The good old days with real journalist and reporters honest with their reporting. Hard to find this at KPIX these days with reporters no show using medical and family in search for love, no show reporters than bye, glad Betty is back soon and not like those folks no need to continue talking about, slacking off
Oh for crying out loud, 99 percent of KPIX's personnel are on air and reporting. And there were medical emergencies then too. Remember Dennis O'Donnell? Remember Doug Murphy?
News had meaning, people were dressed professional back then. Today it’s too much with the banter, waste of time with lot of unneccessary news, many anchors unprofessional like it’s a clown show.
There are few folks that are still respectable & professional (dress & also demeanor) - Brian Hackney, Juliette Goodrich, Andrea Nakano, Devin Fehely, Darren Peck
I used to run into Doug Murphy all the time in Lafayette. Both of us worked in news, but I worked at KRON at the time. I would be stopping at the Quik Stop for a quart of beer and find him purchasing 5 bottles of wine. So there you go.
I don't remember Wendy stumbling on her lines. She was solid, especially during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Wayne Walker looked like he was always happy. I didn't know he was a former athlete until he passed.
Wendy didn't become a bumble bee until she went to KRON in the early 2000s. Then she became tongue-tied and blamed everyone else for her screwups. I wrote there at the time and we were told to put pronouncers in EVERYTHING, even common words. She still screwed them up, then got mad at the writers for her mistakes. My favorite blunder among her many was "Ronald Dumsfeld." One of her problems (among many) was she was obsessed, for some reason, with composting, and would run around looking in trash cans around the newsroom for items to remove and compost instead of reviewing her scripts. Then she'd be like a dear in the headlights on air. I remember once the producer, Mike Sterling, had forgotten to write her name in the intro page of a newscast...In the boilerplate scripts it will say, "Good evening, I'm ..." and it's left blank to be filled in by the producer when he or she starts the show with a clean template. Mike forgot to write in "Wendy Tokuda," and when the show started, she said, "Good evening, I'm..." and then sat there frozen. Yeah, she was that bad. Radnich used to HATE to riff off her, the way he liked to do his "Don Rickles act," as Rich calls it, on the show. The other anchors could keep up but she would just sit there with a stupid look on her face if she didn't have something written by others to read. Once, getting out of the elevator, he bumped into me and said, "Tokuda is no good without a prompter." I said, "She's not good with one either." He laughed so hard I think they heard him on the next floor.
Wendy didn't become a bumble bee until she went to KRON in the early 2000s. Then she became tongue-tied and blamed everyone else for her screwups. I wrote there at the time and we were told to put pronouncers in EVERYTHING, even common words. She still screwed them up, then got mad at the writers for her mistakes. My favorite blunder among her many was "Ronald Dumsfeld." One of her problems (among many) was she was obsessed, for some reason, with composting, and would run around looking in trash cans around the newsroom for items to remove and compost instead of reviewing her scripts. Then she'd be like a dear in the headlights on air. I remember once the producer, Mike Sterling, had forgotten to write her name in the intro page of a newscast...In the boilerplate scripts it will say, "Good evening, I'm ..." and it's left blank to be filled in by the producer when he or she starts the show with a clean template. Mike forgot to write in "Wendy Tokuda," and when the show started, she said, "Good evening, I'm..." and then sat there frozen. Yeah, she was that bad. Radnich used to HATE to riff off her, the way he liked to do his "Don Rickles act," as Rich calls it, on the show. The other anchors could keep up but she would just sit there with a stupid look on her face if she didn't have something written by others to read. Once, getting out of the elevator, he bumped into me and said, "Tokuda is no good without a prompter." I said, "She's not good with one either." He laughed so hard I think they heard him on the next floor.
You, 6:57, mock Wendy Tokuda for her reading skills and in so doing call her a "dear(sic) in the headlights". Perhaps, since you say you were one of the writers, she knew you didn't know basic spelling or word meanings, and was thus reluctant to read your work without caution.
Thank you, 657. Wendy was easily the weak link on that otherwise terrific KPIX team. I had an English teacher in high school that used Wendy to indicate the definition of a redundancy. During election day, she would say, "So and so is out ahead, and So and so is trailing behind." She was a rank amateur.
You're right about the Princess Grace reference regarding Kate Kelly in so many ways. A natural beauty, intelligent, articulate and funny. Her resemblance was hauntingly eye turning as well. Quite a conversationalist, with a warm smile and a twinkle in the eye. Lovely lady.
