The mysterious departure of Rhonda Lee

In what I believe is a first, I have been alerted to a change in Austin's news media by checking out the searches that led people to my blog.  Today people have been visiting my blog looking for information on KXAN weekend morning meteorologist Rhonda Lee (mentioned on my blog when she joined KXAN about a year and three months ago).  Apparently, according to her Facebook page, she has been gone for a few weeks now.

KXAN's webpage was not a great help in this area, except that their news team page has already been scrubbed of any mention of Ms. Lee.  (Her blog on KXAN's site is still intact as of this writing, though.)

The biggest help is that of Ms. Lee's LinkedIn page, which indicates that Ms. Lee is now working for News 12 Networks, a conglomeration of regional news channels in the New York City area (similar to Austin's YNN), which would explain why she is no longer at KXAN.  Strangely, though, that page says that she has been working there since 2009 (and yet correctly shows KXAN as a past employer); this blogger indicates that she left News 12 to come to KXAN last year.  Ms. Lee simply states on the aforementioned Facebook page that she is "taking a little break right now".  Curiouser and curiouser...

In any case, this seems like a rather abrupt departure by Ms. Lee.  I certainly could not find anything on KXAN's page to show any sort of goodbye for her, as rival station KVUE has done for people such as Meghan Danahey and Olga Campos (about whom I did not write because of timeliness concerns at the time).  In any case, best wishes to Ms. Lee, wherever she is.

Update Dec 2012:  I no longer really write about local news personalities (see here for why), but as I still get hits on this post by people looking for Ms. Lee:  she apparently ended up at KTBS-TV in Shreveport, but she was fired by the station this month, apparently for responding to racist comments (directed at her) on the station's Facebook page.  This page has a video interview Ms. Lee did this week about her situation.

And again, best wishes to Ms. Lee, wherever she ends up this time.

A fond farewell to Elise Hu

It doesn't seem like that long ago I wrote about Elise Hu's move from KVUE to the Texas Tribune.   Now, less than two years later, the Tribune reports, Ms. Hu is moving on, this time out of Austin:

She'll leave us in mid-February to become digital director of NPR's nascent Impact of Government project, which promises to produce excellent, public-spirited work covering state government in all 50 states. We hate to see her go, because she's been so integral to everything we've done these last 15 months, but she'll do great.

(image courtesy Texas Tribune)

Even if we didn't agree politically (or so I've heard), I'll miss Ms. Hu.  I got the opportunity to meet her when I participated in a focus group watching a Texas Republican gubernatorial debate (about which I apparently at one time intended to write), and she was nothing but professional.  If she didn't care for the conservative leanings of the candidates, it never showed that night.

Ms. Hu wrote about her upcoming move on her blog:

I wasn’t (and am still not fully) ready to leave our baby, or my real-life friends that helped build it, or the city that quickly became my home. I prefer Austin’s four seasons – mildly hot, medium hot, sauna hot and surface-of-sun hot – over actual seasons. But I decided to take this leap into another public media unknown because I’m sold on what a special opportunity this is to grow and learn, and on NPR’s commitment to being on the cutting edge of web journalism, which is of highest importance to me.

Now, I know I don't agree with the political leanings of NPR, and I've written about the future of public broadcasting previously, so I won't go into any of that now.  Right now is a moment to congratulate Ms. Hu on her new position and wish her all the best in Washington.

And so, best wishes, Elise.  I have no doubt you'll do well.

Best wishes, Meghan Danahey (and other weather-related stuff)

Friday, June 25 (that's yesterday, as of this writing) was Meghan Danahey's last day at KVUE.  As Dale Roe and Jim McNabb reported on Monday, Ms. Danahey is moving to South Carolina to be closer to her fiancé, for which I certainly can't blame her.  She'll be replaced on weekday mornings by Albert Ramon, who will in turn be replaced by former KVUE weekday morning meteorologist Ilona McCauley, thus reminding me of a comment I once made about revolving doors for weather teams.

