Channel 7

Rob Sama is one of those outliers who still relies on a traditional antenna to pull in TV. So he was surprised to discover that Channel 7 is moving to Channel 42:

... None of this bothered me terribly, except for the fact that I now had to reprogram my DVR to record off of 42 instead of 7. But it also seems as if at the same time they made this announcement, they turned down the signal strength on channel 42, so that now it doesn't come in smoothly like it used to, but cuts out periodically, making NBC basically unwatchable. ...

Interesting: Max Slocum talks to the folks at NBC affiliate WHDH and reports they have nothing to do with the brand-new local news site that NBC is building for Boston and, in fact, have no intentions of shutting down their existing whdh.com. Slocum adds NBC officials declined to comment.

You might recall there's little love lost between NBC and Channel 7 - the former threatened to pull the latter's affiliation when it seemed it wouldn't run Jay Leno's 10 p.m. show.

nbcboston.com is registered to General Electric, i.e., NBC, although there's no site there yet.

UPDATE: Could be that NBC is going to compete with its own affiliate rather than revamp the Channel 7 site.

Looks like a major overhaul is coming for Channel 7's Web site. NBC Local is advertising for a city editor for an entirely new Web site that will look something like this: Read more

But just in case, keep a bucket of water handy.

To air Leno at 10 p.m. after all rather than 79th straight hour of local news.

Station owner Ed Ansin said, presumably with a completely straight face: "Jay is from Andover, where I went to school. I enjoy his humor."

The Globe story is by Johnny Diaz, so naturally it doesn't explain what might have really led to Ansin's change of heart.

Michael Page reports that Channel 7 management thinks its viewers would rather see more Frances and Kim news at 10 p.m. than Jay Leno. No word on when, if at all, they'll show his new show, which will appear at 10 p.m (9 p.m. Central) in the rest of the country.

The Dig's Media Farm is in fine form this week, with their takedown of the post-Priceian newscasts on Channel 7:

... So now, Frances Rivera has been joined by Kim Khazei. Together, they man the prime 7News broadcast, dressed in almost comical vampy outfits that mark a very different direction indeed, putting the WTF in Sefen Newz at 11 (we smell a promo!).

For example, during a newscast last week, Rivera was dressed in a vest over a frilly shirt by some sadistic wardrobe person, and Khazei was clearly still nervous after a month on the job, kicking off a story, "And new at 10 tonight, surprising results from a survey of lung yocal people." Ah. ...

Nice to see "the news station" sent Matt Lorch down to New Jersey to cover the Adolf Hitler Campbell cake drama, although it is a bit distressing that they couldn't find an alliterative headline to go with it (Really, Channel 7, "FROSTY RECEPTION" was the best you could do?) and that, well, we were all talking about the story two days ago.

Lance and friends provide the live blow-by-blow here and here, complete with incisive commentary on all the Channel 7 ads and stuff:

If there is one guy who should have got a whoopin' when he was in school, it's Matt Lorch.

Julie Donaldson says she missed work, wore long sleeves to hide the results of the abuse, which she testified included getting punched in the face and thrown against a wall.

Channel 7 general manager now former Channel 7 general manager: Randi Goldklank resigned and agreed to a plea deal in East Boston District Court that will keep her out of jail if she stays away from booze and drugs for a year. She also apologized to state troopers for her behavior at Logan, which included threatening one trooper's job after she was hauled off a plane - and will pay restitution to the trooper whose glasses she broke during the fray.

Last fall, Globe reporter Johnny Diaz profiled Channel 7's new general manager, Randi Goldklank. Now he discusses his discomfort with the way the media is ripping into one of its own:

... My discomfort with the coverage stems from having known Randi in the last year through my TV articles, which led me to write one on her. The person described in the police report doesn't mirror the enthusiastic and sprightly woman I have dealt with for a year. What is not being presented in this week's coverage is that she lives and breathes the news business. It pulses in her blood. She's aggressive but only because she likes to win and she brings an infectious energy (even when I spent time with her at her gym at 5 a.m. for my profile last Sept.) She brings that outlook to work each day to motivate her staff. I wish I had seen more of that in the coverage but all we had to go by was detailed in the police reports and my previous profile on her - something the other media didn't have. ...

OK, maybe I'm not cut out to write headlines for Channel 7. Still, will be interesting to see how they play the case of their general manager, whom the Herald reports was arrested at Logan for "unruly behavior." She says a male passenger on her inbound flight tried to fondle her and that she got upset when the flight attendant told her to "calm down." One thing led to another and State Police wound up cuffing her on the ground.

The Globe paints a slightly different picture, one involving an out-of-control angry drunk threatening a trooper's job.

