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What was the Worst TV newscast y'all could remember watching?

Growing up, we would watch KHSL Channel 12-Chico, CA just for the laughs. It was actually like watching Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was something all the time. We just waited because we knew something funny was about to happen.
 
ABC 30 St. Louis. They had Ken Brockman on the 6 o'clock news. Oh wait, that's right, ABC St. Louis doesn't do news :D ;D.
 
By far the worst newscast i have ever seen was Martinsburg, West Virginia's now defunct WYVN-TV's "FOX 60 News" ( 1991-1993 ).

It wasn't so much their on-air staff that was the issue but rather the severe money troubles the owner ( Flying A Communications ) was facing. By the time WYVN filed bankruptcy in 1993, the last few months of their news was about on the same level of quality as someone taping a newscast in their living room using a camcorder. For example I remember this female anchor ( who was very good BTW ), dressed in black against a black background and she was Black. Since WYVN was only using one spotlight ( and a very dim one at that ), add that to the other technical issues WYVN had, the only thing the viewer really saw were the whites of her eyes and teeth.

Between that and those "please buy time on our station" ads that WYVN aired throughout the day, the entire station was painful to watch.
 
I would have to say WNEP TV-16 in Scranton, PA. Their news reporting is average, their news writing is at a 3rd grade level, but what really drives me crazy is the production of their news. It's just down right painful at times, with technical goofs, either the director punching the wrong camera, lots of black on the air, anchor looking at the wrong camera, tapes not rolling (so you get to see the tape in standby,) mics being clipped, the list goes on and on with the technical mistakes.

Sometimes it's like watching at movie featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Not to mention the controversy back in '05 when their morning "meterologist" (who should of been fired years ago) joking suggested (ON AIR) to the female anchor (who was pregnant at the time) that if he were her boss he would make her choose between her career and motherhood. She became upset and walked off the set during the commercial break. This isn't the first time that he has done something that almost got him fired.
 
Worst newscast?

WDHN channel 18 (ABC) in Dothan, Alabama ... hands down.

Dunno how it is today, but in the early '90s it was laughably bad. The guy who did the voiceover intro sounded as if he was trying to imitate that "balls of God" voice heard on rock concert promos in the '80s. "NEWS WATCH EIGHT-TEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!" The lighting was terrible, shadows were everywhere, and more than a few times, crew would walk in front of the camera.

The anchor at the time -- and also the ND -- had a slight lisp and sounded VERY south Alabama (as I understood it, the anchor didn't want to be on-camera, but the station refused to pay a separate news director). 18's only saving grace at the time was its sports anchor (name escapes me). It was funny seeing a two-shot of them ... the sports guy dwarfed the anchor!

Wished I had the wisdom of rolling tape. Back then I didn't want to.

The other station in Dothan (WTVY-4/CBS) was little better. WTVY has since been sold and has a better on-air look, however last Summer when I was in southwest Georgia for a weekend I watched their newscast and this poor anchor obviously didn't know how a tally functioned. Twice (!) I saw her addressing the wrong camera for as long as 20 seconds!

It was quite the contrast with nearby Albany, Ga. Dothan and Albany are about 75 miles apart, similar in size. Dothan has the edge in the way of economy and overall quality-of-life (Albany is basically nasty and decrepit) ... however Albany's station (WALB-10/NBC) is on top of its game. Very impressive newscast and production values for its size.

--Russell
 
I can tell you the worst serviced news: London England in the late evening. BBC had its evening news at 9pm, and at 9:25pm they split off to their regions for a 5 minute local news update. London, lumped together with the South East of England, had someone in a broom cupboard reading stories, sometimes with footage, often without. It's improved now: main evening national news is now at 10pm and local news goes on for 10 minutes. London is now its own BBC region, having split off from SE England, and has its own news studio. In any case the BBC's main regional news is around 6-6:30.

Then again the BBC has its gems: Nationwide being one of them. It ran in the 70's and early 80's and people still complain about its demise. Remember NewsCentral with local and national bits interspersed in one newscast? The BBC was doing this in the 1970's but slightly differently: there'd be national news for 5 minutes, cutting then to regional news for 20-25 minutes, and then back to national news afterwards but the regional feeds would be reversed... national control could decide that the North West had an interesting local story to share with the nation so that story was brought to you by that regions' newscaster. Nationwide would also make a point of putting on some light hearted news, the famous ones being the skateboarding duck and the drunk snail.

