Some Pretty Stupid, Dumb, Lazy, Disgusting Things and Acts That Should Be Flushed Down the Toilet in the TV News Dept.

**"Breaking News"--thanks to just about everybody and everyone, this once-mighty news vanguard has been devalued, marginalized and put out to pasture. The fact is, there really is no breaking news. Real breaking news involves tragedy, for the most part; an airplane crash, a natural disaster, a truly big moment, not new developments nor an update on the news already reported. It's too bad too because now when truly real, live and authentic breaking news occurs, we're all sort of skeptical. We should be.

**"Team Coverage"--this uber-annoying, lazy, and over-used local TV/radio banner is just plain formulaic and disingenuous. How about this: "We have 'comprehensive' coverage of the latest developments at the hotel fire..." Team Coverage is so banal, so useless, just a notch below breaking news, but still tried-and-trued annoying.

**Anchor tells reporter and just about anyone else, "Thanks Joe": Huh? This too makes me sick. "Thanks?" Thanks for what, for doing your job??!! Hello. How about just going on from there and doing your job! I suppose civilization would end without anchors thanking reporter after their sportscast, weather report--it comes off as lazy and awkward and worse yet, so ubiquitous that it's almost lost in the newscast shuffle. Somebody should STOP and refrain from this "Thanks" method and rearrange the handbook.

**Reporter at scene doing live shot with fake concerned face-look. There's a certain amount of common sense here. If there's been a shootout with 5 people dead we don't need your look-of-dread--we already know you're concerned and that's fine but how about the idea of just keeping it straight? Sure, human emotion is real, valid and legitimate...as long as it looks genuine. Unfortunately, in this day of artificial, tweeterized news, too often the distraught face from reporter A is just plain fake and phony. Sorry, just being honest.

**"At the end of the Day": I've gone here before. Hasn't everybody lately? Yet, this sickening and utterly obscene over-worked, over-utilized and frankly, what the fuck are they saying, 21ist-century cliche continues to gather storm. Its common perpetrators: sports-talk radio hosts, newstalk radio hosts, athletes, politicians, and pundits. I suggest a trip to Gitmo every time this dumb and highly-pretentious verbal carnival act is uttered.

**"Amazing": I think I'll just plain vomit. How amazing.

**Weather Reports: The most useless, baseless and idiotic WASTE of time--TV/Radio News would survive without this charade. First, when there's legitimate and meaningful actual to report, to forecast on, sure, weather is important and should receive its placement in newscasts. But if there's NO weather and no weather front, no rain, no tornado, no hurricane heading our way, why waste 5 minutes? You think in the Bay Area, for example, that we, god forbid, couldn't predict that in the summer time, we generally get fog in the morning, sunshine later and its 102 in the valleys and Sacramento? I just gave you the most comprehensive weather report ever and all I got was this stinking blog. When there's legitimate weather to forecast or predict, get back to me. Other than that, get lost.

**Live Shots at Bars after sports events: This is rather predictable and unseemly --a strong virtue and apparently, according to the consultants, required content for local TV news. The fact is, viewing drunken, screaming, crazy, violent-prone dickheads shouting "WE ARE THE GREATEST!" sweet and sour nothings into the camera does not make for good TV news. It's stupid, repetitious and straight out of the old handbook. Maybe the TV dept. at the shopping mall would be more compelling and better yet, we all could make out what the hell the fans are thinking as opposed to hella-drunk 30 yuppies at the corner bar.

**The use of the word, "Editor" in TV News Intros...as in "Our Consumer Editor", or "Political Editor." Huh? What, Consumer REPORTER, Political Reporter isn't dignified? Does 'Editor' make it sound more important, more legit? Please. Most viewers appreciate honesty and basic, good, old-fashioned reporting. Adding on editor cries out for seeking attention and pretention 1A. I got your editor right here.

**Out of Town newbie reporter who doesn't have the geography down: It's a common fact that every blond 30-something reporter in the TV news business that just arrived from Toledo has no idea where the fuck she's reporting from, partly because she's probably got a banker boyfriend who got her the gig to begin with; that said, in between opening up wide, she sure as hell should know just a little about the city she's working in, don't you think?

**Anchors that do live shots in the field: Up until recently, this simple act was required work and showed the true talents and workmanship of TV News journalists. End of story. Now it's a tactic used by the station to make it look as if the anchor has depth and mass body-of-work pedigree--sorry, this is just another gimmick and gamesmanship. You know it, I know it, most of all, the viewers know it. Try another device and tell the consultant to stuff it.

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