Though calling this a “Hot Topic” seems a little strong, local NBC affiliate KSDK has announced their move to kill all the fun of day-time reruns and instead bring us nearly a full day of news and “news-like” programming for a city that pretty much only has the Cardinals, the Rams, murders, and tornados to cover. It seems pretty clear that the sheer amount of murders to cover in a given day necessitated the new-centric schedule, but we’ll let them tell you about all the great people they have.

Our new fall lineup reaffirms this commitment that local news in St. Louis is our first priority. We’re very lucky here at NewsChannel 5 to have a wealth of veteran, on-air news talent. We want to build these new newscasts using that experience and journalism we’re known for. We’re making some new additions, as well as making a few changes that take advantage of that overall experience.

Here’s the new schedule:

Right away we noticed that this is f*cked. Where is the block for infomercials (Show Me St. Louis’ paid segments are close, but don’t count)? What about reruns of Who’s the Boss? or Mr. Belvedere? Where the hell is Jerry Springer?! Oh but you make time for Dr. Oz?! News coming first isn’t important at the 2 o’clock hour?! “News Channel 5: Where the News Comes First, Except If Days of Our Lives, Dr. Oz, Ellen or Jeopardy! are on”

When you’re home sick from school/work you don’t want to watch four hours of the Today Show, two news broadcasts where they probably still tell you stale sports scores and traffic news despite everyone already being at work and a Show Me St. Louis! You want to watch deliciously awesome crap! You need a flat Sprite for your head! It’s not something you’d normally drink, but it’s freaking great right now. Sure there are people that are home at that time everyday that aren’t sick, but those people should just go clean something, change someone or sandwich-ify whatever’s in the fridge for me.

via KSDK

We were alerted by our tipsters that, bizarrely enough, NBC’s national news story about how everyone is pissed off at all politicians, no matter their affliliation, should be set at Woofies hot dogs in Overland.

Sure to be thrilled with the news are some of our local celebrities got to be national celebrities for a second when you can catch their autographed 8×10 in the background. Take for instance Fox2 anchor Kevin Steincross’ glossy by the door:

Congrats Kevin!

They even included the standard “I came here to enjoy a hot dog,…what’s this? A camera?! I better say something while walking towards it.” shot:

It’s all coming together for Overland, Missouri now! We hear NBC has more plans for our little suburb, as shooting should begin on Overland’s To Catch a Predator episode any day now. …or maybe we made that up. You don’t know. Just to be safe, if you head off to any meetings in Overland with a young child, make sure you bring plenty of condoms and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. We hear they go easier on you if you bring gifts.

See the actual NBC story with a St. Louis wiener vendor backdrop after the jump!

(more…)

One of our eagle-eyed readers caught our favorite local newscaster, Leisa Zigman of channel 5 KSDK droppin’ some gang signs in between the “news”

Yo yo yo!

My name is Leisa Zigman and I’m here to say
I love talking news all the damn day
…
Well “news” is a relative term…more like happenings that I care about…ok, its more like a video diary I get paid for.

That “other” St. Louis newspaper that closed its doors in 1986, before newspapers closing their doors was all the rage, is back…as a website.

Things looks good so far, and I really hope they do well since we need another strong news source in this town, but I do have a few questions:

1. They do know that their website doesn’t have to just look like a boring old newspaper right?  Don’t get me wrong, the newspaper look can be awesome, but this isn’t it.  If you want to do the newspaper thing look at this: www.instablog.org That’s how you do a newspaper website!

2. If GlobeDemocrat.com is a blog about the old Globe-Democrat newspaper and then the Globe-Democrat relaunches itself as a website, couldn’t they get that domain instead of using globe-democrat.com?  I mean, whats the point of the blog now anyway?

3. I’m sure their staff is pretty small, but I really hope they get more unique content than a few articles surrounded by news feed articles from STATS.  They will need some voices to make this thing go anywhere.

4. This page could use some work.

5. Their privacy policy has a few holes in it…normally this isn’t something I would really feel the need to check in to but…well…you know.

First we have this (emphasis mine):

Personally Identifiable Information collected by Globe-Democrat.com may also be used for other purposes including but not limited to site administration and troubleshooting. Certain third parties who provide technical support for the operation of our site (our Web hosting service and our newsletter provider, for example) may access such information.

