It's not often that I laugh out loud while watching a local newscast.
There is, after all, little cosmic comedy in the parade of crime and
disaster stories that often dominate the news.
The Q's Leslie Miller.
That is, until I flip over to
KCPQ-TV's News@10. It's a program so bumbling that I'm practically in
tears by the time my clock strikes 11.
The
fun often starts with lead anchor Leslie Miller, a five-year veteran of
the newscast. It's not uncommon for the prototypical news Barbie to
read her script so quickly that she stumbles over her lines like a
high-school thespian. Then there's her mispronunciation of common
utterances such as "Saddam." All the same, Miller looks great (something
her male colleagues actively mention on the air), a perfect match for
co-anchor Peter Alexander, who, you guessed it, resembles a Ken doll.
Alexander isn't exactly hitting any high notes himself: Last week he did
a phone interview with a Las Vegas sports bookie about the odds in last
weekend's Mike Tyson bout.
Someone, I kid you not, decided this was news.
But
then, they have a strange definition of news over at the Q. Most local
news programs focus on giving viewers news that actually happened in
their time zone; it's a religion KING, KIRO, and KOMO cling to. The Q,
on the other hand, has a rather elastic sense of local news. You're as
likely to see a Laci Peterson update (live from Modesto, no less) and
flaming hotels in Las Vegas as you are a robbery in Seattle. One recent
night, the first 15 minutes of the news was dominated (83 percent to 16
percent) by out-of-town newsand the only real big news from outside
Seattle on that day was the arson fire in a South Korean subway. (By
comparison, on the same night, only 31 percent of KIRO's stories were
nonlocal.)
What's more, there are
nights when I swear the Q, a FOX affiliate, is a PG-13 Spice Channel.
Recently, there was a story claiming that soap can cause cancer;
typically, you'd expect interviews with a few serious-minded medical
researchers. The Q used the opportunity to repeatedly show images of
male and female hotties lathering up in the shower. The next night was
even better: Throughout the newscast, the station kept teasing a story
that promised to unwrap an underground sex scene in an unnamed city.
When the two-minute story aired, it turned out that the scene in
question was in Los Angeles, and that it amounted to little more than
your basic crowd of free lovers getting together for an orgy. But it was
a fine chance for the station to air darkened video of people coupling
and people standing around watching others do the nasty (someone can be
heard off-camera asking for a sex toy).
I
could go onthere are the graphics right out of 1985, the awkward stage
banter, the stories that are thinly veiled promos for FOXbut that'd be a
bit like beating a three-legged dog.
Sure,
the Q has an entire hour to fill, and they've got to fill it with
something. Still, that hasn't stopped some other FOX affiliates, working
with that same 10 to 11 p.m. slot, from realizing that they are freed
from the rush-rush constraints of half-hour news shows and can take a
swing at doing good, incisive journalism. In fact, KTVU-TV in the San
Francisco Bay Area is consistently rated the No. 1 newscast in the
country. Yep, it's a FOX station.
It's
beyond me why the Q doesn't try to do something similar. Certainly, its
current formula isn't doing the station any favorsQ13 was mired in last
place after last fall's sweeps. To judge from its performance during
this month's sweeps, that's not likely to change.
Every person has their price, and for a 14-year-old Boston girl, her price to quit Facebook is $200. Paul Baier and his daughter entered into a contract he posted on his blog this week that will earn the daughter $200 if she can stay off of the 1-billion member social network for five months. The story of Baier and his daughter's unusual "Facebook Deactivation
Agreement" has gone viral, but such a pact isn't new and for most people
not necessary. In fact, most adult users have tried without financial incentives. QUIZ: How much do you know about Facebook? A report released by Pew Internet this week says that 61% of Facebook
users in the U.S. 18 and older have also taken a "Facebook vacation"
for several weeks or more. However, most people don't leave Facebook for money, like Baier's
daughter. Instead, the report found the most prevalent reason that
people decide to take a break from the popular social network is because
they're just too busy for it. Of course, that reasoning probably doesn't surprise many people. But
what might surprise users is the measures some are taking to stay off
Facebook. Recently, I chatted with Faisal Abid, 22, a member of Toronto's startup community, who late last month co-launched FAddict.io, a website built to help "Facebook addicts" recover. The site lets people send $5 to FAddict as a pledge that they will
stay off Facebook for an entire month. If they complete their "rehab,"
they'll get their $5 back, but if they "relapse," they lose the money
and FAddict donates it to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. PHOTOS: Freshest Facebook features FAddict monitors the profiles of people who pledged and will notify them if it detects they have logged onto Facebook. So far a couple dozen people have signed up
with FAddict. Because the startup is only 3 weeks old, no one has
completed the 30-day challenge but so far no one has relapsed either --
at least as of early Thursday. "We're not sure what personal motivations are for our users, but what
we feel is Facebook is becoming more of a burden in their lives and
taking a break is healthy," Abid said. With Facebook essentially an online directory of all your contacts,
it's very hard to not be on it in some way or form. But Abidal said it's
important to remember that Facebook "isn't a part of life but just a
simple, dispensable tool."
