Your local reporter may be phoning it in

Have you seen Katie from Kansas on your local CBS TV station’s website? You probably shouldn’t.

This post started when I was looking for a story from Miami, but that took me straight across the country.

I checked the CBS-owned TV station in the Magic City, and ended up with a story about how Macy’s will be closing many of its stores, including two in the area.

It’s not my fault the video played immediately. Her pronunciation of the names of a mall and a city were totally off. Unheard of off, until now.

I couldn’t believe anyone would put this online, so I posted it to Facebook.

CBS doesn’t have its own video of a Macy’s – any Macy’s – after the chain bought up so many other cities’ original department stores?! And what about the photos down below?

But then the real story happened.

I noticed a weird outcue.

And it got weirder when I found a Miami station bio saying she lives in Fort Worth!

So I wondered how many CBS-owned stations let Kansan-turned-Texan Katie Johnston report local news on their websites, no matter how badly.

I say report as reporting to viewers, rather than going out and gathering facts.

Here, she’s listed among the reporters at CBS’ Dallas station, which is actually in Fort Worth. I wonder if she actually goes out and reports on local news there, maybe even doing a live shot?

Katie’s Twitter feed led me to Detroit!

where she’s “the anchor” more than a decade after CBS canceled newscasts on both of its stations there. (Good thing I didn’t accept the 11pm producer position, way back in 2001!)

And here, Katie is in Pittsburgh!

Baltimore!

and as promised, across the country from Miami in Sacramento!

Look at those last three pictures, plus Miami’s video, and it’s apparent to me she’s in a studio in Texas and may have never been to the cities she’s pretending to know so well.

Of course, this wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t an organized plan by higher-ups with control over the stations, or at least their websites.

Some may say there’s nothing dishonest since she appears on a few station bio pages, but having a local station logo by her name and reporting local news is too much for me.

I wonder if she even asks how to pronounce local names in between slamming out videos. It would only take a phone call.

• How long until local news people figure out local locations?, April 5, 2018

Save local news stories that nobody anywhere else should care about to the real locals. They could use the jobs, anyway.

This isn’t just “phoning it in,” at least to me. I think it’s more phony and deceptive.

And certainly not as “perky” as that other Katie (who really did report on TV in Miami, but as Katherine)!

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