“Live in the Web Center. This is George Sells, Fox2 news.” The Web Center?!

We were going to do exactly what every pseudo-news outpost is supposed to do in St. Louis and bite on this story that some St. Louis company is going to map Ozzy Osbourne’s DNA and will undoubtedly uncover amazing truths and far too many bat head biting references to count, but when watching the clip about the story on Fox2′s site just now, something else caught out attention…

Fox2 calls a room in their office “The Web Center”.

Here’s reporter George Sells in there now doing web stuff on his multiple monitors which we can only assume doubles as a emergency NASA launch center in St. Louis when the need arrises.

I know. Its really crazy in the Web Center. Its tough to take all in. Here’s an annotated version of the shot.

That’s three monitors showing all kind of Web Centery stuff like Ozzy photos, and lets not forget the tape in the background.

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Ok this thing is a converted closet isn’t it?! It has to be. Somewhere there is a janitor pissed off he can’t keep his mop there anymore. Why go the trouble of calling this clearly random room with an outlet on one of the walls the “Web Center”…is it because this room has the good power strip?

It would be another thing if this was 1987 and this was the only room in the whole building that had the internet, but come on! Every intern in the station has a computer, making every cube in the farm a little “mini Web Center”. Hell we have internet on our phone…are we always in a Web Center where ever we go? You tell us Fox2, you’re the ones that had to get all fancy with the names for closets.

Oh wait. Is calling it “The Web Center” how you convinced George to move to the room in the basement with those boxes of Jaco Report tapes?

Oh you wacky morning shows where you leave the studio for the craziness of the hallway.  Wait a minute! Birds aren’t supposed to be out here!

Right in the balls. Always funny. Thank God the bird went over that guy though and didn’t decide to tug on anything below the belt on Randi Naughton. That would have just been awkward and then embarrassing in a very weird way for John Pertzborn.

According to local news station KTVI, Fox 2 John Gadson has been a reporter there for 10 years which is surprising since I’ve  never seen him before until this report crossed our desk. We’re starting to understand why, and so will you if you watch the video of his latest “reporting” below.

Wait. Was this about a juvenile?  I couldn’t tell if it was about a juvenile because Gadson didn’t say juvenile enough so it was tough to tell if this report was about a juvenile. Juvenile.

Something tells me that if the cameraman panned back a bit you’d find Gadson wasn’t wearing any pants…or maybe he had to bottom half of a chicken costume on. We are happy to see the man he interviewed played along and pretended he was actually involved by making up some crap about the lady “fussing and hollering”.  After this report, Gadson probably curled up on the ground under a cardboard box and when they went back to him for an update, he was taking a crap behind one of the wrecked cars.

Please tell me that this is some sort of awesome joke and the Fox 2 camera man bet Gadson $20 to do a report with his best Bill Cosby impression. I half expected Gadson to tell me how the juvenile drove his car in to a “glass, plate glass door” and then turn around and tell me to try a pudding pop. (Gadson shown below holding a pudding pop.)

Also note that at some point you can hear Tom O’neil back at the studio about to lose his shit watching amateur hour which makes me like Tom O’neil a little more than before, which is to say I now remember who Tom O’neil is.

via KTVI

Who says professional journalism is dead?  Fox2′s Charlie Marlow is out there keeping the standards high by doing what any drunk frat guy would do when a camera is pointed at him.

This isn’t so bad.  I hear there are photos out there of Peter Jennings giving the Shocker to an Asian hooker.

via InsideSTL’s Photo Gallery

For all the awesome things the internet does, one of its greatest powers is always overlooked.  ”What is this power?” you ask so this article will flow the way I want it to…  Well catching people committing crimes when they post a video of them doing it on YouTube like freaking morons!

Kyle O’Brien didn’t know anything had happened to his 2004 Dodge until he saw his car being abused on FOX 2 Tuesday night, “I’m not freaking out about it, but it isn’t that funny,” says OBrien. “I would just think a valet service at a nice hotel would have to have more responsibility.”

Someone calling himself “valet underground” posted dozens of videos on YouTube, showing fancy cars being driven to the extreme in a parking garage about six months to a year ago.

Clearly when you are valet, there are extreme steps you must take to feel like a man before going to home to mom’s house to play World of Warcraft before spanking it to old issues of Teen People.

Now the YouTube account for “valet underground” has been closed and the Hyatt is looking for a new valet company, and that guy’s car got to drive over the speed limit for once so everyone’s a winner!

A copy of the video obtained by Fox2 has been embedded below.  Its like a rap video, but with less chicks but more four-door sedans…really nice family cars.  You know its funny, all those kids rappers have but none of them drive cars that you can easily get a car seat in and out of.

Remember this post from a while back?  We found a video on YouTube of a young, mustachioed Charles Jaco (Now of Fox2) on CNN.  The commentary bookending the video says that Jaco “faked” this news report and that it was all filmed in a studio.

Lets be clear: Those views, as we stated in the post, are of the video maker’s.  Not ours.  Frankly that was pretty clear.

From the post “Did Charles Jaco Fake a Desert Storm CNN Report?“:

Found on YouTube, this clip from a 1991 CNN broadcast, with added subtitles, claims that CNN and then reporter, now Fox 2 KTVI reporter and 550AM host, Charles Jaco faked a remote, leading people to believe that they were in some hostile area rather than a soundstage of sorts.

After watching the video, I have to lean towards agreeing this this guy, but really who knows, and more importantly, no one does or should care, but the video is pretty damn funny.

