It's not the Jacobson/Curtis leaving, but rather WCVB being acquired by Hearst-Argoyle and run like a business, not a news source.

Putting some pretty looking girl out in the snow and having her act like a ditz is done for the same reason that we hear about everything celebrities do:

1)It's readily available (in the case of celebs, there are PR people working to practically shove the material at reporters)

2)It doesn't require verification; when you report heresay or "the weather"- boom, there it is. There are no "sides" or bias to worry about.

3)It's not controversial so they don't have to worry about viewpoint, liability, etc.

4)It doesn't require any journalism skills to produce. Stick pretty girl in snow, turn on camera.

5)It's not "negative"

This guy sucks.He thinks he is soo smart and charming.Always siting there with that smarmy, smirk waiting for his chance to let everybody know how smart he is.I have reached the point where I tune into NECN for 10 minutes when i get home.Then I put on the FOX25 news at ten, but only for the first 5 minutes.Thats all you get these days, five minutes of real news. The rest is teases for the 4:30 report or the 5pm report or the 5:30 report or ......weather.Who needs to hear the weather every 4 minutes?It never ends.Even when you wait an hour for the teased story its only about 90 seconds long and you already saw most of it in the 15 teases leading up. RD Sahl is my man. The only way I come back is if the females start newscasting in bikinis(excluding Mr Harding).That I would watch.

Boston.com rss feed (to have some clue as to what's going on in Boston) and Jon Stewart for the important stuff. It's sad really. However, I must say that wbztv.com might soon be replacing boston.com. They have a lot of content that never makes it to air and if you do want to watch the story they are good about posting the news clip. I still can't stand watching wbztv live.

I agree that Chet and Nat were the best. But I disagree that CVB is now as bad as the rest. Fox is on a non-stop quest to see if they can give someone a seizure with their graphics and lighting. 7's format is "All Molesters, All the Time." And on 'BZ, I feel like every time I turn it on I see water-skiing animals.

Local TV news ia just plain bad. Every approaching storm is presented as the next coming of the Apocolypse. Sports have also been presented during the 'news' segment.
I've got to the point of watching NECN and then watch the local forecast for the next days weather.
No channel has a monopoly on shallowness. I realize these stories are dictated by producers/editors off screen. I would like to see a return to some real local news presentations. Not car chases in Florida or LA.

Perhaps the creepiest news anchor extant. You can actually see Heather and The Black Widow moving away from him during newscasts. Is this the best Ch. 5 can do?

Makes me appreciate the days of Tony Pepper.(not really).