KVUE, bucking the trend among stations nationwide of scrubbing their sites of any mention of anyone who leaves pretty much the moment they're out the door, was nice enough to create a nice little page saying goodbye to Ms. Danahey.  Featured on the page is her last minute or so on the air, complete with a cake that apparently the station got for her.  That clip follows:



While Ms. Danahey was known for delivering the forecast every weekday morning, she apparently also found time to (according to her public Facebook page) practice her golf and travel across the world.  She also dabbled in Latin dance, as seen below.  :)



Now, while I heard quite a bit about Ms. Danahey's departure from KVUE, I heard little to nothing about Mary Lee's departure from KXAN last month.  Ms. Lee apparently traded doing weather on the weekends in Austin for doing weather on the weekends in Houston, specifically, at KPRC. 

Best wishes to both Ms. Danahey and Ms. Lee as they move on to bigger and better things.

(Aside:  KXAN, in a move that may confuse the occasional viewer, replaced the departed Mary Lee with Rhonda Lee on weekend mornings.)


Slightly unrelated:  I still occasionally get hits on my blog from people wondering whatever happened to former KEYE meteorologist Megan Campbell (last mentioned on my blog about a year ago here).  In the interim, she apparently went to station WVLT in Knoxville, where she, in very short time, became chief meteorologist there.  And, very quickly after that, she apparently decided she didn't enjoy doing the long-distance-relationship thing with her husband, and so, according to this Knoxville source, she is now back in Texas, where her husband, a pilot, is based (I guess...the source wasn't totally clear, but why else would she move here?).  So, perhaps we might see her return to Austin television at some point?

Yet more changes to local news

For those who keep up with that sort of thing, two Austin stations announced some changes affecting their news departments. Thankfully, neither announcement seems to involve any staff cuts this time.

First, KEYE gave out more information regarding its soon-to-begin 4pm newscast. As usual, NewsMcNabb beat me to getting it posted, so I won't go into detail. I will, however, note that with the moving of Jason Wheeler to the 4pm newscast (with Michelle Valles), Austin native (and genuinely nice person) Katherine Stolp has been promoted to anchor the weekend newscast. Congrats, Katie.

Then, KXAN announced (courtesy Dale Roe of the Statesman) that it would start airing a 9pm half-hour newscast on KNVA (the CW Austin), to be anchored by Shannon Wolfson. This is designed to provide an alternative to the hour-long Fox 7 News at 9. (It should be noted that this schedule change contradicts the previous fall schedule sent out for the CW Austin, so who knows what this means for the four or five local people who watch MyNetwork TV.)

In general, I see these changes as good (for once). What's your take?

Cox Media to Keep Statesman

After, what, a year of trying to unload the Austin American-Statesman, Cox Enterprises decided that none of the offers it received for the paper were good enough and has withdrawn its sales offer. The Statesman's own writeup of this development may be found here.

I suppose that with austin360.com and whatever other online presence the Statesman has, perhaps it is in a better position that places like, say, The New York Times, which, I understand, is kicking around the idea of charging for online access again. Because, you know, that'll keep people coming back, just like it did when they tried TimesSelect a couple of years ago. Oh, wait...

I'm still not certain that newspapers in their current form will survive much longer, but I guess that remains to be seen. Obviously some are in better shape than others.

Elise Hu to leave KVUE

(Note:  if you came to this blog entry after January 2011, you will find more recent news about Elise Hu here.)

Count Elise Hu as the latest journalist to join Evan Smith's new Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune, once it starts, promises to be a force in Texas with investigative reporting, specifically in regard to politics. (More info on the Texas Tribune here, courtesy the NYTimes. If you haven't signed up to be notified when the Tribune launches, it'd be worth it to do so.) Ms. Hu, currently known as KVUE's "Political Junkie", will be leaving that position in late August to move to the new venture.

So, congrats to Ms. Hu on the new job (and further congrats on her very recent engagement).