I work at one of the radio stations you frequently criticize, and more specifically, I'm involved in the production of one of the morning shows that you often lambaste. You don’t know my name because I'm not on air. My role involves technical operations, essentially working behind the scenes to ensure everything runs smoothly, from audio quality to transmission and managing the technical aspects of call-in guests.
My team and I have no influence over the actual content you hear our hosts and guests discuss on air. We have zero involvement in editorial decisions, subject matter, hiring decisions, and program scheduling. We cringe at the ass kissing and buffoonery just as you do. I share your sentiment that the show's quality has deteriorated rapidly, especially as of late. It’s become amateurish and embarrassing. Believe me, if you, as a listener, notice it, then we certainly do too. The frustration you feel as a listener pales in comparison to what we experience behind the scenes, as we have to endure it all morning.
However, while we all agree on the decline in quality, I wish you’d acknowledge there are many dedicated, hard-working, competent people behind the scenes, like the team that I manage, who put the show on air each day. Ironically, many of them share your opinions.
Yep, we all know yhe heavy weights are behind the scenes making it all work. Thank you for your hard work! If this is a KNBR worker, please help us all by lobbying for Murph’s removal. Today he was jabbering about rides at Disneyland. For Fu..’s Sake, is this to placate his little league team, of just the dolts he once played high school jv ball with? Murphy is pure unadulterated dreck. His obsession with his own voice is pathetic. Maybe after his gig ends at KNBR he can work as a greeter at WalMart, a job for which he is much better suited.
I agree with 12:39, thanks for your work 7:57. Don't take Rich's comments about the shows personally as he has a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater as they say.
7:57PM your post is bizarre. I am not getting this. You must be from KNBR by default as the other sports talk station now is doing better than them. Are you suggesting Rich and us commenters address your and your team’s performance from a station you don’t identify though obvious? What about the janitors who keep the toilets flushing at KNBR?; no small task there. This blog and Rich’s YouTube is mostly about the media people up front; not you people making the show go on. When behind the scenes work is screwed up like at KCBS, then it should be front and center I agree though. M Maybe the KNBR staff in charge of the strong KNBR signal in the Bay Area deserve some credit but is not your department, sales/marketing. accounting, etc. performance expected? Are we assessing total company performance? Lastly, you are preaching to the choir here but why would you put that out there with Murph and also Copes, a PD somehow and on an undeserved power trip, easily figuring out who you are? Do you think those guys don’t read this blog? I bet you are not who you say you are at the station as otherwise I guess you want to be fired taking your staff with you.
Speaking of KPIX, it'd be nice to see you interview Juliette Goodrich. Other interesting interviews would be Sara Donchey, Jessica Burch, and Darren Peck (just be sure to ask him about the multiple credible reports that he leaves comments on your site in which he both touts himself and denigrates his colleagues).
We got an email from the big bosses that sharing certain internal information with unauthorized third parties including "local media bloggers" may represent a violation of workforce policy and grounds for termination and legal action.
11:36. Good! It means you're over the target and "The Bigs" don't want their dirty laundry exposed to a third party. These idiots don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and prefer not to have their incompetence preached to the rafters from the town crier-Lieberman.
12:43 PM 100% Having done corporate PR for most of my career the first thing that comes to mind is the ‘big bosses’ likely feel threatened that their own dirty laundry or incompetence is close to being exposed or at least the sharks are circling
(and we must work at the same station, 11:36am. I was on that email. I found it especially interesting because I haven't seen any videos or comments on Rich's site that contain anything confidential or internal about our workplace.)
HR professional here... These types of emails are almost always sent in response to a specific incident in which confidential information that could put the organization at risk has already been leaked publicly. Leaders don't wake up in the morning and send these types of emails out of the blue. Also keep in mind, if TV stations are owned by corporations or conglomerates, the "big bosses" in this instance may not be the local bigwigs at the local stations, but rather head honchos from corporate, in which case this kind of message may have nothing to do with anything that happened locally here in the Bay Area.
4:18 A valid point, but 11:36 made specific reference of "local media bloggers" in his received company email. I find this very telling and they are chasing unwanted noise with this not so veiled threat.
The email basically referred to the importance of maintaining a workplace founded on trust, respect, and camaraderie, where we can freely exchange information and experiences without concern that it will be disclosed to unauthorized third parties, whether through social media or "local media bloggers." It also mentioned that we should never first hear about internal information through these unauthorized third parties.