We agreed it looked kinda fake, but in the end we clearly state “who knows?”.  Nothing wrong there right?  Nope….well unless you are Charles Jaco, who thinks people reporting on thing they find and asking questions about things is wrong.  Did I mention Jaco is a Fox 2 news reporter?

Last night we received this from Mr. Jaco himself:

I have just now come across a false and defamatory posting on your website from July 28, 2009 titled “Did Charles Jaco Fake a Desert Storm CNN Report”. I’m adding your email and your website to the list being sent to my attorneys.
———————

Some of you have written me expressing concern (or as one friend put it “WTF?”) about a video making the rounds purporting to show that our Gulf War coverage for CNN in 1991 was done in a studio, not in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. This email should fill you in as to what’s going on.

Others have written me to accuse me of engaging in false news coverage, and a cover-up of the truth. Many of those same people have forwarded those false and defamatory emails to others, and have linked to a website purporting to show the false coverage. This email serves as notice of legal action.

First the facts of the case: our coverage was on the roof of a hotel and military facility near the intersection of the two main runways at the Dhahran Air Base, Western Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The playwood background was erected as a guard against sand and wind storms. The clowning around on the video is just that. We used black humor to deflect the tension of covering SCUD missile assaults.

Now to the impending action: my attorneys intend to act immediately against those of you receiving this who have sent and forwarded these emails accusing me of falsifying coverage. We are in the process of issuing subpeonas to ISPs for the real names and addresses of the senders. We shall then proceed with lawsuits against those parties.

In addition, letters are being sent to LiveLink and Google (owner of YouTube) and their attorneys demanding the videos be removed.
—————–

Charles Jaco

To which we replied:

Mr. Jaco,

Maybe you didn’t actually read the post about you on Punching Kitty.com and instead just spammed every google result for your name, but we, at no times, made any claims to the validity of the video. In fact the whole post is a question as to whether the video you are referring to is legitimate.

Because of those reasons, I will not be taking down the post in question. As a reporter yourself, I would have thought that you would know that there is nothing illegal or wrong with asking questions.

As for the video in question, that is between you and the poster on YouTube and has nothing to do with this site.

I will not be bullied with emails like this, however, if you would like to post a reply or talk about this subject further than what is in your initial email, I would love to include that on my site.

I will be posting this entire exchange on my site.

Mike Flynn
Editor of Punching Kitty.com

I had pretty much no opinion of Charles Jaco up until last night at around 10p, but this really did shock me.  Could a reporter really think we did something wrong?!  Hell, even the title of our post was a question…far from the harsh accusation that Mr. Jaco believes happened.

As far as the video, if Mr. Jaco wants to contact Google/YouTube about the video, thats between him, Google and the video publisher.  According to documents on EFF.org about the legality of embedding YouTube videos, I am under no obligation to remove the video from my site until the intellectual property holder gets in contact with me, which in the case of the CNN clips in the video is Time-Warner, not Charles Jaco.

We hope that is was a misunderstanding, that upon further review Mr. Jaco will realize that we did nothing wrong in asking the question and in fact posting his email did allow him to put his side of the story out there.  We would have loved it if he would have just sent us an email telling his side without threats, which we would have happily posted here as well.  Instead he tried to bully a website he thought would bend to his will, into removing simple, innocent questions.

Remember that next time you see him “reporting” on Fox 2.

Last week we told you of our refusal to join the mafia family of Fox 2′s deceivingly effervescent morning guy John Pertzborn, and then over the Labor Day weekend we get this!

Yup, that’s another Fox 2 personality, Kevin Steincross (@KevinStx) trying to spam us in to joining his mafia family!

This means there are two distinct mafia families going on at Fox 2, both run by the most nasty, heartless men in employ there.  Don’t let Kevin’s Twitter photo with his cat, or his cries for the return of his lost Qdoba card fool you, this man is a stone-cold killer.

We stand firm that we will not bow to the pressure from either Pertzborn or Steincross to join their families, and we are passing on the “protection” they are peddling.

Now, if Rich Gould makes us an offer…well, we couldn’t refuse that.

We don’t want to be rude to Fox 2′s own John Pertzborn, but we are going to have to pass his invitation to join his Mafia family.

Confused?  We got the following automated direct message from John (@pertzfox) today:

We had to decline.  But not because we don’t love John, and his behind the scenes youtube-ing,  but because we just aren’t comfortable owing any favors to the Pertzborn mafia family.  Sure he looks nice on TV, but that guy will break your hands for no reason at all, and snap your neck if you give him one.  What you didn’t hear about what he did to Victoria Babu that one time?  She does radio now…enough said.

Found on YouTube, this clip from a 1991 CNN broadcast, with added subtitles, claims that CNN and then reporter, now Fox 2 KTVI reporter and 550AM host, Charles Jaco fake a remote, leading people to believe that they were in some hostile area rather than a soundstage of sorts.

After watching the video, I have to lean towards agreeing this this guy, but really who knows, and more importantly, no one does or should care, but the video is pretty damn funny.  This isn’t just some Daily Show-esque “remote,” they have props (a gas mask and helmet from the set of MASH make an appearance), Jaco is rocking a pretty awesome, yet understated mustache, and there is a montage at the end of behind the scenes-type clips that the author uses as further evidence.

We also get this “warning” at the end for us sheeple to wake up!  We’ll pass on your warning there Neo, but thanks for the funny video.

Watch the clip after the jump, and let us know what you think!  Does this kinda thing actually bother you?

Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m watching a King of the Hill rerun on Fox 2 the other night and I see this:

Black History Month is brought to you by what?  I mean really?  This whole premiss sounds like something from Family Guy.

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You know, on second thought.  I’m not going to touch this one.