I honestly had no clue that so many viewers felt the same way I do about the direction News 10 has taken. What an an unmitigated train wreck! I don't know if it's possible to count the many ways that news 10 has gone wrong in the last year or so. But I'll try.
1. They let venerable journalists, read: "old white guys", Tim Dailey, Dave Marquis, George Warren, and photo journalist Mark Pepper "retire". Together these four had about 100 years of journalism experience. Little did we know the "retirement" of these four was just the beginning.
2. Next to go was the very well liked Dan Elliott, another old white guy.
3. But in a surprising twist Abc 10 failed to retain Ryan Yamamoto and his wife Suzanne Phan, who are, wait for it... Asian! So what can we deduce from this? Apparently ABC 10 isn't really against old white reporters, they're just cheap and not interested in keeping personalities that viewers actually like!
4. Then other well liked reporters were canned: Brian May and Melissa Crowley are the first that come to mind.
5. Then they renovated the news room into this brown, wooden, open-air, dormitory looking debacle. News anchors went from working as a Duo to now being by themselves standing behind a silly little podium while cameras zoom in and out like annoying little flies around a pile of turd.
6. Speaking of all those cameras, ABC 10 now resembles the set of TMZ! One static camera isn't enough, heck 3 static cameras aren't enough. Today I was watching poor old Walt Grey deliver a commentary on the nuclear threat from North Korea, he was speaking into a static camera about a very serious threat while a, let's call it a roving camera, swooped and soared behind the static camera. First the roving camera is on the right, cut to the static camera, cut back to the roving camera and now it's on the left! Oooo exciting! But let's make sure that we get a little bit of the static camera in the shot with the roving camera, for what? Aesthetics?
It makes me dizzy at times. Sometimes I think the roving camera operator must have the shakes! That's what i want at 6am...
7. Next, they can Dale and Christina... Enough said.
8. Now let's talk about that abortion of a Morning Show they call Morning Blend. Megan what's-her-face belongs on a street corner barking at tourists to buy worm filled tequila, not as the face of a morning news program. Man is she awful! And Mark Allen, whose shtick has never been funny, hip, or prescient needs to just stay off tv. He's got to be pushing 60 by now yet he still dresses and acts like he did 35 years ago when he was on 102.5. I get it, ABC 10 is trying to appeal to millennials so therefore you must make your on-screen Talent relatable, right? So let's have Mark dress up like he's a 20 year old GQ model and we'll have poor Rob, who is a very good meteorologist, look like he just rolled out of bed. Because that's hip, right? Screw professionalism, let's just go for what's hip. Bed head, ratted jeans and dirty running shoes. Solid bro.
9. LNT. Hahaha hahaha hahaha. Whatever.
10. "Storytellers". Uh huh, whatever you need to tell yourself ABC 10 to make yourself sound relevant. The guerilla style camera work of their new field reporters-John, Luciana, and that other guy who doesn't shave - is just preposterous. If we want bouncing camera shots then we'll watch actual reporters who are embedded in Afghanistan or Syria running for their lives. Not some local hack trying to drum up drama about geese or the fog in Sacramento.
11. The new anchors. Fire old white anchors, check. Bring in someone not white even if he has no camera presence, check. Chris whatever his name is, I call him Chris the Whisperer, is just horrid. Hi I'm Chris, 100 Syrians were bombed in a chemical attack today but look... I'm still smiling! The other new anchor, i don't even know her name. Whatever.
12. Good luck Walt and Monica. You're going to need it. You've got three things going against you, you're both older, you both cost the most to employ, and... You're white! It's only a matter of time before these two veterans are canned for cheaper and more racially diverse stand-ins.
13. The real reason I'm writing this long review about ABC 10 is I woke up this morning to read that Dina is not having her contract renewed. A beaming, positive presence with no ego or pretenses is being let go from that sinking ship. With her gone I have absolutely no reason to watch any news presentation that ABC 10 offers. With Channel 3, 13, 40 all offering better, less annoying news there's just no reason to watch 10 anymore. Congratulations Tegna and ABC 10, you really screwed the pooch on this one. read more