Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Sometimes I see or hear something so stupid, I lose control and have to call it out right away. That’s especially true when it comes from somebody who makes herself seem like some sort of expert on a topic. Unfortunately, this is one of those times.

Nachman header
https://lauranachman.wordpress.com/

I woke up to a lot of emails, as usual, but three were about blog posts from Laura Nachman, who has “Philly TV and Radio” on the top of her site. She has been writing about the subject since before I first came to town in 1998.
So much of what she writes is nonsense, which makes it good that her posts tend to be short, but take a look at the first of her three posts from overnight:

Nachman 1
https://lauranachman.wordpress.com/2018/09/26/furious-at-cbs3/

The ONLY thing good about this is that it happened after the storm and not during it!
She’s not just angry, but furious KYW-CBS3 broke into programming for what she referred to as a “weather alert” which was really a tornado warning, if she knew the difference and was paying attention. I mean, if it was on for ten minutes (I’d say almost, but I was doing my own work and not timing the meteorologist), wouldn’t a normal viewer have been able to get that? The coverage and maps seemed on point.
Does she really think TV stations make information like tornado warnings up? Maybe she’s confused that some stations call a “First Alert Day” or some other branding to get viewers to watch throughout the day because something may happen, but a tornado warning comes from the National Weather Service.
In fact, here it is:

tornado warning
https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=PHI&product=TOR&format=CI&version=1&glossary=0

 
If a TV station didn’t break into coverage for a tornado warning, then what type of weather coverage should warrant a special report? A few inches of snow?
And the tornado warning came from an arm of the same federal government that licenses TV and radio stations to use the public airways for the public interest.
The National Weather Service website says about tornadoes:

Biggest Takeaway: (Their bold font) Whatever plan you base off a tornado warning, that NWS tornado warning needs to be received instantly, & your plan triggered and accomplished rapidly (within a few minutes) to be of value.”

Isn’t that something that should be of concern to the public?
Nachman claims she’s furious because she “missed Inside Edition‘s coverage of the Bill Cosby sentencing.” BFD! (See definition #1.)
I’m sorry that was inconvenient for Ms. Nachman, but Philadelphia didn’t miss any coverage of the Bill Cosby sentencing.
Didn’t every station break into afternoon programming when he was sentenced? Didn’t all the stations have live reports from the Montgomery County Courthouse for the past two days?
Was anybody really surprised Cosby was sentenced to prison? The only variable was the length of time, and that gets less and less important when the convict is an 81-year-old blind man.
Then, she chastises the station:

“You just had three and a half hours of local news from 4-7 to talk about the possible tornado.”

That’s absolutely wrong. First, some math: 4-7pm is three hours, not three-and-a-half hours as Bachman claimed. Furthermore, the half-hour from 6:30 to 7 was not local news. It was the CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor, so that’s down to two-and-a-half hours.
Nachman certainly wouldn’t make a good news producer if she can’t time her newscast. Maybe her boss should double-check her timesheets for other exaggerations.
And yes, Glor’s newscast covered Bill Cosby for his national audience. I didn’t have three TV sets on at the same time but I’d guess the other two network newscasts did, as well.
You wanted more national coverage? What about CNN, MSNBC and Fox News? Did you consider those for hour after hour?
Does Laura Nachman really think local news from 4 to 6:30 can cover a tornado warning issued at 6:47pm? Let’s give her a lesson in telling time. 6:47pm comes AFTER 6:30pm. Therefore, there was no way to put a tornado warning issued at 6:47 into a newscast that ended at 6:30pm. Besides, if we could go back and control time, wouldn’t you be furious irked if that took away from your Cosby coverage?most viewed
Let’s look at some other numbers. CBS3 claims the two ‘Most Viewed’ stories on its website are Bill Cosby stories. Nachman can check there if she wants to know more. Plus, just about every other website in the world has Cosby coverage in some form or another! Does anybody else think demanding specific coverage from Inside Edition makes her sound like a two-year-old?
Does she think the weather wasn’t a story?
Look at all the storm reports around the area.

storm reports
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/video/category/news-weather/3941636-weather-update-heat-humidity-return/

Also, look at the number of rescues, thanks to first-responders. The video of the ambulance that had to be pulled out because it was stuck in high water was obviously from after the sun went down, and close to the area of the tornado warning.

ambulance flood
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2018/09/25/heavy-rain-flooding-rescues/

By the way, has she checked Inside Edition‘s website for Cosby coverage? It’s right here:

IE Bill Cosby
https://www.insideedition.com/bill-cosby-sentenced-3-10-years-sexual-assault-case-47081

Seems like much ado over nothing.
By the way, her other gems from overnight:

Nachman 2
https://lauranachman.wordpress.com/2018/09/26/gritty-makes-inside-edition/

I’m so glad she got to see this, which has been all over the local news for two days, and the mascot even visited the local stations yesterday. It’s also here, for the rest of you:

IE Gritty
https://www.insideedition.com/philadelphia-flyers-mascot-gritty-ignites-social-media-firestorm-47102

Nachman is into sports coverage. Yesterday, she published separate posts naming the announcers for this weekend’s Penn State and Eagles’ games, and two short items on Monday about the same sports radio story.
Unfortunately, in this #MeToo world, she missed the big universal story that FTVLive.com’s Scott Jones mentioned and even non-sports fans would care about.

“Amazon’s live streams of 11 NFL ‘Thursday Night Football’ games will feature the first all-female broadcast booth in league history, the company announced on Tuesday.
“Andrea Kremer, a longtime NFL reporter and recent Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, will announce the games alongside Hannah Storm, an ESPN ‘SportsCenter’ anchor and ‘Monday Night Football’ pregame show host.”

Amazon Thursday Night Football
https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2018/9/26/ladies-night

And finally, her specialty, that she can’t stop writing about:

Nachman 3
https://lauranachman.wordpress.com/2018/09/26/happy-49th-anniversary-brady-bunch/

(That’s its, not it’s!)
Maybe Nachman should consider other people’s lives and property, and think of herself as lucky instead of furious. She did lose her credibility in the storm but I’m sure that won’t stop her from hosting a Brady Bunch party for herself today. Priorities!
I just wonder if Nachman is so furious at CBS3 she’s going to boycott Jessica Dean’s last newscasts tonight. Nah! I don’t wonder at all.

nachman jessica dean
https://lauranachman.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/another-new-normal-for-cbs3/

Her readers deserve better.

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