Julie Chen serves as host and moderator of "The Talk," CBS' Daytime Emmy
Award-winning talk show that examines topical events and contemporary
issues through the eyes of five female hosts. She hosts alongside Eve,
Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, and Sheryl Underwood. Chen, who won the
Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Hosts Daytime Emmy for the first
time in 2017, is also part of "The Talk" writing team that won its first
Daytime Emmy in 2015 for Outstanding Writing Special Class. In
addition, Chen hosts the hit summer reality series "Big Brother."
Chen served as Special Contributing Anchor of CBS News' weekday morning
broadcast "The Early Show" from 2010 to 2011, and co-anchor from 2002 to
2010. Prior to that, she served as the news anchor of "The Early Show"
and anchor of the "CBS Morning News," the CBS Television Network's
early-morning, half-hour broadcast, beginning Nov. 1, 1999, when "The
Early Show" debuted under that title.
Chen covered several major news stories for "The Early Show," including
the war in Iraq, and in March 2003 she reported for the program during
the conflict from Kuwait and Qatar. Chen interviewed newsmakers such as
former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Queen Rania of Jordan, former
Defense Secretary William Cohen, and celebrities including Tom Hanks,
Ellen DeGeneres, Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck, Angelina Jolie, Chris Rock,
and Jennifer Lopez.
Prior to "The Early Show," Chen worked as a reporter and anchor for WCBS-TV, the CBS-owned station in New York (1997-1999).
Before joining CBS News, Chen was a reporter for WDTN-TV Dayton
(1995-1997). She was a producer for ABC NewsOne (1992-1995), the
network's affiliate news service, and she was a desk assistant in ABC
News' Los Angeles bureau (1990-1991), where she worked on the
award-winning primetime special, "Anatomy of a Riot."
Chen is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. A devoted yogi, Chen says there's no better way than yoga to start her day.
Chen was born in Queens, N.Y. She graduated from the University of
Southern California in 1991 with a degree in broadcast journalism and
English. She lives in New York and Los Angeles with her husband, Leslie
Moonves, with whom she has a son, Charlie, and three stepchildren, Adam,
Sara, and Mike. Follow Julie on Twitter @JulieChen and on Instagram
@juliechencbs.
one new Comment on from our chat room
Tina Martinez1 at 12:51 PM February 07, 2013
Since when do kids charge their parents to do
as they're told. This is the problem. Allowing your kid to make their
own decision, sorry if you aren't verbally of physically abusing them,
then it doesn't make you a bad parent telling them what to do. Its not
the end of the world if you say no. Take away her dame computer, how do
you know she won't create a very new facebook account. Not just her
computer but her phone.
Juajico Drivales at 12:44 PM February 07, 2013
sniperspy lets parents keep track of their
computers remotely. parents can see and restrict all of their childrens'
internet activity
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Facebook had a temporary glitch this afternoon that pulled people from
different Web sites to a Facebook error message when they tried to
access an account that was linked to the social-networking site.
TNW's Alex Wilhelm first tweeted about
this at 4:15 p.m. after trying to read an article from a news site:
"Reading article. Dragged from two diff sites to Facebook, which
displays what appears to be a permissions error. Wa?" The issue, which was related to Facebook Connect, was resolved around 4:40 p.m. Facebook issued this statement shortly after, saying it was a bug, but the company did not elaborate further:
For a short period of time, there was a bug that redirected people
logging in with Facebook from third-party sites to Facebook.com. The
issue was quickly resolved, and Login with Facebook is now working as
usual.
This means if you logged in to other sites using your Facebook account
-- a feature Facebook likes to highlight constantly -- then you would
get rerouted to Facebook's site and an error message that read "An error
occurred. Please try again later." The only way to stop it was to log out of Facebook. This shows how
widespread Facebook Connect is and how easily one site can cause the
Internet to come screeching to a halt.
Donna
Tam is a staff writer for CNET News and a native of San Francisco. She
returned home after several years of frolicking in the redwoods of
Humboldt County as a daily newspaper reporter. Technology never ceases
to amaze her.
Yahoo CEO Mayer to Cement Facebook Ties While Pushing Mobile
By Brian Womack & Peter Burrows -
Feb 12, 2013 1:51 PM PT
Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer
Marissa Mayer said she plans to focus on mobile applications and
strengthening ties to Facebook Inc. to bolster turnaround
efforts at the biggest U.S. Web portal. “A lot of the strengths of Facebook are available to Yahoo
users,” Mayer said today at an investor conference in San
Francisco hosted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “That’s something
we want to build upon. We have a real commitment to bringing
valuable content to our users.”
Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive
Officer Marissa Mayer said she'll focus on the dozen or so applications
that people use all the time on their phones. Photographer: David Paul
Morris/Bloomberg
Since Mayer arrived as CEO last year, Yahoo has ceded share
in its core business of display advertising. This year, Yahoo’s
share of the U.S. market will slip to 8 percent, from 9.3
percent in 2012, according to researcher EMarketer Inc. Google
Inc. will widen its lead to 18 percent from 15 percent last
year, while Facebook will advance to 15 percent from 14 percent. To court users and advertisers, Mayer said she’ll focus on
“the dozen or so applications that people use all the time on
their phone.” “How many people at least once a day mark an e-mail as
unread on their phone, just so they can go back later and read
it on their PC?” Mayer said. “There’s a clear opportunity for
innovation. The tool just doesn’t work that well right now.
These are the types of things we’re thinking about.”
Enhancing Social
Turnaround efforts will target changes that can get users
interacting more, and for longer periods of time, she said last
month. In the same way that recent updates to the Flickr image-
sharing service got users uploading 25 percent more photos, and
an overhaul of Yahoo Mail resulted in a higher portion of ads
being clicked, the company hopes to refresh sites such as Yahoo
Finance and Yahoo News, Mayer said. To help its push for product improvements, Yahoo hired 120
new employees with computer science degrees in the fourth
quarter, Mayer said. She also brought on Sandy Gould, a former
recruiting executive at Walt Disney Co., to lead talent
acquisition and development. Enhancing social features is crucial to Yahoo’s success,
Mayer said today, as she reinforced her preference to partner
with companies like Google, Apple Inc. and Facebook rather than
build expensive new products. “One of the things that people really want to do is share
their interests with their friends,” she said. “We need to
have sharing built as a fundamental component.” Yahoo’s shares advanced 1.5 percent to $21.21 at the close
in New York. The stock has gained 36 percent since Mayer was
named CEO in July, compared with an 11 percent gain for the
Standard & Poor’s Index. To contact the reporters on this story:
Brian Womack in San Francisco at
bwomack1@bloomberg.net;
Peter Burrows in San Francisco at
pburrows@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Tom Giles at
tgiles5@bloomberg.net
Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer
Marissa Mayer said she plans to focus on mobile applications and
strengthening ties to Facebook Inc. to bolster turnaround
efforts at the biggest U.S. Web portal. “A lot of the strengths of Facebook are available to Yahoo
users,” Mayer said today at an investor conference in San
Francisco hosted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “That’s something
we want to build upon. We have a real commitment to bringing
valuable content to our users.”
Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive
Officer Marissa Mayer said she'll focus on the dozen or so applications
that people use all the time on their phones. Photographer: David Paul
Morris/Bloomberg
Since Mayer arrived as CEO last year, Yahoo has ceded share
in its core business of display advertising. This year, Yahoo’s
share of the U.S. market will slip to 8 percent, from 9.3
percent in 2012, according to researcher EMarketer Inc. Google
Inc. will widen its lead to 18 percent from 15 percent last
year, while Facebook will advance to 15 percent from 14 percent. To court users and advertisers, Mayer said she’ll focus on
“the dozen or so applications that people use all the time on
their phone.” “How many people at least once a day mark an e-mail as
unread on their phone, just so they can go back later and read
it on their PC?” Mayer said. “There’s a clear opportunity for
innovation. The tool just doesn’t work that well right now.
These are the types of things we’re thinking about.”
Enhancing Social
Turnaround efforts will target changes that can get users
interacting more, and for longer periods of time, she said last
month. In the same way that recent updates to the Flickr image-
sharing service got users uploading 25 percent more photos, and
an overhaul of Yahoo Mail resulted in a higher portion of ads
being clicked, the company hopes to refresh sites such as Yahoo
Finance and Yahoo News, Mayer said. To help its push for product improvements, Yahoo hired 120
new employees with computer science degrees in the fourth
quarter, Mayer said. She also brought on Sandy Gould, a former
recruiting executive at Walt Disney Co., to lead talent
acquisition and development. Enhancing social features is crucial to Yahoo’s success,
Mayer said today, as she reinforced her preference to partner
with companies like Google, Apple Inc. and Facebook rather than
build expensive new products. “One of the things that people really want to do is share
their interests with their friends,” she said. “We need to
have sharing built as a fundamental component.” Yahoo’s shares advanced 1.5 percent to $21.21 at the close
in New York. The stock has gained 36 percent since Mayer was
named CEO in July, compared with an 11 percent gain for the
Standard & Poor’s Index. To contact the reporters on this story:
Brian Womack in San Francisco at
bwomack1@bloomberg.net;
Peter Burrows in San Francisco at
pburrows@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Tom Giles at
tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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Facebook had a temporary glitch this afternoon that pulled people from
different Web sites to a Facebook error message when they tried to
access an account that was linked to the social-networking site.
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