Oh, look! It's time for another KEYE weather team shakeup

I'm not sure, but I believe KEYE may have installed a revolving door for their weather team.

Less than a year after rudely shoving chief meteorologist Byron Webre out the door, and just a couple of months after Megan Campbell left for Knoxville (which I missed...was that her choice?), the station has now annouced (and you've already seen, if you watch KEYE news) that Mr. Webre's predecessor, Troy Kimmel, will return to their weekday evening newscasts.

The Statesman, as mentioned in the previous link, was unable to get confirmation regarding what will happen to the previous occupant of the weekday evening weather chair, Susan Vessell, who moved from mornings to replace Mr. Webre. I have heard whispers that she may return to mornings, but no real confirmation of anything, well, at all.

So, if we at the Snowed In blog hear anything...then you'll probably have already heard it elsewhere, given my current frequency of updating this thing.

Edit: Jim McNabb reports that Ms. Vessell is not going to be around KEYE much longer. Best wishes to her.

The American-Statesman listens to you...for a price

Let's see, it was almost exactly a year ago when the Austin American-Statesman decided that a good way to save money was to stop printing the Show World (their TV section). After a whole lot of bad publicity and negative comments from angry subscribers, the Statesman has decided to bring Show World back from the dead.

Today, I received the following mass-produced letter:

Dear Snowed In:

When you spoke, we listened.

And it only took a year!

Beginning March 8, your favorite television guide, filled with program times, channels and details, is back in its starring role every Sunday by request only for an additional 25¢.

Let's see, you've already raised the daily price by 25 cents in the past year...why not do the same to the Sunday paper? (Answer: because it just might not get the enthusiastic response y'all at the Statesman expect to get.)

To sign up today, call [snipped] or go to statesman.com/showworld.

Thank you again for sharing your feedback. We appreciate the opportunity to continue to meet your news, information and entertainment needs.

Best regards,

Harry C. Davis
Vice President of Circulation

Oh, yeah, waiting an entire year to respond is really meeting my needs, thanks. And what's with the sending me this anyway, given that I cancelled 11 months ago? Is this supposed to make me come rushing back?

With all that said, I do utilize the daily's webpage. It's not bad. (It's not stellar, but it's not bad.) But the print edition, in my opinion, is quickly becoming obsolete.

2009: The Year in Preview

With a fair amount of snark and very little foresight, we present the year in preview. Let all the other media outlets cover 2008 in review; that's easy. (Heck, the Chronicle just wasted an entire issue on it. Useless as usual.)

So, without further ado:

Jan 5: Texas crushes Ohio State 30-13 in the Fiesta Bowl.

Jan 8: Oklahoma and Florida underwhelm in the FedEx BCS National Championship Game, with OU winning 9-6. Texas supporters hope for some love from the poll voters; unfortunately, both Texas and Oklahoma fans are frustrated when, due to a main BCS computer running an unprotected version of Internet Explorer, Caltech is named the national champion.

Jan 14: Brian Williams interviews wannabe New York Senator Caroline Kennedy. The hardest question asked is "How will you support President-Elect Obama's policies?"

Jan 20: President Obama is inaugurated. Time Magazine immediately names him 2009 Person of the Year. Sean Hannity broadcasts live from an undisclosed location, where, he announces, he will remain for the next four years.

Jan 21: President Obama announces that due to the BCS mess, implementing an NCAA Division I-A college playoff must be the top priority of the Congress.

Jan 22: After an attempted filibuster by Sen. John Cornyn, Congress awards the 2008 national championship to USC. C-Span and ESPN cover the event in a rare joint broadcast. C-Span's switchboards remain jammed for the next three days. Bob Stoops and Mack Brown both file to run for Congress in 2010.

