Newscaster with an accent?

[vchimpanzee]

It's actually a soft AC station (WMNI) that has a stock market update every hour. Today, the woman giving the stock market update sounds like a housewife or waitress from Brooklyn. I halfway expected to hear her say, "What, you're not married yet? Oy! My next-door neighbor has a son who's a doctor you should meet."

 

[KMan]

Remember when Paul James was doing network news (last stop was doing evenings on the ABC Information Network in the early 2000s)?

For those of us listening on the west coast, his NY accent was pretty thick.


Sharon Mittelman, who did a decade at CBS Radio News as a reporter and fill-in anchor had a Chicago accent.

 

[CTListener]

It's actually a soft AC station (WMNI) that has a stock market update every hour. Today, the woman giving the stock market update sounds like a housewife or waitress from Brooklyn. I halfway expected to hear her say, "What, you're not married yet? Oy! My next-door neighbor has a son who's a doctor you should meet."

A New York accent isn't a bad thing for a financial reporter. CNN had Myron Kandel and his thick accent delivering market updates for years while you couldn't tell where most of the other on-air people were from.

 

[KMan]

Remember when Paul James was doing network news (last stop was doing evenings on the ABC Information Network in the early 2000s)?

For those of us listening on the west coast, his NY accent was pretty thick.


Sharon Mittelman, who did a decade at CBS Radio News as a reporter and fill-in anchor had a Chicago accent.

I forgot two CBS legends ... the late Lou Miliano who reported and anchored for CBS with a thick New York accent, and Mark Knoller whose voice is so shot today he hasn't filed a radio report for nearly ten years, covers the White House with a crazy thick accent.

 

[Kemosabe]

I forgot two CBS legends ... the late Lou Miliano who reported and anchored for CBS with a thick New York accent, and Mark Knoller whose voice is so shot today he hasn't filed a radio report for nearly ten years, covers the White House with a crazy thick accent.

Speaking of CBS, the late Quincy Howe had a peculiar Boston-based accent—a blend of Yankee, Harvard, and broadcast elocution. (Mr. Howe left CBS in 1947 for ABC.)

 

[raccoonradio]

Sean Hannity has said that when he went to be a talk host, first in Atlanta and then nationally, he was told to lose his "Noo Yawk" accent.

 

[landtuna]

"When I was in school I ran with kid down the street
But I watched him burn himself up on bourbon and speed
But I was smarter than most and I could choose
Learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news"

-Don Williams "Good Ole Boys Like Me"

 

[CTListener]

"When I was in school I ran with kid down the street
But I watched him burn himself up on bourbon and speed
But I was smarter than most and I could choose
Learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news"

-Don Williams "Good Ole Boys Like Me"

My favorite Don Williams song! I was living in Arkansas at the time that was a hit and most of the Little Rock and Memphis newscasters I'd watch had shed their Southern accents -- at least the male ones had. The female anchors, by and large, were allowed to keep their Mid-South twang. I remember chuckling about KATV Little Rock anchor Tonya Beane's typical Arkansas pronunciation of Baptist as "Bab-dist."

Now that I think about it, the "six o'clock news" referred to in the lyrics was probably the national network news, as the songwriter, Bob McDill, was from Beaumont, Texas, where -- as was the case in Arkansas -- the local news came on at 5 p.m., followed by the network news at 6. That was the way things worked on Central time back then, and probably still do now. The best-known national anchor, Walter Cronkite, never completely lost his Texas accent, though.