Blood Bath at CBS News?

[PTBoardOp94]

Source: TVJobs.com

Apparently Joie Chen, Armen Keteyian, Drew Levinson, and others have been let go from CBS News in New York. Several of the affected people were weekenders (Ira Joe Fischer, for instance) or worked for CBS Newspath.

I guess they're still paying Katie, though.

 

[MarkL]

Source: TVJobs.com

Apparently Joie Chen, Armen Keteyian, Drew Levinson, and others have been let go from CBS News in New York. Several of the affected people were weekenders (Ira Joe Fischer, for instance) or worked for CBS Newspath.

I guess they're still paying Katie, though.

Joie Chen is on the list, which makes the think about how we'll never see Julie Chen on the list as long as she's married to Les Moonves.

 

[N_D_Radioguy]

Joie Chen is on the list, which makes the think about how we'll never see Julie Chen on the list as long as she's married to Les Moonves.

I dunno... you fire one Chen and, an hour later, you're ready to fire another one.

 

[Mediafrog+]

I haven't been able to independently verify some of the names on that list, such as Drew Levinson, Armen Keteyian, Mark Knoller, Bobby Flay, and Meg Oliver. All still appear on the cbsnews.com bios page. No discussion of these people on the tvspy.com boards, which you think would be buzzing.

Some of the others have already left... Gwen Belton and Jennifer Miller were part of the Newspath cuts a few weeks ago. Joie Chen's departure happened mid-March. Susan McGinnis left in January, and is now anchor/managing editor of CleanSkies.tv.

CBS News is a mess. A sad shadow of its former self, for those of us who remember the Cronkite days. As much as I would be sad to see it happen, perhaps the much discussed merger with (or outsourcing to) CNN might be the best action to take.

 

[Markxxx]

Well CBS news never really recovered since around 1988 when Dan Rather had the interview with President Bush (the first one) and kept harassing him about how much he knew in Iran-Contra. Bush came back with a great quip about Rather holding up the news in an ego trip walk off.

Before that CBS and Rather were tops and Rather till that time, since he took over from Cronkite was number one.

Ironically though after the interview the polls skyrocketed about Bush, prior to the interview as little as 20% thought Bush was withholding facts but after the interview the polls showed 90% thought he was withholding. But shortly after Rather's rating started going down the tubes.

It showed America likes it's news anchors to be benign and spineless not confrontational. While they like confrontation in the STORIES they do not like it in the anchors.

Anyway CBS news is such a mess why not fire everyone and sweep clean. It's like our own WBBM in Chicago owned by CBS all they do is hire anchors that every other station in town didn't want. If they were any good anchors they wouldn't be let go.

For instance WBBM raided WGN and hired a lot of the anchors and when CBS went after main WGN morning anchor Larry Potash, WGN forked over the bucks to keep him. The result WGN still has the same ratings and CBS overpaid for a bunch of people that did nothing to help the ratings. They could've gotten nobodies out of school and saved a lot of money in salaries

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I haven't been able to independently verify some of the names on that list, such as Drew Levinson, Armen Keteyian, Mark Knoller, Bobby Flay, and Meg Oliver. All still appear on the cbsnews.com bios page. No discussion of these people on the tvspy.com boards, which you think would be buzzing.

Some of the others have already left... Gwen Belton and Jennifer Miller were part of the Newspath cuts a few weeks ago. Joie Chen's departure happened mid-March. Susan McGinnis left in January, and is now anchor/managing editor of CleanSkies.tv.

I suspected that this list might not be correct ... I remembered that McGinnis was long gone. I haven't watched much CBS News myself lately.

 

[jal41]

Well CBS news never really recovered since around 1988 when Dan Rather had the interview with President Bush (the first one) and kept harassing him about how much he knew in Iran-Contra. Bush came back with a great quip about Rather holding up the news in an ego trip walk off.

Before that CBS and Rather were tops and Rather till that time, since he took over from Cronkite was number one.

Ironically though after the interview the polls skyrocketed about Bush, prior to the interview as little as 20% thought Bush was withholding facts but after the interview the polls showed 90% thought he was withholding. But shortly after Rather's rating started going down the tubes.