There was a link to the relevant policy with instruction for everyone to "re-familiarize" ourselves with it along with a reminder that this is the same policy we all signed and agreed to when we began our employment. It mentioned that certain information sharing may not only violate trust but also violate company policy and laws. This is why the email mentioned the possibility of termination and legal action.
8:59AM good point on this writer’s blunder here but how much caution did she need to take before she would realize to continue to say (from “I am …”) “Wendy Takuda”? Was it not obvious to say your name at the outset of the newscast? Not sure if it ever came out. For these anchors aka “glorified news readers” maybe there should be tests to see what they would say or not say if the teleprompter went out. Silence or no ability to recover with ad libbing is not a good look.
KPIX does Virtual Weather on Sundays like they do on weekdays. But since Brian Hackney had to fill in at 11PM, he only was able to do the old school weather (as I guessed). This will be interesting if at any time on the weekdays (rare now) Hackney fills in and operates the 3D weather set.
Easily he could have replayed Darren Peck’s pre-recording of the weather like they did on the first 2 Sundays of this year. The reason is that recording is also on the stream on the evenings (pre-recorded weather clips also for the stream).
I grew up with Katie Supple. That was her real name until she got into TV and then she changed it to Kate Kelly got obvious reasons. I used to have a crush on her older sister Debbie back in the early 1970s. I heard Debbie later became a bush pilot up in Alaska for a number of years but she’s probably retired as she is my age, ( I’m 72 now.) I only remember Katie, ( that’s what everyone called her,) when she was a pre teen. Sweet kid. She was good friends with my sister for awhile when they went to school together.
The good old days with real journalist and reporters honest with their reporting. Hard to find this at KPIX these days with reporters no show using medical and family in search for love, no show reporters than bye, glad Betty is back soon and not like those folks no need to continue talking about, slacking off
ReplyDeleteOh for crying out loud, 99 percent of KPIX's personnel are on air and reporting. And there were medical emergencies then too. Remember Dennis O'Donnell? Remember Doug Murphy?
DeleteNews had meaning, people were dressed professional back then. Today it’s too much with the banter, waste of time with lot of unneccessary news, many anchors unprofessional like it’s a clown show.
DeleteThere are few folks that are still respectable & professional (dress & also demeanor) - Brian Hackney, Juliette Goodrich, Andrea Nakano, Devin Fehely, Darren Peck
I used to run into Doug Murphy all the time in Lafayette. Both of us worked in news, but I worked at KRON at the time. I would be stopping at the Quik Stop for a quart of beer and find him purchasing 5 bottles of wine. So there you go.
ReplyDeleteHe called that "breakfast."
DeleteWendy Tokuda for the Win, Alex !!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember Wendy stumbling on her lines. She was solid, especially during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Wayne Walker looked like he was always happy. I didn't know he was a former athlete until he passed.
ReplyDeleteWendy didn't become a bumble bee until she went to KRON in the early 2000s. Then she became tongue-tied and blamed everyone else for her screwups. I wrote there at the time and we were told to put pronouncers in EVERYTHING, even common words. She still screwed them up, then got mad at the writers for her mistakes. My favorite blunder among her many was "Ronald Dumsfeld." One of her problems (among many) was she was obsessed, for some reason, with composting, and would run around looking in trash cans around the newsroom for items to remove and compost instead of reviewing her scripts. Then she'd be like a dear in the headlights on air. I remember once the producer, Mike Sterling, had forgotten to write her name in the intro page of a newscast...In the boilerplate scripts it will say, "Good evening, I'm ..." and it's left blank to be filled in by the producer when he or she starts the show with a clean template. Mike forgot to write in "Wendy Tokuda," and when the show started, she said, "Good evening, I'm..." and then sat there frozen. Yeah, she was that bad. Radnich used to HATE to riff off her, the way he liked to do his "Don Rickles act," as Rich calls it, on the show. The other anchors could keep up but she would just sit there with a stupid look on her face if she didn't have something written by others to read. Once, getting out of the elevator, he bumped into me and said, "Tokuda is no good without a prompter." I said, "She's not good with one either." He laughed so hard I think they heard him on the next floor.