Jan 25: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin gives the first of what is to be many policy speeches, which are broadcast via YouTube and other video sharing sites. Today's well-spoken seven-minute speech on reconciling economic recovery with environmentally friendly projects, gains 16 YouTube comments within two minutes of being posted. Eleven of these consist entirely of "First!" while the other five all state, using the exact same wording, "Sara [sic] Plain [sic] is to [sic] stupid to be govenor [sic]!"

Jan 27: Sean Hannity, from his underground bunker, interviews Caroline Kennedy, who abruptly breaks off the interview when he asks, in quick succession, what public experience qualifies her for this job, and with what parts of the Obama Doctrine she disagrees. Media Matters goes ballistic.

Jan 28: President Obama gives his first State of the Union speech. He states that due to the recession, he will not push for an immediate end to the Bush tax cuts. In the following five minutes, Daily Kos, DU, and Burnt Orange Report servers all melt down due to overuse.

Jan 29: Time Magazine retracts its Person of the Year award from President Obama.

Feb 1: The New York Giants beat the Indianapolis Colts 24-23 to win Super Bowl XLIII, helped greatly by Eli Manning's final pass of the night, which bounces off three helmets, two feet, and the back judge before being caught for a 55 yard gain by...Eli Manning. The play is reviewed, and referee Walt Coleman announces that after further review, that play was, in fact, pretty awesome.

Feb 2: Congress immediately takes up a bill to name the Detroit Lions as Super Bowl champions.

Feb 13: President Obama announces that via executive order, he is implementing a 50 miles-per-gallon requirement for all NASCAR races.

Feb 15: The 51st Daytona 500 is run, with all remaining participants (Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr, and others having thrown their helmets to the ground and walked off in disgust) racing on mopeds. Jimmie Johnson wins anyway, but few people see it, as Fox had cut away six hours prior, believing they could get better ratings by burning off the remaining episodes of "Do Not Disturb".

Mar 3: Jennifer Kim announces her candidacy for Austin mayor via robocall.

Mar 9: The Employee Free Choice Act is passed. A threatened filibuster collapses when Colin Powell announces that the Republican Party should be more like the Democrats in order to succeed, and John McCain immediately votes for cloture.

Mar 10: By 9:16 am EST, all Walmart stores in the U.S. have been completely unionized. Reports of intimidation are ignored by most media outlets.

Mar 12: Andrew Sullivan writes that he believes that Piper is the true mother of Bristol Palin's baby.

Mar 17: Walmart announces a 100% price increase and the closure of 583 stores to offset the huge amount of concessions forced upon them by the union. Most local businesses raise their rates along with Walmart and then immediately complain that Walmart is still using predatory pricing to push them out of business.

Mar 23: The Federal Reserve, in a desperate attempt to stem the tide of the ongoing recession, completely loses its head and lowers interest rates to -0.5%. 45 minutes later, Ben Bernanke regains his common sense and fixes the error. However, it is estimated that approximately 133 million mortgages were refinanced during that time period.

Mar 30: Capital Metro opens the Red Line. All four morning news shows send a reporter to broadcast live from the first rail car. Unfortunately, no one else is riding, which leads to the strange sight of Quita Culpepper and Kate Weidaw interviewing each other.

Mar 31: The Austin American-Statesman announces its yearly circulation figures are up 59% from last year. As usual, these numbers are based on their March circulation numbers, which are inflated by "saturation". (That's what it's called when you get a paper in red plastic without having subscribed. If you're like most people except me, you get one every day in March.)

Apr 2: A local construction worker discovers 4,379,239 Austin American-Statesman editions in red plastic in the basement of the 360 building.

Apr 9: President Obama appears in San Francisco to sign a bill passed by a heavily divided Congress to raise excise taxes on all vehicles getting less than 100 miles per gallon by 500 percent. After acknowledging the cheers of the crowd, he gets in his 23-car motorcade for the ride back to SFO, where Air Force One and two other planes are waiting to return him to Washington.

Apr 17: Rick Wagoner appears at House of Representatives proceedings two days late, riding in on what appears to be a Schwinn with a flat tire. Congress immediately votes to give GM $23 billion.

