Posted on 08/17/2010 4:42:27 AM PDT by roaddog727
Top-rated WFTV-Ch. 9 is replacing anchor Barbara West at 5:30 weeknights with Vanessa Welch.
The change takes effect Labor Day, when WFTV will launch a 6:30 newscast on sister station WRDQ-Ch. 27. Welch will co-anchor the 6:30 newscast with Josh Benson, just as they co-anchor the 10 p.m. news on WRDQ.
WFTV General Manager Shawn Bartelt said the station is making the 5:30 change to provide some flow to the 6:30 newscast. “I have the utmost respect for Barbara West,” Bartelt said. “This is no reflection on Barbara. I have to get more faces into those 90 minutes” from 5 to 6:30 p.m.
West, who has been an anchor since coming to WFTV in 1986, will continue to anchor at noon.
“Barbara covers all of our health content, and we have a lot going on in the coverage of health,” Bartelt said. “We’re focused on kids and obesity, a lot of the stuff happening in the health sphere, a lot of that is online. Barbara brings huge knowledge and resources to that.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.orlandosentinel.com ...
In late October, 2008, when the MSM was completing their coronation of Barack Obama and his comedy sidekick, Joe Biden, one TV reporter in the entire country was brave enough to ask the questions America really wanted answered, and Team Obama was afraid to answer.
Barbara West of WFTV, the ABC affiliate in Orlando had a 5-minute satellite interview with Joe Biden. Rather than lob him softballs as reporters around the country were doing, she dug into the core issues of the campaign. She asked Obama’s VP candidate if he was embarrassed by ACORN’s work for the Democratic ticket in registering voters such as “Mickey Mouse;” if Obama’s comment about “spreading the wealth” was close to Marxism; and if Obama’s plans would create a socialist country like Sweden.
Rather than simply answering the questions, Biden went ballistic. He derided West for daring to ask such questions, refused to answer some and even cut WFTV off from an interview with Mrs. Biden (such a loss!)
As we all know, West’s questions were spot on. We live in a country more socialist than Sweden with government-run car companies, government-run banks, government-run Wall Street, government-run healthcare, unemployment driven through the roof by the complete failure of government economic plans, and worst of all, trillions of dollars of taxpayer money squandered on Obama’s plans, his friends and his far-far-left social engineering plans.
To give you an idea about how spot-on her questions were, can you imagine what would have happened if Biden had been honest in ANY interview about their plans to destroy America in a socialist economic quagmire, or the President’s support of a mosque on the site of our worst national terrorist tragedy?
The station’s far-left wing management had to wait almost two years to strike back, but now they have.
West has anchored the noon and 5:30 shows for almost 20 years. Hers is the number one rated show in her timeslot by a landslide. Her accomplishment include raising more 25,000 units of blood in blood drives, raising millions of dollars for local charities, being voted the best newscast in America and winning the Edward R. Morrow Award and multiple Emmys. Her 25 years of health reporting has saved many lives. She has a history of breaking important stories. As an example of her credentials, she was the ONLY Western reporter to get into the control room at Chernobyl. 10 years after the devastating nuclear accident there.
More than anything else, her dedication was shown in what she did for the families of the firefighters and police officers who died on 9-11. While some organizations raised ten or twenty thousand dollars, Barbara rallied her viewers to contribute more than two and a half million dollars for the widows and orphans. Thank about it. When some huge cities raised a few hundred thousand dollars, in Orlando, Florida, Barbara West’s viewers responded to her appeals and raised twenty times that much! That’s how important, and how respected Barbara West is in Orlando.
In a move leaked to the local newspaper Monday, station management has removed West from her 5:30 newscast with a replacement 30 years younger. Rather than West’s experience, viewers will now get a “perky” newsreader.
If you think the station shouldn’t penalize reporters who dared ask the questions you wanted answered, that no one else would ask, and America should have known the answers to BEFORE the election, then make your voice heard. The local Obamaites crowd is having fun insulting her at the Orlando Sentinel website. Make your POLITE voice heard at http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2010/08/wftv-barbara-west-coming-off-530-news.html#comments by clicking the “add a comment” section at the bottom of the article.
She was the best broadcasting community asset there ever was, amd now they want to throw her under the bus.
She was there for us. Will we be there for her?
One MSM reporter in the entire country was willing to work hard to bring the truth about Obama to the public, and now her far-left station is trying to take her voice off the air. What will you do to help?
Can you believe this crap?
We really know that freedom of the press has gone the way of the Dodo bird.
Sheesh.
Uh, huh.
This is breaking news? Won't be for long....
Thanks! I’m somewhat “pic posting” handicapped.....
:-)
it got your attention, didn’t it?
and yes - breaking.
Or not.
Out with the old, in with the young...
It is the Iron Law of affiliate news.
Philistine......
Under President Bush,children were starving. Now under obama the same children are obese. What a wise choice the people made when they selected the messiah!
Tee hee!
yeah, well......
I tried......
yeah, and also how under his regime freedom of the press is completly squashed.
Speak truth to power and you get canned, or replaced, or demoted.
So much for transparency too.
For those interested in making your voices heard, the main number at WFTV is: area code 407, 841-9000. The switchboard opens at 9 am.
I called the news number and complained. I spoke to a young lady that assured me that Barbara was okay with this since she is being “allowed” to keep her noon time anchor slot.
“For those interested in making your voices heard, the main number at WFTV is: area code 407, 841-9000. The switchboard opens at 9 am.”
that’s a call I’ll be making shortly
Barbara West is 62 years old. This is probably more an issue of age discrimination than a political hit.
Either way, it’s just plain wrong. And discrimination it certainly is.
This is what I posted in the comments section of the article:
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell
In this sense Barbara West is a ‘revolutionary’, because she dared to ask the deceitful Joe Biden to tell the “socialist” truth. Is she one of “the last honest reporters” that Orson Scott Card talks about here?:
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? By Orson Scott Card http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-10-05-1.html
Reply Posted by: Matchett-pi | Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 9:13 AM
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2010/08/wftv-barbara-west-coming-off-530-news.html/comment-page-1#comment-105098
Trust me, no one asked Barbara if she was “ok” with this.
Here’s a great comment someone made a few minutes ago at the web site:
Barbara West has 20+ years experience helping viewers here in Central Florida. As the medical reporter, she fought insurance companies to get treatment for very sick people. She raised millions of dollars for the widows and orphans of firefighters and police officers killed on 9/11. She helped collect more than 25,000 units of blood for patients. When that phony doctor was killing patients in Winter Garden, she exposed him and saved lives. He fled to South Africa to avoid jail.
Her replacement is a “hot” blond who has a reputation around town for getting stories wrong.
If the news is good, anyone can give it to you. When the news is bad, who do you trust, Barbara West or some vapid TV newsreader?
Reply Posted by: Ted Rafferty | Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 9:58 AM
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2010/08/wftv-barbara-west-coming-off-530-news.html/comment-page-1#comment-105108
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