Abby Acone and Taylor Winkel must have a lot of time on their hands while anchoring the weekend morning news on Fox 13 Seattle. Incidentally, Acone is a prolific Instagram poster using her station's studio to emphasize certain ideas, behavior which seems to be continually ignored by her bosses. Posts on a personal handle is one thing, but again, here, the anchors are using their studio to dance. Credibility killer. Thoughts?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQUoeMEEsuM/?igsh=c2F1M2J2a3oya3Bv
I don't recall Acone doing any of this cringy nonsense when she worked at KOMO. Fox 13 and KOMO are very different stations, but expectations of professionalism for people in the news departments shouldn't be.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunately a trend. A tik tok side affect.
DeleteThat makes sense. While TikTok was certainly gaining ground in the social media scene during Acone's time at KOMO, it truly became mainstream by the time she moved to Fox 13.
DeleteTik Tok is popular now, but these sorts of singing/dancing videos are not used by most news professionals, especially using the studio as a backdrop. News bosses can determine that they violate conduct clauses in their anchor contracts if they’re so inclined. The management at Q13 must not mind. I’d want my staff to be taken seriously, personally, but to each their own.
DeleteActually, the TV studio singing and dancing videos are increasing around the country. FTVlive.com publishes them quite often, largely because they are often leaked to the site by disgruntled colleagues, not the anchors themselves. They certainly hurt credibility and if they have time for these shenaniganss, they presumably have time to take a second look at scripts, check facts, spelling, etc.
DeleteYou would think network management wouldn't approve of this behavior, but then again, even ND Jake Wiederrich could hardly care less about what his employees did off-air. They gave Abby more airtime (five minutes!) announcing her engagement to her soon-to-be wife than they did about the homeless situation in Downtown Seattle or another smash-and-grab robbery. As for Taylor, she's perhaps the weakest anchor and reporter in the Seattle market. She has such a flat, monotone delivery in her standups out on the field and on the anchor desk. I won't watch a newscast when they're treating it like a slumber party.
ReplyDeleteWinkel came at a low price for newscasts NOT on the main channel. It's a weak weekend team with Acone, but, again, it's a duopoly play with no promotional support anyway. Fox will likely muscle up the show again on Sunday prior to Hawks playoff as they did this past Saturday with Mirey Gracia and Brain MacMillan on set to minimize Winkel, who never sells any copy at all unless its dogs, cats or babies.
DeleteI will say that Garcia is far too preppy and artificial in her presentation that comes off as nails on the chalkboard. She can be good at reading the prompter, but if there was a breaking news story, Garcia doesn't have that sense of urgency to convey or sell it, which is why is more suited to something light like Studio 13. MacMillian has great energy and passion when it comes to his weathercasting, but it comes off like a Walter Kelley imitation (and Walter was one of a kind), so when there is a Pineapple Express or a bomb cyclone, it is bouncy-bouncy for my tastes. It is like waking up to a Richard Simmons exercise program. I know morning shows are supposed to get people prepared for their day and such, but it just seems that this presentation is better suited for radio and not television.
DeleteI agree that MacMillan is over the top exuberant about everything, too much for the morning, but they brought him in to counter the veteran Rich Marriott at K5 and to top the energetic and long-running Nick Allard at KOMO. And if you look at KOMO with the high energy George Waldenberger in the mornings, who holds the land-speed record for running thru his forecast, you can see the nature of the competition. In the evening, it's the battle of the blondes vs. Morgan Palmer. Not criticizing, just the fact of the matter as to what seems to work.
DeleteDoes Acone have some dirt on Fox 13? That could be how she is getting away with this crap. Though I am not a Winkel fan, I would have expected a bit more professionalism out of her.
ReplyDeleteFOX 13 must have paid quite a bit to pluck Abby away from KOMO and am sure one of those "perks" was to get more airtime. She has filled in for Brian on the morning weather and Adam on the traffic report at times, and just when you think her social postings couldn't get more bizarre and get a reprimand from management, what do they do? Reward her with an anchor spot instead. Winkel is hardly the "professional" type. She was a waitress who just got plain lucky. Why not get Nikki Torres and Dan Griffin to anchor weekends instead? At least they got more of that creditability than Winkel and Acone combined.
DeleteI don't think Fox is too concerned about the weekend mornings on the duopoly channel or who the anchors are. It's a spot inventory play without putting news on the main channel. Perhaps they are groomng Acone for the main job on those newscasts going forward, especially with all these attention-getting IG and social posts she is doing.
DeleteMost Q13 viewership occurs when someone loses the remote control and can’t shut off the TV.
ReplyDeleteI regularly read FTVLive, and regularly see TV studio singing and dancing videos being featured there. I'm glad someone is calling them out as they are quite unprofessional. That being said, I can't help but wonder sometimes if it would be better if they weren't featured as much. Starve them of the attention that they seek to get but certainly don't deserve.
ReplyDeleteYes, not good to feed the egos, but showing them is supposed to make the bosses take action. Doesn't seem to be working that way.
ReplyDeleteSadly not. Sometimes, they do get taken down. But it does seem lately like more and more of them aren't.
ReplyDelete