Globe arts critic Mark Feeney won a Pulitzer for criticism, for ten essays.

Junot Diaz, a creative writing instructor at MIT, won the Pulitzer for fiction for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Channel 7 won two Murrow awards and an Associated Press award for its reporting on the autopsy results of the two dead Tai Ho firefighters (you may recall how every media outlet in town but Channel 7 broke the news, because they had the story first and the firefighters union got an injunction, which, of course, made news itself).

Channel 7 is getting rid of health reporter Deanna Lites, the Herald reports.

Jessica Heslam gets a copy of the appellate ruling letting Channel 7 air its story on the two Tai Ho firefighters by overturning a lower court ruling that banned it from doing so (even as every other news outlet in town was doing stories on the subject):

... "Simply put, the inability of the press to require the government to disclose information that is not part of the public record does not support a restraint on speech with respect to information already known to the press," Grainger wrote.

"Indeed and famously," the judge continued, "the presumption against prior restraints on free speech has prevailed even when the materials at issue are stolen and deal with issues of national security." ...

Other Tai Ho notes: Read more

Every other media outlet did, even BostonNow, but WHDH was enjoined by a court ruling in a case brought by the firefighters' union. The Outraged Liberal discusses that:

... I'm no fan of 7News, with its over-the-top emphasis on crime, mayhem and the latest "thing." I find their style to be overly aggressive and their heated pursuit of what I think to be non-stories as annoying.

But, to single then out is wrong. Whether we like it or not, this is a legitimate story. And as we have learned from CSI and the other shows of its genre, evidence doesn't lie. The odds on mixing up the samples, even in a medical examiner's office as screwed up as the one in Suffolk County, are astronomical.

[Judge] Hopkins ruled that one news outlet could not report the kind of news we don't like to hear -- that even heroes are mortal human beings. That ruling is a bigger abomination than reporting the facts.

Dan Kennedy is shocked by the ruling:

By stopping WHDH-TV (Channel 7) from reporting on autopsy reports that allegedly show two Boston firefighters killed in an August restaurant blaze had abused drugs and alcohol, Hopkins violated the most basic of First Amendment protections — the protection against prior restraint. ...

The courts - right up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court - have consistently ruled that when a confidential document ends up in the hands of the media, there's nothing that can be done about it. The legal responsibility is on the keepers of those documents not to release them; the media, by contrast, have no legal obligation not to report on them. ...

Earlier:
Oh, my: Were Tai Ho firefighters drunk, on coke?

OK, so somebody at Wal-Mart (or maybe the camcorder factory) wanted to recreate that SNL skit with Justin Timberlake, only a bit more graphically. And, sure, it warrants the seven-alarm all-hands-on-deck coverage that only WHDH could provide. Still, Dave Alpert doesn't get Channel 7 referring to the mom and her "teenage child:"

... What is that? Is he a teenager or a child? My feeling is that they threw in the word "child" to make the act seem that much more despicable. When I was a "teenage child", we all took showers after gym in one big shower–and we all had penises. I think the kid can take seeing another one without trauma and a lifetime of therapy. ...

If you insist on reading a story about Katie Couric slapping some producer, the least you can do is learn how to pronounce "sputum."

Brian Kane notices growing similarities between Channel 7 news and Fark:

...[I]t's like they just threw out any semblance of a "newsroom" and just cherry-pick stories off of goofy Internet news sites. Especially if there's video. Some nights the LEAD STORY will be some lame-ass piece of satellite video of something that happened in Ohio or Alabama or some other place thousands of miles away. For me, though, I think they crossed a line on Wednesday night when they ran JibJab's "Star Spangled Banner" video as news. ...

Then you'll appreciate this 1976 Channel 5 report (by longtime reporter Bill Harrington) from when the Major was dying of diabetes-related kidney disease:

More Major Mudd.

Remembering Major Mudd.

Also of note: Channel 5 is posting a ton of clips on YouTube.

Sean McCarthy not only sits through an entire Channel 7 newscast, he tallies up just how many alliterative headline graphics they used.

Earlier:
7 News alliteration madness!

Bostonia Rantida watches Channel 7 report that Prince Harry, spotted with his arm around some woman, was giving her "a reach around." Bostonia Rantida informs Channel 7 that a reach around is something completely different:

... So Channel 7, if you're reading, that's probably not something you want to say on the news again. Didn't you guys see Full Metal Jacket? Come on! ...

For those of you who didn't see Full Metal Jacket (not words you want to have on your screen while your boss is peering over your shoulder).

And Todd Gross looked like he was 12. DCbatwing posts some snippets from a 1984 newscast on Channel SE7EN: