Posted on 08/22/2011 1:00:45 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
Jim Walker, a veteran local television anchor with more than 25 years of experience on air, was cut loose at the beginning of August after just a year at WBBH, the NBC affiliate for Fort Myers. And just like his former colleague Craig Wolf, who was fired from the station in March, Walker is not going quietly.
Walker took to his Facebook page to express his distaste with the station’s decision, noting that he would not disclose the details of his confidential separation agreement. According to The Fort Myers News-Press, Walker wrote that the broadcasts he helms — 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. — have all gained year-over-year viewership. Walker also shared his gloomy view on the “brutal business” of local television:
I’m not angry or depressed, but more disappointed. I expected I would retire here. I expected to have years for viewers to get to know me, and me them. Television news is a brutal business and as the pie gets smaller and smaller, stations are going to get more desperate with salaries getting smaller and people working harder and harder. [Anchor and reporter] talent is getting younger and younger because older, experienced people aren’t willing to work for $25k per year. Television news is dying a desperate and ugly death.
Is he right?
idunno but I heard once that the liberal media always eats its dead. Apparently, it must do so before being eaten by them.
Who did you vote for Jim?
So Beck was ahead of the curve again... Funny, My guess is Mr Walker thinks Glenn is a loon. How is that hopey changey working for ya now Jim....
What passes as News on TV is nothing more than infotainment programing. Has been for years.
The days of $ 1 million salaries for TV weathermen are long gone...nobody’s being “forced” to work at a TV station..if they don’t liek the $$$ beign offered..quit...
I cannot even remember the last time I sat down and watched the Network or Local news.
In Sacramento it was KCRA that was #1 in ratings and their “news” coverage was pretty bad. They’d have “Breaking News!” about one of their advertisers opening a new location or having a sale or some such. It was blatantly clear thay they sell advertising time during the newscast. The other stations in Sacramentio were actually *worse* so I just would watch FOX or go on a local forum for news.
The only reason to watch local news IMO is cute info-babes.
It could be argued that there has never been objective news reporting, on TV, radio, etc...
The main reason it’s dying is more and more people are recognizing ‘news-reporting’ as nothing more that propaganda.
Also, TV is set up as ‘information distribution’: a one-way flow of info. By that definition, it is NOT a form of communication - requires 2-way flow, input/output.
Communication is vital to the health of a single-celled organism, a relationship, a community, a people.
Thus, FR and posting boards are 2-way...
as well as call-in talk radio.
Those are communicative, and thus, thriving...
until the overlords shut us down.
Cheers!
WE only look at local news if there are tornado warnings. Network news never. Only Fox and lately its starting to look like CNN lite.
“What passes as News on TV is nothing more than infotainment programing. Has been for years.”
I agree. The “reporting” is shoddy at best. I can’t tell you how many times Mrs. Henkster & I watch a newscast, they run some “story” about some BS going on, and it’s choppy, poorly put together and when it’s done we look at each other and ask “What the hell was that all about?” Or as another example, here in Central Indiana we had a tragedy at the State Fair where the stage collapsed and killed and injured people. Yes, it’s a bad thing. But the story has been beaten to death and I’m tired of hearing the same story regurgitated in a slightly different way every single day.
No wonder they are losing an audience.
And all of it is leftist propaganda. Has been for decades.
I dumped TV in 1997. Whdn I am exposed to local tv news on occasion, I notice the same thing, regardless of the city: they speak to the viewers as if we were third graders. And it really is universal.
Less news at 11:00.
The only reason to watch local news IMO is cute info-babes... I like to look at them and declare “ THAT one is tighter than a mouses ear”. Others, I just stare.
Local news shows — haven’t paid attention to them in twenty-five years or more. Even then I could see how biased, politically correct and frankly irritating to watch they were. They always had to have a racially “correct” mix of news readers, an irate, bombastic sports guy and a weather guy who made the simplest summer downpour into a catastrophe. Not to mention Democrat Party propaganda that is always presented as legitimate news. Have the local “video at eleven” news shows changed now?
Even the local newspapers are beginning to really suck like the local TV and radio. I get more real news and opinions on the internet, without all of the “filters” someone puts everything through before printing or reading it on TV. They brought it on themselves, and I wish them no mercy.
Same here. My TV set has been just a DVD monitor since then but whenever I am visiting someone's home and they have TV news on I am shocked at how bad it is now, just car crashes, Lefist propaganda and Lady Ga Ga stories.
Not too long ago a lib NYT reporter wrote some shock-laden article angry that things have gotten soooooo bad even for journoz of the vaunted NYT that SOME of them can’t EVEN afford to live in MANHATTEN..!
It was like that’s some kind of RIGHT.
If many more jobs of guys like this were taken by english-hating brown people, you’d see AH-64’s buzzing around thick and fast, blotting out the sun down on the border.
If structural readjustments happens to drywall contractors OH FINE, but let just one hair get bent on a guy like this, and then the screaming REALLY starts.
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