Apr 24: The latest spring blizzard in Texas history gives Houston its second blanketing of snow this winter. Coincidentally, Al Gore appears at the Toyota Center to speak about climate change.

May 1: Multiple experts state, as usual, that 2009 will feature an "above-average Atlantic hurricane season".

May 9: Jennifer Kim is elected mayor of Austin with 67 votes after a campaign run almost entirely using automated calls telling people to "vote for Brewster McCracken on Sunday, May 10th".

May 24: Due to recent regulations, the Indianapolis 500 is run on tricycles. The race is called with no winner after 17 hours. The family of the leader at the time, 4-year-old Danny Anderson of Bucksnort, Tennessee, argues that he should be declared the winner, or at least be allowed to stay up after his bedtime to finish the race.

May 29: Judy Maggio announces her retirement from broadcast news, effective at the end of June. About 0.3 seconds later, KEYE names Michelle Valles as her replacement. (This one's probably really gonna happen...trust me.)

Jun 23: Andrew Sullivan writes that Sarah Palin is not Track Palin's mother but his older sister.

Jul 7: The Austin American-Statesman, still desperate for a buyer, annouces that to conserve costs, they will no longer publish a Wednesday paper. "Nothing happens on Tuesday anyway, right?" remarked an unnamed Statesman executive.

Jul 21: The 6-Minute War begins and ends when the member nations of OPEC, still reeling from collapsing oil prices, suspend all oil production whatsoever. They quickly reconsider after no less than 42 nations declare war on them. On this news, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded spikes up to 72.9 cents per gallon.

Jul 26: Lance Armstrong wins his eighth Tour de France.

Jul 27: L'Équipe announces that Lance Armstrong must be doping because "no one's that good, right? Right?"

Aug 3: Hurricane Ana is finally spotted in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. All network news programs feature experts attributing the lack of named storms this year to irrevocable climate change.

Aug 8: A struggling NBC announces that, to save money, John Madden will be replaced as Sunday Night Football analyst by Frank Caliendo. Al Michaels resigns in protest and is replaced by NBC with...Frank Caliendo.

Aug 30: The Austin American-Statesman announces that they are laying off all paper carriers. Subscribers are now asked to come to their respective distribution center to receive their paper.

Sep 3: NBC causes a stir when they cut off a hotly-contested New York Giants-Dallas Cowboys Thursday Night Football game at 10pm EDT to go to Jay Leno. "A contract's a contract," Jeff Zucker states.

Sep 22: Two weeks after the 2009-2010 television season starts, MyNetwork TV announces that they are cancelling their entire lineup and replacing it with reruns of "Press Your Luck" and Juice Tiger infomercials. Their ratings triple overnight.

Oct 5: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her role in bringing total and unilateral disarmament to the Middle East. Meanwhile, Vice-President Joe Biden is spotted by the press at a local Burger King.

Oct 14: After hand-counting every senatorial vote in the state six times and dealing with lawsuits from both Norm Coleman and Al Franken, the state of Minnesota finally announces that both men are to be deported to Iowa, never to return. Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich contacts Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, inquiring as to whether he would be willing to appoint him senator in exchange for "certain favors".

Oct 16: The Austin American-Statesman announces that, in an attempt to save more money, they will no longer use "silent letters" in their words.

Oct 26: Andrew Sullivan writes that he is a better woman than Sarah Palin is. Right-wing blogs explode, all coming to the consensus that maybe Andrew Sullivan is a better woman than Helen Thomas, at least.

Nov 1, 8, 15, and 22: Congress is deadlocked trying to determine the NCAA Division I-A weekly rankings. C-Span gets its highest ratings ever.

Nov 3: Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns from the U.S. Senate to prepare for her 2010 gubernatorial run. Governor Rick Perry's office is instructed to refuse all calls coming from the 217 area code. Unfortunately, no one else in Austin is aware of any of this, as it occurs on a Tuesday.

Nov 14: John Kerry resigns from the U.S. Senate, announcing that he has sold his seat to Rod Blagojevich.

Nov 22: Chris Matthews comes under intense scrutiny for continuing to deny he is a candidate for Pennsylvania's Senate seat while going out of his way to talk down all announced candidates.

Dec 12: The Austin American-Statesman announces that for its next "saturation" period, non-subscribers are also expected to come to the distribution center for their papers.

Dec 16: Due to sagging ratings, NBC restructures its weeknight lineup to include only showings of "It's a Wonderful Life" and Jay Leno.

Dec 17: Time Magazine names Andrew Sullivan as its Person of the Year 2009.

Dec 29: Cox Newspapers finally announces a buyer for the Austin American-Statesman. Readers are excited about the possible change, until the buyer is determined to be the Austin Chronicle.

Dec 30: After achieving an overnight rating of 0.9 and finishing behind "Press Your Luck" the night before, NBC replaces the nightly airings of "It's a Wonderful Life" with a nightly "Countdown to Vancouver" Olympics news show, to air from 8pm EST to 10pm EST (with Jay still at 10:00). They go on to achieve a 0.8 rating the next night, finishing behind not only the Juice Tiger infomercial but also that channel on the cable system in Plano, Texas
that shows the fish swimming around to music.

Dec 31: The Austin Chronicle rolls out its new replacement for itself and the American-Statesman: the biweekly 16-page Austin Chronicle-Reporter-American-Pioneer, which will be sold to subscribers for $4 per week. Several nearby plastics companies report large orders for red bags.

Valles to KEYE

I certainly didn't see this one coming: Michelle Valles will be sitting next to Fred Cantu on weekday mornings, starting Wednesday. Congrats to Ms. Valles on her new gig.

KEYE Lays Off Talent

KEYE, in a continual attempt to improve its news ratings, probably isn't going to help itself by unceremoniously letting several people go, including Byron Webre and Elizabeth Dannheim. I don't believe Mr. Webre is still on the air this week (yeah, I wasn't watching KEYE either), but I felt bad for Ms. Dannheim, as she had to go on the air this morning knowing that she was being forced out. And she remained chipper as ever.

KEYE, with this cost-cutting move, is showing itself to be not much better than pretty much every station in Dallas. Sure, they have the right, but they also need to consider their viewers.

Update: Mrs. Snowed reports that Byron Webre did appear on KEYE Thursday evening. He, however, did not look very chipper.

Statesman Owners Give Up

Cox Enterprises, owners of the American-Statesman and a bunch of other media outlets, has apparently given up on the failing daily.

I personally like this gem of a quote, from their article about themselves:

"The decision was made as part of an ongoing strategic review of our portfolio and enables us to maintain our strong and stable financial performance by further paying down debt," Cox chairman and chief executive Jim Kennedy said.

Roughly translated, this appears to mean: the papers we're unloading are hemorrhaging money like there's no tomorrow, and we're going to squeeze what little value is left out of them by dumping them ASAP.

Well, gee, I don't see why the Statesman hasn't been more successful in recent years. Let's see, just this year they've tried reducing the amount of features (to the annoyance of many), and when that didn't help revenues enough, they went ahead and raised the daily price 50%. And, surprisingly, that seemingly didn't help them to get more subscribers either.

Here's hoping the new owner figures out how to produce a quality newspaper that people still want to read. Cox apparently has forgotten this.

Update: Hello statesman.com! Really, I bear you no ill will, but you gotta admit, you're right up there in the bad-PR department with Capital Metro these days...

Update 2: Story's been pulled from statesman.com. This is a hunch, but it may have been due to the not-so-civil discussion that erupted in the comments.

And comments I've seen in two places now have expressed the hope that McClatchy will buy the paper. Is McClatchy better than Cox? Or are newspapers a dying breed regardless of who owns them at this point?

Update 3: Story has reappeared.