DeleteWendy didn't become a bumble bee until she went to KRON in the early 2000s. Then she became tongue-tied and blamed everyone else for her screwups. I wrote there at the time and we were told to put pronouncers in EVERYTHING, even common words. She still screwed them up, then got mad at the writers for her mistakes. My favorite blunder among her many was "Ronald Dumsfeld." One of her problems (among many) was she was obsessed, for some reason, with composting, and would run around looking in trash cans around the newsroom for items to remove and compost instead of reviewing her scripts. Then she'd be like a dear in the headlights on air. I remember once the producer, Mike Sterling, had forgotten to write her name in the intro page of a newscast...In the boilerplate scripts it will say, "Good evening, I'm ..." and it's left blank to be filled in by the producer when he or she starts the show with a clean template. Mike forgot to write in "Wendy Tokuda," and when the show started, she said, "Good evening, I'm..." and then sat there frozen. Yeah, she was that bad. Radnich used to HATE to riff off her, the way he liked to do his "Don Rickles act," as Rich calls it, on the show. The other anchors could keep up but she would just sit there with a stupid look on her face if she didn't have something written by others to read. Once, getting out of the elevator, he bumped into me and said, "Tokuda is no good without a prompter." I said, "She's not good with one either." He laughed so hard I think they heard him on the next floor.
Delete6:57 - that's terrible to be so dependent on the teleprompter. What exactly do news anchors do off air?
DeleteYou, 6:57, mock Wendy Tokuda for her reading skills and in so doing call her a "dear(sic) in the headlights". Perhaps, since you say you were one of the writers, she knew you didn't know basic spelling or word meanings, and was thus reluctant to read your work without caution.
Delete8:59 AM, your comment/response is one of the best I've ever seen on this site.
DeleteThank you, 657. Wendy was easily the weak link on that otherwise terrific KPIX team. I had an English teacher in
Deletehigh school that used Wendy to indicate the definition of
a redundancy. During election day, she would say, "So and
so is out ahead, and So and so is trailing behind." She was
a rank amateur.
You're right about the Princess Grace reference regarding Kate Kelly in so many ways. A natural beauty, intelligent, articulate and funny. Her resemblance was hauntingly eye turning as well. Quite a conversationalist, with a warm smile and a twinkle in the eye. Lovely lady.
ReplyDeleteHi Rich,
ReplyDeleteI work at one of the radio stations you frequently criticize, and more specifically, I'm involved in the production of one of the morning shows that you often lambaste. You don’t know my name because I'm not on air. My role involves technical operations, essentially working behind the scenes to ensure everything runs smoothly, from audio quality to transmission and managing the technical aspects of call-in guests.
My team and I have no influence over the actual content you hear our hosts and guests discuss on air. We have zero involvement in editorial decisions, subject matter, hiring decisions, and program scheduling. We cringe at the ass kissing and buffoonery just as you do. I share your sentiment that the show's quality has deteriorated rapidly, especially as of late. It’s become amateurish and embarrassing. Believe me, if you, as a listener, notice it, then we certainly do too. The frustration you feel as a listener pales in comparison to what we experience behind the scenes, as we have to endure it all morning.
However, while we all agree on the decline in quality, I wish you’d acknowledge there are many dedicated, hard-working, competent people behind the scenes, like the team that I manage, who put the show on air each day. Ironically, many of them share your opinions.
Yep, we all know yhe heavy weights are behind the scenes making it all work. Thank you for your hard work!
DeleteIf this is a KNBR worker, please help us all by lobbying for Murph’s removal. Today he was jabbering about rides at Disneyland. For Fu..’s Sake, is this to placate his little league team, of just the dolts he once played high school jv ball with?
Murphy is pure unadulterated dreck. His obsession with his own voice is pathetic. Maybe after his gig ends at KNBR he can work as a greeter at WalMart, a job for which he is much better suited.
I agree with 12:39, thanks for your work 7:57.
DeleteDon't take Rich's comments about the shows personally as he has a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater as they say.
7:57PM your post is bizarre. I am not getting this. You must be from KNBR by default as the other sports talk station now is doing better than them. Are you suggesting Rich and us commenters address your and your team’s performance from a station you don’t identify though obvious? What about the janitors who keep the toilets flushing at KNBR?; no small task there. This blog and Rich’s YouTube is mostly about the media people up front; not you people making the show go on. When behind the scenes work is screwed up like at KCBS, then it should be front and center I agree though. M Maybe the KNBR staff in charge of the strong KNBR signal in the Bay Area deserve some credit but is not your department, sales/marketing. accounting, etc. performance expected? Are we assessing total company performance? Lastly, you are preaching to the choir here but why would you put that out there with Murph and also Copes, a PD somehow and on an undeserved power trip, easily figuring out who you are? Do you think those guys don’t read this blog? I bet you are not who you say you are at the station as otherwise I guess you want to be fired taking your staff with you.
