For those of you who may not have heard, WMAR-TV in Baltimore, where I worked for 13.8 years, has elinated all anchors from newscasts as part of the Scripps mass layoffs there and elsewhere and its swtich to AI produced and hubbed shows. It's only the next sad step of this evolution and I had a chance to weigh in for a column written today by Leslie Streeter Smith in The Baltimore Banner, a Pulitzer-winning paper born to compete with the now Sinclair-controlled Baltimore Sun. Submitted for your approval, with some scrolling: In the nautical sense, an anchor is a heavy metal device that, when used, holds a ship in place. In journalism, a news anchor does the same job, as the grounded support that holds down all the moving parts around them, from the meteorologist to the field reporters. So what is a television station without anchors? WMAR-2 , an ABC affiliate owned by E.W. Scripps, is now figuring that out. They laid off more than a dozen producers, photographers and anchor...
Well, I know all of you Seahawks fans watching KOMO Sunday were on pins and needles to know when the opening game will take place, but this is ridiculous. Just an absolute insult to any of the team's fans, 60,000 plus fans who have tickets and thousands more set to watch. Not 10 seconds, Not 10 hours, Not 10 minutes. TEN DAYS! Whose idea was this? Fox has the game! Same person who won't give Menino a riser with Hussion on mornings. Management gone awry as usual.