were the last of the “real”ktvu”..
KTVU will never be what it used to be.
DeleteRip 'n read wire service copy. There's no conspiracy. Two understaffed newsrooms grabbed stories from their national service and ran them. That's why they have the service. Now, take a chill pill. All is quiet in the news wars for the night.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the reason, I thoroughly enjoy watching KTVUreinvent itself into a massive heap of shit.
ReplyDeleteIt's official, ktvu sucks big donkey balls.
ReplyDeleteGo up to the Bay City News site and grab a distinctive sentence from a story. Paste that into Google with quotes around it so it searches for that exact phrase. You'd be surprised how many newspaper and TV web pages post BCN stories verbatim. On a holiday weekend, it's extremely common.
ReplyDelete