When "Green" Equals Annoying

KXAN's 6:00 news highlighted Office Depot's new location at 2620 W. Anderson Ln. for what seems to be a rather annoying way to be environmentally friendly. There wasn't a printed story I could find on the station's website, but the video is at kxan.com, where you can see that this new location, in an effort to be more green, reserved several spaces near the entrance for low-emission or fuel-efficient vehicles.

Look, I'm all for more low-emission or fuel-efficient vehicles for those who want them (I'm driving my paid-for beater into the ground, thanks), but this is ridiculous. It's also a misinterpretation of the LEED standard (which, conveniently, is online). LEED, as you may or may not care, stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. On the whole, it's a great idea. Unfortunately, its implementation is not always smooth, often due to points of compliance which are vague and difficult to understand.

For example: it was stated in the news story that setting aside parking in this manner was to obtain LEED certification. That's all well and good; there is, in fact, an optional credit (4.3) in the standard that mentions providing preferred parking spaces for alternative fuel vehicles. Unfortunately, this credit also requires that the facility provide alternative fuel vehicles for 3% of the building occupants. I sincerely doubt whether Office Depot went out and bought a hybrid vehicle for anyone.

In its story, KXAN spotlighted a mother driving several children in a van who was none too happy to have to walk further because she was driving a minivan. And, really, she shouldn't have to be penalized in this way...a van with four occupants gets more passenger miles per gallon than one person driving in a hybrid. And, guess what...credit 4.4, which Office Depot apparently did not pursue, involves providing preferred parking for carpools or vanpools, into which category the miffed mom in question would have fallen. (To be fair, the credit also requires that no more than the minimum number of parking spaces be provided, and I don't know if Office Depot had total control of that, given that they are, if I'm not mistaken, sharing that parking lot with a lot of other facilities.) As it was, the mom stated that she felt unwanted at that particular location.

Of course, there is always another option for those who don't qualify for the golden parking spots near the door: the OfficeMax at Gateway Plaza is less than 2½ miles away.

And by the way, KXAN...if I'm watching online news video at your website, is it really necessary to force me to sit through a 15-second ad for the site I'm already visiting?

It's Come to This (Part 3)

Wow, the robocall story went a lot further than I thought it would...let's see, the Burnt Orange Report picked up the story, followed a day later by News 8 Austin, at which point Jennifer Kim finally admitted her campaign was behind the calls. Then, the floodgates opened, and everyone was dumping on Ms. Kim, from Randi Shade to the police and fire organizations, and it became the first question in KXAN's debate.

Did all that make any difference? According to KVUE, the early voting and the election-day voting went pretty much the same way (though, to be fair, early voting was still in progress when the robocall story broke). So, maybe a didn't make much difference in the voting. However, according to the Chronicle, it also appears that Ignite Consulting (owned by Kim consultant Elliott McFadden) never had a permit for robocalling and didn't even apply for one until after the "Lisa" call went out. So, if nothing else, that should serve as a warning to someone.

It can also serve as a warning to you: the application (available through the KVUE link above) also absolutely confirms the use of the phone number 800-441-0704 as its method of communication. (Cue all my readers, who currently number well into the single digits, to block that number from calling them.)

But forget all that: Lisa has been found! As it turns out, Lisa is a friend of a friend. Apparently she was concerned that she might face some of the fallout from the call. Thankfully, Ignite is the party possibly facing some serious penalties, not her. But I hear she'll be a little more careful accepting her scripts in the future.

Oh, and congratulations to Ms. Shade on winning the Place 3 seat, and best wishes in the coming three years.

The American-Statesman Becomes Even More Irrelevant

It's fairly well known that newspaper readership is declining. So, if you are the Austin American-Statesman, what do you do? Apparently, you remove one of the last reasons to subscribe. Though their website has no mention of it (that I could find), Sunday's issue of Show World (their TV section) was its last.