And then I moved to the States. Local news coverage is better here than in the UK TV-wise but presentation-wise some leave me wanting. My local WFMY was stuck in a timewarp for ages and still to this day I hear a bad echo on their newscasts - something wrong with their studio? The weirdest newscast I've seen here was when visiting someone in southern GA - watching the Fox affiliate out of Albany, GA... now that outfit probably was the inspiration of the film Anchorman... presentation was dodgy, the newsreader sat at an angle to the camera (but faced it) and the set looked it was stuck in the 1970's. This was in 2000 so things may well have improved by now since I haven't been back since.

Mark.
 
I remember the WNEP incident very well that notalkallstatic had mentioned. I think my jaw hit the flo0r when I saw that one.

Now for my nomination, I'd like Y'all to Consider CTV Late News here in Ottawa Canada. It's taped, and it's pretty obvious that it's not live. I remember one night watching, the news started, then went to a commercial break, then they ran the ending of the show that was on at 10, then started the newscast over again. There was a half hour of national news that was ran between the show they chopped up and the late local news. The technical errors are left in, including parts where the microphone isn't turned on, the newsreader lo0ses track of where she is in the script. It just seems like a 4th grade class pretending to do a newscast could do so much better. I don't understand why this is the number 1 newscast in Ottawa late nights. The only other competition at that time does such a better job. I know lots of stations tape a late night newscast, and there are few exceptions they do run a live newscast at 11:30, mostly on weekends, but if you're going to tape it, at least edit out the mistatkes before you air, or record a better take.
 
How drunk WAS that WOUB guy? How much longer did he last?

Much more recently I have to nominate the perennial number one newcast in Dayton, OH..WHIO Channel 7, when they were having computer problems. One 11pm newcast had tapes being miscued or not running at all, the same promo running over and over, none of the weather graphics working, and finally they ended the newscast early.
 
I've been to a lot of places, and seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Nothing tops what I saw on WOAY Oak Hill, WV in 1976.
The anchor didn't wear a coat or tie, just a rugby shirt.
It was mostly him, over a blue background, and a few packages from ABC News.
Oh, he also did the weather and sports.

Ten years later, I was passed over for a job there during one of the lowest points of my career. A few weeks later, I was hired in Atlantic City.

West Virginia is a wonderful place to live and visit. It has some exceptional TV stations.
And to its credit, WOAY literally rose from the ashes.....after a 1977 fire that burned the station to the ground.
 
I think you'll find that nearly every local newcast in the 70's sucked. The big sideburns, tacky suits, big hair and porn star mustaches were too much, even when it was in style. It looked just like they did in that movie "Anchorman" Also they never seemed to be able to get the film right. It would either be the wrong film, the sound was gone or they wouldn't have the film at all. It would alway's leave the anchorman holding the bag with the camera on him looking very unconfortable and after a few seconds he would look annoyed and say "Wer'e sorry, we are having "techincal" difficulties. (translation-screw-up) Another thing that always killed me about local tv is that they never could figure out how to work the sound board. When the other anchor came on they would have his microphone wide open to the point that it sounded like it was being fed through a guitar fuzz box it was so distorted. And of course you can't forget. No matter how advance modern electronics and sound equipment has become, the weatherman's microphone seems to never work and you hear him waaaay in the background while he is doing the weather. What I can't figure out is why televison seems to always use those cheap sounding clip-on microphones on every show. Why can't they get themselves a decent mike that has a wire attached that actually works, or hang a good one from the ceiling. David Letterman has that big fancy microphone on his desk that is only a prop. He beats on it with a pencil constantly and you never hear any tapping. Johnny Carson always used an overhead mike and you could always hear him fine. You also didn't hear that annoying rustling sound from the clothes.
 
flytrap said:
I think you'll find that nearly every local newcast in the 70's sucked. The big sideburns, tacky suits, big hair and porn star mustaches were too much, even when it was in style. It looked just like they did in that movie "Anchorman"
Click to expand...

