MediaMaven

I hate to harp on this Live Desk concept at Fox 13, but it is unwatchable.  I tuned in on linear (KJZO) at 1:30 and watched until 2:10  Friday (I will never get that time back, alas) in hopes of seeing something good and useful.  Instead I see 4 or 5 segments of news show title graphics edited together for a full 1:20, apparently because of continuing problems with going from streaming to live TV.   The half-hour started with a 5-7 interview joined in progress with two people talking about dead and damaged trees, so viewers are going in cold.  That was followed a couple of packages thrown in as filler with no interview or reporter supers, and only reporter sig out.   Then the last interview of the half-hour was badly upcut at the end.   I decided to stay with the program when Matthew Smith took over at 2, but it was full of repetitive copy with looped video, strained ad-libbing, and Smith repeatedly using the word AGAIN, to recap facts f...

Yes, that was a baseball pitching joke.   "Exciting news to report, Austin has received and accepted a full scholarship to play baseball for Bellarmine University , a Division One School in Louisville, Kentucky. They have great academics, a great campus, and a baseball program on the rise that plays in a very competitive conference with non-conference games vs schools like Tennessee, Louisville, LSU, and others! Exciting times!"  PS...Atlantic Sun Conf and mascot is KNIGHTS.  (The More ou Know!) PPS. Congrats on 25 years at KOMO for anchor/reporter Michelle Esteban.

Jade Elliott takes an Employee of the Month bite out of Apple Valley News:    https://x.com/JadeElliottTV/status/1943746614377820573?t=zJNHXetFhfa5NwhjWFxLnQ&s=19

  Tegna, owner of KREM in Spokane, has agreed to pay a $220,000 fine because a porn clip showed up in a monitor during a weather segment.    Here's a link to the story from The Desk: https://thedesk.net/2025/07/tegna-agrees-222000-dollar-fine-fcc-newscast-spokane/?utm_source=mailpoet#038;utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=News%20Alert I have jokes, but not going there.

From The Athletic; Linda Cohn will be anchoring some SportsCenters as well as doing features and special projects for ESPN. She'll now be doing that in Connecticut following the end of Los Angeles-based SportsCenter. She will be much farther away from Seattle to be a part of the Kraken Hockey Network come fall.   So we will have to wait for an update on her status with Ian Furness and Alison Lukan.  She tri-anchored a handful of home games last year.   Hockey fanatic.

Pardon me for not knowing but is this graphic up because the same material has already begun streaming and this is a linear lag catch-up?    Worse, when the anchor came back they show pages from the Fox 13 website.  So, let me see, a live desk showing station website pages to catch up on stories???     Now, at one point, the show switches to recorded Studio 13 Live . Then a recorded weather and then an interview recorded from last night done by Hana Kim.  Jumbled.  Disjointed.  Not Live.  Not clean execution at all Poor Matthew Smith looks very uncomfortable, confused, uncertain, very!   Trying to be conversational, but it's not in his wheelhouse to handle what appears to be minimal scripting.   Smile once, brother. Welcome folks in.  This is new.   Again, too much too soon. One hour a day...grow it.  Get Matt strong coaching.   My two cents.  

Ok multitaskers out there.   In case you haven't stopped everything in your day to watch Fox13+ on KJZO, here's a couple of screens you get to see.  Wanted to get a snapshot. 1. Matt Smith (demoted from a #2 evening anchor for this??) at the desk covering news on the ratings-challenged duopoly channel. 2. Time, weather temps and conditions top right 3. Two small boxes in right margin with Fox Live Now and Fox Weather being shown at times with people on camera speaking with no audio.  Can't hear it or even read it the lower thirds. 4. A second pic below of a  Mayor's ceremony swearing in the chief with all that going on.   Ok, first time here. Way too busy, IMHO Bloomberg-ish.   Nice concept but it seems to be on from 10:30-4 which seems like overkill.  But life is about choices, right?