Honestly, Show World was one of the last things the Statesman had going for it, as it was by far the most convenient way to get program listings for those of us without an interactive program guide. TV Guide was no competition, what with its having discarded local listings a few years ago.

The announcement that Show World was going away offered several "convenient" other options to get TV listings, which I will list in the order of helpfulness, from most to least:

• "Evening listings will be available every day in Life & Arts." Great. What if I want to know what's on at 5:00?
• Online: You can customize your listings at http://austin360.com/tvlistings. That would be convenient if my computer were anywhere near my television. But it's not. (Sure, you can print them out, but now they've shifted the cost of printing the listings to you.)
  
• E-Mail: They'll send you a link to the listings. See previous item.
• Phone: Like I'm going to call the Inside Line and listen for four minutes just to find out Fox 7 is showing American Idol again.
• Fax: Yes, you can have listings faxed to you. Like all your junk faxes don't use up your ribbon fast enough. No thanks.

With the departure of Show World, I can now get pretty much everything the Statesman offers elsewhere:

• Comics: here or here (with the bonus of old Bloom County strips)
• Sports: virtually anywhere
• Recipes: not that I'm looking, but lots of places
• Voter's Guides: picked one up at the library Saturday.
• Coupons: I might miss a few, I suppose, but most of what is in the Sunday inserts is for products we don't use anyway.
• Way-too-politically-slanted cartoons: the Austin Chronicle, of course.
• Way-too-politically-slanted opinions: again, the Chronicle, most notably Louis Black's regularly-appearing column, "All Republicans Are Evil and Want to Eat Your Children".

So, I'm really not sure what the point is of continuing to subscribe to the Statesman. And, as an added bonus, maybe I'll watch less TV.

Update 2/25/09: Oh, look, the Statesman brought it back. Kinda.

News 8 Austin: the new local leader for lousy weather coverage

Finally, Jim "The Sky Is Falling!" Spencer has some competition in the area of bad local weather coverage. Last night, as a torrential downpour with what had to be 50-mph winds was falling on far south Austin (and during which the winds changed direction 180 degrees), Maureen McCann over at News 8 Austin blithely showed downtown Austin, in which no rain was falling at the time, and spoke about how all the rains had now passed through, and everything was fine. She never showed a local radar at all during any of at least three "Weather on the 8's" segments I watched, so I had no way of knowing if the rain I had previously seen on KVUE's radar approaching the city was going to come anywhere near us. (It didn't, but we had no way of knowing that.)

Congrats, News 8, on losing my trust.

Way to listen to your viewers, KVUE

KVUE's 10 pm newscast tonight (which we watched with the sound off) featured, as did every other newscast in the country, Paris Hilton's return to jail. Right after that, some poll results appeared on-screen stating that 83% of the respondents did not want to see any Paris Hilton stories on any KVUE newscasts.

So, KVUE producers:

1. Why had you just shown that story?

2. If you were going to show the story regardless, why give people a poll to make them think their opinions counted for anything?

Fact-Checking KEYE

This morning on the KEYE Morning News, Elizabeth Dannheim spoke about one of the Columbine victims, and at the end of the story, she said that Columbine was the deadliest school shooting in history until Virginia Tech. Apparently she, or someone at KEYE, completely forgot about a little incident at UT in 1966.

I suppose I should just be happy that Ms. Dannheim is reading the news, rather than having one of the 3-minute chat sessions with Fred Cantu and Susan Vessell that has for some reason become a mainstay on the KEYE Morning News recently.

Overkill Ice Coverage

Yes, it's icy. We all know that. But it certainly isn't necessary to stay on the air forever telling us about it. (This mostly applies to KXAN, which stayed with the same weather coverage for upwards of twelve hours yesterday while I was watching, but the other stations seem to be just as bad.)

Maybe it's just me, but the coverage of "Ice Storm '07", the "Big Chill", or whatever other names they now have for this, reminds me too much of MadTV's "Windstorm '97" spoof. That's probably not where news directors should be getting their inspiration...