It showed America likes it's news anchors to be benign and spineless not confrontational. While they like confrontation in the STORIES they do not like it in the anchors.

Which is why we have who we have in the White House now. I won't get into an argument in this thread, but we would not be having the problems our country is having now if people would listen to the Dan Rather's and the Keith Olbermann's and the Chris Matthew's of the world.

Anyway CBS news is such a mess why not fire everyone and sweep clean. It's like our own WBBM in Chicago owned by CBS all they do is hire anchors that every other station in town didn't want. If they were any good anchors they wouldn't be let go.

For instance WBBM raided WGN and hired a lot of the anchors and when CBS went after main WGN morning anchor Larry Potash, WGN forked over the bucks to keep him. The result WGN still has the same ratings and CBS overpaid for a bunch of people that did nothing to help the ratings. They could've gotten nobodies out of school and saved a lot of money in salaries

Read about KRON/San Francisco and see how cost-cutting works for local TV news. Replacing veterans with VJ's has led the company to bankruptcy. Also read about WGCL/Atlanta and see how incompetant management works. Putting a sexy actress as the chief "weathergirl"
with no credentials years after a changing string of management because the suits at corporate practiced racism.

On the flip side, read about WSB-TV/Atlanta and see how to run a station that works, by opening up the wallet and letting the sunshine in. Chief anchor in the same position for 33 years, and the chief meterologist (fully credentialed) and the chief sportscaster have held their positions for 27 and 24 years respectively. I don't know of any other station in the US that lets their news talent travel all over the country and the world for stories. I don't see why anyone works in another station in Atlanta.

CBS has to open up the wallet, and hire competant management that is dedicated and does not make idiotic decisions. Results will not be overnight, but the dividends will pay off if you at least try. That is what sets the WSBs from the KRONs and WGCLs of the world.

 

[notalkallstatic]

On the flip side, read about WSB-TV/Atlanta and see how to run a station that works, by opening up the wallet and letting the sunshine in. Chief anchor in the same position for 33 years, and the chief meterologist (fully credentialed) and the chief sportscaster have held their positions for 27 and 24 years respectively. I don't know of any other station in the US that lets their news talent travel all over the country and the world for stories. I don't see why anyone works in another station in Atlanta.

Yeah, WSB-TV might have anchors who have been there for many years, but when I watch WSB, I am bored to death! In my opinion, I believe that WSB ranks as the second worst newscast that I've ever seen (WNEP ranks as #1 worst newscast in my opinion.) I watch these channels and I'm bored to death. Their anchors are boring, dry and dull. Some nights, I think a monkey is punching the buttons in Production Control, because there are some bad punches. When I watch their news, sometimes I think they are talking to me like I'm a 3 year old (Oh, and by the way, what is a temperature gauge? I'm sorry, when you talk about the temperature outside, there is a name for it, it's called a thermometer!)


On the issue with CBS...I remember being a kid, and watching CBS News all the time, with Dan Rather (I remember him breaking the story about the Concorde crash, and I was crying so hard about it.) So, sometimes throwing money at things (Katie) isn't a good thing, CBS has crashed in my opinion. It's a sad sad time for CBS.

 

[Mark Giardina]

After reading numerous articles and seeing for myself what has happened to television news, both locally and nationally, all I can say is that Paddy Chayefsky was right when he wrote "Network".

 

[landtuna]

Why is Bobby Flay mentioned in a 'news' story? He was part of the entertainment part of CBS' morning show was he not?

Or maybe, while cooking brats on the patio last December, he said something like "sure is c-c-cold out here" and was made weatherman?

 

[dhett]

Which is why we have who we have in the White House now. I won't get into an argument in this thread, but we would not be having the problems our country is having now if people would listen to the Dan Rather's and the Keith Olbermann's and the Chris Matthew's of the world.

Indeed. If we would just let liars like Rather run the news and believe every word they say, there's no telling what we could accomplish as a nation.

 

[dgendvil]

Bobby Flay? That Bobby Flay? I never knew he had a job at the entertainment division at CBS. Well, at least a fired a guy who had experience over at the Food Network & elsewhere.