Harold Greene - who spent many years in Los Angeles mostly on Eye Can't Get A Witness News - was the inspiration for the character in anchorman based on his days on the San Diego. The film's producers - probably wishing to avoid paying money to Greene - deny that but naming their Green-based character after another color - Burgundy - and giving him Harold's trademark hair and mustache from the 70's is more than coincidence. Check out this San Diego newspaper article: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040704/news_mz1a4anchors.html

As for the worst newscasts? Well, despite the slew of awards he won later in LA (are local Emmys basically a longevity award????) Greene's San Diego newscasts made me cringe and convinced me as a young age that local TV news did not give a darn about the facts. I was working for a local news service that provided contract news services to various local TV stations, primarily focusing on city hall and the courts. So many times I would call something in to one of the TV stations (there was no fax or email in those days) and carefully spell it out in detail - only to turn on the news at six and hear it mangled beyond belief. I'd then call the assignment desk to let them know about the error(s) but I don't think they ever once changed anything. And of course the high-paid anchors - who depended upon the $5 an hour newswriters for everything - had no clue. Somehow I found that more troubling than when I lived in far northeast Montana in the early 70's and we watched the one-man North Dakota TV newscast where a guy in a leisure sit sat in front of a cement block wall reading the wire service copy and running the occasional piece of black and white film that was sent to him by some PR firm that knew he and other ultra-small market operations were desperate for footage since he didn't shoot any locally. That operation was funny at times, but it was big-city Harold Greene's who've made me distrust local TV news for more than 30 years.
 
I think it was either 1982 or 83? Former NBC anchor/reporter the late Jessica Savitch. Had this awful meltdown doing an NBC Newsbreak.
 
upstate29651 said:
Hands down:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=z1bCMWLFKWo

G
Click to expand...

Give this dude a break, guys. This is a PBS station run by Ohio University. This was probably this guy's first and last weathercast! It would be interesting to know if this guy got back in the saddle again, or if he's doing the real meteorological stuff with the NWS.

My worst experience (and most entertaining, MAN I wish I still had the tape!) was back at my first station in '98. Brand, spanking new director, who also had to TD his own show. He TD'd a few 6pms and 11's, but never called. Of course, vacation fill in for the regular director, and this was the morning show. For the first time in her twenty year career as the morning anchor, she overslept! It's market 112, so it's just her and the meteorologist, who's never anchored a newscast and knew NOTHING about scripts. So, ten minutes before show time, no one can get the anchor on the phone, and the producer is giving the meteorologist a crash course on script/teleprompter reading. I'm running tapes (3 Beta SP decks) and Master Control. THIRTY SECONDS before show time, she shows up and right into the anchor chair... with no IFB. Show starts, punches her up, and NO MAKEUP! She looked like death warmed over! Then, she just starts reading... out...of....Order! The producer's lost, the director's lost, and I can see from the rundown that she's bouncing around from story to story. I'm trying to tell the director what story she's on and what deck the tape's in, but he can't hear me. He punches up the wrong tape, a deck that wasn't loaded yet because she had already done the story that was previously loaded, supers the wrong graphic, etc. etc. When they FINALLY get to weather, the director punches up the hotel camera (overlooking the river) with no graphics, then punches up black, then goes back to the hotel camera with currents, and sits on that for about....four minutes (or it felt like)! The entire time I'm trying to tell him to go to break and we can get this sorted out in the break, but nope. Speaking of which, we finally go to break, sit in black for twenty seconds, and when he does punch them back up, you see the meteorologist attempting to help the anchor with her IFB! And, the maylay(sp?) all starts over again! About the "C" block we were all straightened out. But, then the next half hour started (which is pretty much a rehash of the first half hour, news-wise), and the circus started all over again. This time, I could follow her a little bit better, and the director had calmed down enough he could follow me a bit to get some of the right tapes with the right story on air.

I went in the control room during one break, and scripts were thrown everywhere. He really looked like he was going to run out of the station, never to come back. But, he stuck it out and became a really good director. I lost touch with him, but I'm sure he's still doing pretty well, wherever he is.

I've seen other meltdowns, pieces of sets fall, and noises distract many that were on air, but this lasted an entire show! It took the cake in my book.
 
...then there was the time that WLRE/26 (now WGBA) in Green Bay picked up Independent Network Newsjust after their first sign-on and decided to add a local headlines segment with Bill Cole (former "Dialing for Dollars" MC on WFRV/5 in the early '70s) as the local anchor. They had him sitting in front of an unlit bare studio wall, and he was handling the thing as if it was another "Dialing" segment. "Awful" doesn't begin to describe the results, and WLRE dropped Cole's segment pretty quickly...
 
In terms of technical quality, it would have to be KXGN's "Montana East" newscast. The first time I saw it, it was a Wilford Brimley-looking fellow in an ash gray sweatshirt sitting at a table in front of a curtain reading the local news. No set, no graphics, no bells, no whistles. The next night, it was the same guy, only this time, he's wearing a suit.

In all fairness, however, given the market (Glendive MT), I give them full marks for trying.
 
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