DeleteKCBS around midnight...repeat "In Depth" and then rerun of 60 Minutes. Your bay area news station...
ReplyDeleteIs Wilson Walker related to Wayne Walker?
ReplyDeleteWilson is a great reporter at KPIX so I can't help but wondering if there's a connection
i just googled both and it doesn't appear so based on their respective bios and geographic backgrounds.
DeleteSpeaking of KPIX, it'd be nice to see you interview Juliette Goodrich. Other interesting interviews would be Sara Donchey, Jessica Burch, and Darren Peck (just be sure to ask him about the multiple credible reports that he leaves comments on your site in which he both touts himself and denigrates his colleagues).
ReplyDeleteWe got an email from the big bosses that sharing certain internal information with unauthorized third parties including "local media bloggers" may represent a violation of workforce policy and grounds for termination and legal action.
ReplyDelete11:36. Good! It means you're over the target and "The Bigs" don't want their dirty laundry exposed to a third party. These idiots don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and prefer not to have their incompetence preached to the rafters from the town crier-Lieberman.
DeleteGood rule of thumb in business: don't divulge company confidential information.
DeleteThank you for sharing, Mike Mibach.
Delete12:43 PM 100% Having done corporate PR for most of my career the first thing that comes to mind is the ‘big bosses’ likely feel threatened that their own dirty laundry or incompetence is close to being exposed or at least the sharks are circling
DeleteIf nothing else this tells me Rich has influence.
Delete(and we must work at the same station, 11:36am. I was on that email. I found it especially interesting because I haven't seen any videos or comments on Rich's site that contain anything confidential or internal about our workplace.)
Delete1:18pm, this wasn't a KTVU email. A different local tv station.
DeleteHR professional here... These types of emails are almost always sent in response to a specific incident in which confidential information that could put the organization at risk has already been leaked publicly. Leaders don't wake up in the morning and send these types of emails out of the blue.
DeleteAlso keep in mind, if TV stations are owned by corporations or conglomerates, the "big bosses" in this instance may not be the local bigwigs at the local stations, but rather head honchos from corporate, in which case this kind of message may have nothing to do with anything that happened locally here in the Bay Area.
4:18 A valid point, but 11:36 made specific reference of "local media bloggers" in his received company email. I find
Deletethis very telling and they are chasing unwanted noise with this not so veiled threat.
The email basically referred to the importance of maintaining a workplace founded on trust, respect, and camaraderie, where we can freely exchange information and experiences without concern that it will be disclosed to unauthorized third parties, whether through social media or "local media bloggers." It also mentioned that we should never first hear about internal information through these unauthorized third parties.
DeleteThere was a link to the relevant policy with instruction for everyone to "re-familiarize" ourselves with it along with a reminder that this is the same policy we all signed and agreed to when we began our employment. It mentioned that certain information sharing may not only violate trust but also violate company policy and laws. This is why the email mentioned the possibility of termination and legal action.
8:59AM good point on this writer’s blunder here but how much caution did she need to take before she would realize to continue to say (from “I am …”) “Wendy Takuda”? Was it not obvious to say your name at the outset of the newscast? Not sure if it ever came out. For these anchors aka “glorified news readers” maybe there should be tests to see what they would say or not say if the teleprompter went out. Silence or no ability to recover with ad libbing is not a good look.
ReplyDeleteKPIX does Virtual Weather on Sundays like they do on weekdays. But since Brian Hackney had to fill in at 11PM, he only was able to do the old school weather (as I guessed). This will be interesting if at any time on the weekdays (rare now) Hackney fills in and operates the 3D weather set.
ReplyDeleteEasily he could have replayed Darren Peck’s pre-recording of the weather like they did on the first 2 Sundays of this year. The reason is that recording is also on the stream on the evenings (pre-recorded weather clips also for the stream).
I grew up with Katie Supple. That was her real name until she got into TV and then she changed it to Kate Kelly got obvious reasons. I used to have a crush on her older sister Debbie back in the early 1970s. I heard Debbie later became a bush pilot up in Alaska for a number of years but she’s probably retired as she is my age, ( I’m 72 now.) I only remember Katie, ( that’s what everyone called her,) when she was a pre teen. Sweet kid. She was good friends with my sister for awhile when they went to school together.
ReplyDeleteMost of KPIX's 11pm airtime is mainly on BS stories than any major news story.
ReplyDeleteI stopped watching KPIX especially at 11. NBC and KRON are still fairly decent at 11
Delete