…and then this…

As we continue to develop our business, we may sell, buy, merge or partner with other companies or businesses. In such transactions, user information may be among the transferred assets. We may also disclose your information in response to a court order, at other times when we believe we are reasonably required to do so by law, in connection with the collection of amounts you may owe to us, and/or whenever we deem it appropriate or necessary to give such information to law enforcement authorities. Please note we may not provide you with notice prior to disclosure in such cases.

I’m sure they mean well, and I’m not here to try and accuse them of things they haven’t yet done, but this thing is like swiss cheese.

6. Howard Balzer on sports?!  Ugh!  Really?  There wasn’t anyone else?!  If you wanted a jersey chaser to write for you there are lots of girls out there that are way more attractive with only a slight loss in writing acumen. …nice work picking up BJ Rains though.

Watch out Virginia Kerr, your spot at the top of the “cute TV news reporter” food chain might just be in trouble.  Yes, Kerr still has the KMOV crowd on lock, but the overall title isn’t quite the blowout it once was and what some people think it still is.

We always knew April Simpson from KTVI Fox2 was cute, but after her Twitter picture (below) flashed across our desktop the other day betwixt the other updates of the day, we might have mentally broken up with Kerr and moved to Team Simpson.

Now if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to talk with Virginia.  Unless you are Virginia, please turn away from  your screen.

Ok V, we’re alone now.

Virginia…we’ve had some good times haven’t we?

Look, its not you.  Actually its not me either. Its April Simpson. She’s attractive. That’s not either of our faults! Its completely out of our control, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore it.  Its like a tornado of hottness:  No one caused it, but at the same time you can’t ignore it because it breaks a lot of crap.  Also there’s a loud whistling sound, which doesn’t really come in to play here.  I’m just going to throw this out there too: I’ve started to wonder if  you’ve taken your title for granted.  Look at April, that’s a photo from someone thats putting in some work.  Your photos, are cute sure, but nothing you have on your Twitter account can touch this.  This is good for you V!  It’s competition, and that makes everyone raise their game.  Who knows, 6 months from now I could be back on your team.  Good luck to you!  …don’t cry.  Here’s a tissue.  …you know what?  Take the box.

Ok, turn back around  Its over.  The deed is done.

Local news is pretty rough to watch these days as the people in charge continue to claw at the walls of the well they keep falling down, but maybe I’ll start Tivo-ing the Fox 2 mid-day report…you know, just to keep up on the important things, like state fairs and…car wrecks?  …I don’t know what the hell they talk about on local news these days and I don’t care….which is where the mute button comes into play!

Come to think of it, how did you “hear” me write to turn back around to finish reading this?  Total dick move on your part.

Not every day can bring the death of a pop super star, a buyout of a local institution or even weather related news.  Apparently one of those days was yesterday because there were some people out there at our local news sources freaking struggling to get something out the door!

1. “Three sisters have weight loss surgery together” from KSDK.com

Should have been titled: “Three Fat Sisters Get Surgery Together Because All Hate Being Fat, but Not Enough To Do Actual Work.  USA! USA!”

How the hell is this news?  People get this all the time, just because three of the fat people that got the surgery that day knew each other, doesn’t make this news, it makes it, at best, one of those Learning Channel freakshow specials.

2. “Photo gallery of Tila Tequila and Shawne Merriman of the San Diego Chargers” from Fox2Now.com

Should have been titled: “We Have Nothing Else to Write About, but We’re Fox so We Some How Get Away With Crap Like This”

No, I didn’t make this up, its actually a “news’ story on their home page (as of this writing).  With this post Fox 2 has effectively equaled the content on their website to that of MySpace.  …which I guess is kind of appropriate since Fox also owns MySpace.  Wait, is this actually super cleaver?  No.  Its can’t be.

Its not.

3. “St. Louis bookstore owner to attend Obama’s health-care address” from Biz Journals.com

Should have been titled: “Its Been Way To Long Since We Did an Obama Puff-Piece…Wait, What Did You Just Say?  You Are Going With Russ Carnahan to See Obama Talk About It?  That’ll Do.”

This one could be twisted in to news, and I’m guessing some of you will do just that, but guess what?  Its not.  Someone going to Washington stopped being news after Mr. Smith did it.  All this story is about is someone that likes the President is going to see the President, which is about as news worthy as me going to see Barry Manilow…wait, I mean something tough and awesome.