Community Comment

Saturday morning news… oh dear.

Posted by Dave

Dec. 19, 2009 8:41 a.m. • 8 comments

Good morning, Netizens…

O Lord, please spare me new news reporters at KHQ-TV! It seems like every two weeks (somewhat exaggerated, but not by much) news reporters and anchors at KHQ change, which means just as you were getting used to their brand of news on Saturday mornings, since they offer the only news available in lieu of kiddee cartoons, what you see is what you get.

The latest import, Jennifer Rohrar, seems to follow the logic that apparently rules how personnel are chosen at the station. They must not know anything about Spokane issues and news and they must have TEETH. Extra points are given if they can correctly pronounce the word Spokane.

Oh, my word. There is hardly a sentence that goes by but what Mz. Rohrar doesn’t exhibit a set of whitened monster chompers that would do an angry wolverine justice. This isn’t your typical good morning smile, no way. It is a baring of the fangs, and it takes place about every 30 seconds or when there is “dead air” time. It’s reflexive: if you don’t know what to say, simply flash your pearly whites, giggle and everything will be okay.

What is unfortunate is that I cannot recall who preceded Mz. Rohrar at KHQ. I gather the folks at KHQ don’t really care about establishing long-term relationships between the studio and their audience, even on
Saturday mornings when the kiddies monopolize the television to watch cartoon shows. Otherwise why do they continue to change news anchors as if they were old socks?

Or perhaps KHQ is already atop the national trend: nobody gives a crap about mainstream news these days.

Dave

Eight comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Roger_Young on December 19 at 10:17 a.m.
Where is Nadine Woodward? KREM2 recently acquired a new pretty talking head also.

For the local news media its all about ratings. They are hard pressed economically to keep them escalated at all costs, by which they then can charge the most for the advertising dollars.

It is a dog eat dog in the News Anchor and radio personality business. Their employers mantra is, “you will have a job until I can find someone better and cheaper to replace you”. A carreer in that business can be counted in single digit years and not decades.
omaha on December 19 at 11:32 a.m.
Dave wrote: Or perhaps KHQ is already atop the national trend: nobody gives a crap about mainstream news these days.

This is definitely the case with newspapers, just look at the numbers.

What I find interesting about local television news is that they run a lot of local stories from other places. They will run a story about a murder in Florida or a car crash in Ohio. Oh, and the animal stories are ubiquitous.
Diana on December 19 at 4:41 p.m.
It’s not about news or journalism anymore. The local stations have taken their cue from Fox and CNN.

Fembots reading what is written for them.
omaha on December 19 at 7:56 p.m.
It ain’t just the women, the men are a bunch of mimbos that are as stupid as a box of rocks. This is both on a local and national level.

I really object to the anchors being the stars of the news. The NBC Nightly News with Brian Dumbnuts. Go see the title to it here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/

Or take Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. She once played a male prison guard in an Austin Powers movie. And she calls herself a serious journalis?. See the title here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/eveningnews/main3420.shtml

I recall recently seeing CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Celebrity Jeopardy and he got waxed by Andy Richter. He went into Final Jeopardy way in the hole. I know answering trivia questions on Celebrity Jeopardy doesn’t mean you are smart; however, being in the news profession you tend to see lots of facts and information and you’d think someone like Wolf would retain a bit of knowledge.

The profession is a joke.
ChefGus/ John Olsen on December 20 at 7:50 a.m.
The early morning crew at KHQ with Shelly Monahan, and weatherman ?Dave Maupin have been stalwarts for years.. It is of great interest that when the Russian Journalists were here they “rebelled” at the thought of going to observe the morning show slot Mary had arranged… ie “its pap etc etc” from the Professional Russian Journalists… when it was pointed out that all of the national morning news was pretty much the same format..they decided that an inside view of how/why would be ok…

I’d point out that a fair amount of “content” for this newspaper is also of little import to Spokane…. car crashes and murders in Des Moines or Kansas city etc…. just filler a lot of the time, while serious reporting such as the Mobius Mess goes little noted till a courageous detective outed the nefarious skirting of all the state’s open meeting laws… john
richard on December 21 at 8:49 p.m.
Journalism has only itself to blame for the perceptions people have. A profession which was once given credibility is now ranked at the bottom of the heap …right there with lawyers and politicians and used car salesmen.

And I think people are being unfair to the used car salesmen; they are just trying to make a living.

I can hardly wait for the pillars of journalism to crumble and fall; only then will it be able to rise from the ashes to once again be the watchdog over government, to report on facts and issues people need to know about … all without the personal editorializing we so often see with reporting.
skigirl82 on January 03 at 11:12 a.m.
I like how you criticize Ms. Rohrer yet you can’t even spell her name correctly. Nicely done. Ana Cabrera held that spot before her for four years so I wouldn’t call that high turnover in the world of TV news. If Ms. Rohrer (or anyone else on the news) was unattractive and had bad teeth you would be complaining about that as well.
Dave Laird on January 03 at 2:20 p.m.
Good afternoon, Skigirl82…

A slight correction here… if a news anchor was unattractive and had bad teeth, but she could responsibly and capably report the news… ALL THE NEWS… and could accurately report the same, I would never complain, no. In fact, I might even celebrate their ability to handle the news. Stop and think about it a minute. Was Walter Cronkite attractive? How about David Brinkley or Chet Huntley?

In my time I have seen (and heard) good news anchors. Ms. Rohrer isn’t it.

Dave