 

[RicoGregg]

William S. Paley and Edward R. Murrow are spinning in their graves. :-[

Good night and good luck.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Good night and good luck.

Don't you mean "Good Night and Good Grief?"

 

[Nate Wesley]

Which is why we have who we have in the White House now. I won't get into an argument in this thread, but we would not be having the problems our country is having now if people would listen to the Dan Rather's and the Keith Olbermann's and the Chris Matthew's of the world.

As it stands, we've got a political candidate bragging of support amongst White people who didn't go to college, citing it as a sign of their electablilty. You have voters who have openly demurred support for another candidate because of something stupid a church pastor said. And you have people who'd vote for certain candidate for few other reasons than not wanting a woman or a person of color in charge.

I think a better informed populace would be a much better goal than one that simply listens to a different set of popular talking heads. That way we'd elect representatives on smarter principles than preferential religious faith and "who we'd like to have a beer with".

 

[notalkallstatic]

Which is why we have who we have in the White House now. I won't get into an argument in this thread, but we would not be having the problems our country is having now if people would listen to the Dan Rather's and the Keith Olbermann's and the Chris Matthew's of the world.

As it stands, we've got a political candidate bragging of support amongst White people who didn't go to college, citing it as a sign of their electablilty. You have voters who have openly demurred support for another candidate because of something stupid a church pastor said. And you have people who'd vote for certain candidate for few other reasons than not wanting a woman or a person of color in charge.

I think a better informed populace would be a much better goal than one that simply listens to a different set of popular talking heads. That way we'd elect representatives on smarter principles than preferential religious faith and "who we'd like to have a beer with".

Sir, you are 100% correct in that statement!

 

[stilldustyvinyl]

And all this time I thought this was a TV board talking about the upheaval at CBS news?

 

[PTBoardOp94]

As it stands, we've got a political candidate bragging of support amongst White people who didn't go to college, citing it as a sign of their electablilty. You have voters who have openly demurred support for another candidate because of something stupid a church pastor said. And you have people who'd vote for certain candidate for few other reasons than not wanting a woman or a person of color in charge.

I think a better informed populace would be a much better goal than one that simply listens to a different set of popular talking heads. That way we'd elect representatives on smarter principles than preferential religious faith and "who we'd like to have a beer with".

Nate Wesley, I want to have a beer (or 5) with you, then go to church with Barack Obama the next morning

 

[pdwips]

Meanwhile, back to the subject of this thread..

Keteyian is still showing up on the air. Mcginnis has been gone for several months. Meg Oliver just gave birth and is on maternity leave.

It seems the source for this alleged "bloodbath" is highly suspect.

 

[bpatrick]

I'm hearing unconfirmed rumors that Katie
has already tendered her resignation as
CBS's main anchor. Any confirmation?

As for WSB and Atlanta news in general, some
random thoughts:

Atlanta viewers have been intensely loyal
to Channel 2 ever since it signed on in 1948.
True, Monica Pearson has been there since
the '70s but somebody's forgetting that John
Pruitt was at WXIA for about fifteen years or
so before heading back to WSB (he and weathercaster
Johnny Beckman felt that management wasn't putting
the resources into news). He also once said that he
turned down a chance to go to WKYC Cleveland, then
an NBC o&o, because he preferred that his kids grow
up in Atlanta.

As for the "weathergirl" on Channel 46, Atlanta has
a long history of them; does anyone recall Eleanor
Knight, Linda Faye Carson, or Gail Janus--all of whom
worked at Channel 11 at one time or another when that
station was screaming for anyone to watch.

In my younger days I preferred 11 to 2 but am more
comfortable with 2 as I've gotten older. However, I
see a day not too far ahead when there's going to be
a replay of what happened on WFAA Dallas: arguably
the best front four in the country is gone--Tracy Rowlett
at KTVT, Iola Johnson working intermittently, Troy Dungan
retired, and Verne Lundquist at CBS. WFAA's ratings took
a hit with all the changes. At WSB John and Monica are
nearing retirement, and who knows what the future holds
for Glenn Burns and Chuck Dowdle? We may eventually
be looking at the best chance WAGA and WXIA ever had
to be number one.