Want to know something that REALLY grinds my gears? When a news story begins with "we must warn you that this footage is hard to watch" or its derivatives.
It really grinds my gears since it just proves how much our society is full of sensitive morons who get offended over ANYTHING and EVERYTHING!
My mom usually watches Independent station WHDH, owned by the Miami-based Sunbeam Television Corporation. This company also owns WSVN (also branded as 7News) in Miami, and WLVI (CW56), licensed to Cambridge, (as a duopoly, two stations licensed to different cities, owned by the same company). Sunbeam is known for its tabloid-style journalism, with an emphasis on hard-hitting stories involving crimes and the like. This style of journalism was pioneered by former WSVN news director Joel Cheatwood, who would later help Rupert Murdoch start the Fox News Channel.
But today, while watching the opening to 7News First at 4, something stood out to me. The opening Breaking News story today was that "graphic surveillance footage" featuring rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs was found and sent over to CNN. The anchor actually said "Breaking first at 4, graphic surveillance video shows..." and the reporter covering the story said "It's shocking to watch". But after saying more info, he says the "we have to warn you, blah-dee-blah-dee-blah" thing, as if the words "graphic" and "shocking" weren't already enough of a warning.
But I've come to a theory as to why they gave that redundant warning. Two words.
KEKE.
VENCILL.
Ever since she joined 7News back in 2023, they've given that warning to stories containing just a teensy-weensy-itty-bitty-puny-woony amount of violence.
I've seen a story consisting of a fistfight consisting solely of MISSED PUNCHES, and they gave a wonkily added "this video is hard to watch" RIGHT as it was shown.
But back to today, THEY SHOWED THE VIDEO TWICE BEFORE THE REPORTER GAVE THE UNNEEDED WARNING, RIGHT AS THE ANCHOR SAID "GRAPHIC SURVEILLANCE VIDEO"!!!
Shows me that their news operation has gotten worse ever since Keke started at 7News. I guess Sunbeam has been tailoring their newscast footage content criteria for her needs. I can imagine her opening a story about a homeless family getting passes to Disney with a graphic content warning.
I'm glad NBC dropped their affiliation with 7 and started an owned-and-operated station in the area.
Keep in mind they are owned by the company that pioneered the "if it bleeds, it leads" approach to journalism and was an indirect inspiration to the launch of the Fox News Channel.
WCVB Channel 5 (an ABC affiliate, owned by Hearst) rocks, since it has former Fox 25 personalities (primary anchor Maria Stephanos, chief meterologist Cindy Fitzgibbon), a talented sports team, featuring none other than Japanese-American sportscaster Naoko Funayama, who is known for helping translate for Dice-K during coverage of the Red Sox's 2007 World Series win, since the pitcher's translator was struggling from a severe case of jet lag. She gained national attention from this legendary move. Furthermore, Funayama-san originally worked at Channel 5's sister station WMUR Channel 9 (Manchester, NH, also an ABC affiliate) as a sports reporter before her careers at the New England Sports Network, NBC Sports Boston, and NBC's Tokyo 2020 Olympics coverage. The latter makes a lot of sense, considering her heritage, and since she is also a good interpreter, considering what she did in 2007.
But enough admiring of a legend, and more talking about the main subject. Channel 7 has been going downhill since Keke Vencill arrived, and as a result, other stations should take notes if they plan on hiring her. She's also trying to manipulate Inside Edition on doing the same thing, since it airs on 7 as well. They cancelled 7News at 7 in order to acquire it from Channel 5. That's right, they PULLED A BOSTON 25 in order to get "the CBS Evening News at home" to lead into Extra.
If you don't get why I specifically said called it "the CBS Evening News at home", it's because the show is produced and distributed by CBS Media Ventures.
But I guess 7 wanted a national news show to compete with the actual CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and ABC World News Tonight. But WFXT seems fine not having one. Okay then?! Besides, WHDH was the FIRST station in the area to have a 7pm newscast, before WCVB added one before their local 60 Minutes-like newsmagazine show Chronicle.
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