Sex and the City, Part 3: The June adultery case involving a Batavia woman ended with a reduced charge and reduced coverage on local television.
The adultery charge gave the story top-of-the-news treatment in June. On Wednesday, local stations dismissed the case against a 41-year-old married Batavia woman, Suzanne M. Corona, in about a minute down a few stories in the newscast after she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of public lewdness.
Channel 2 and Channel 4 did find time to allow Corona to give a brief post-plea lecture on marriage.
She explained to reporters that she felt the case was “a private matter between husband and wife.” Then she added “everyone has a different type of marriage.”
Yeah, just what viewers need: A marriage lecture from a woman who admits to public lewdness after picnic table activities with an Oakfield man, Justin M. Amend, who earlier pleaded guilty to the same misdemeanor.
Corona had the right to give the lecture. The stations had the right to ignore it and should have done just that. Dr. Phil she is not.
Igoe Ends Streak: When former Channel 2 consumer reporter Mike Igoe (picture above) heads to Zhuhai, China later this month to teach media courses, he’ll end a pretty impressive TV streak.
Igoe said it was the first time he’ll miss being involving in the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in 30 years during Labor Day weekend. He had been a host at different stations in Wilkes-Barre, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Buffalo’s Channel’s 2 in that time.
Channel 2 and Channel 4 bragging: You got to love the promotional bragging going on between Channel 2 and Channel 4. Before the news starts, Channel 2 notes it has the best newscast in New York State because a broadcasting organization gave it that award. Of course, Channel 4 brags about being the most-watched news in Western New York. Somehow, Channel 7 hasn’t decided to brag about all the praise that The Toronto Critic (TTC) gave co-anchor Joanna Pasceri in a recent stilltalkintv blog.
Channel 2 to End Paid Programming at 11:30 a.m. Good news for viewers of Channel 2’s 11 a.m. weekday newscast. Channel 2 General Manager Jim Toellner said the station plans to drop paid programming at 11:30 a.m. weekdays. However, he isn’t ready to say what the station plans to put in its place. One thought: Why not rerun the 11 a.m. news at 11:30 a.m. like cable stations do with a variety of programs so viewers get a second chance to see it?
pergament@msn.com
Usually, when they start tossing around "best newscast" awards that means the station is deflecting away from bad ratings. It's a tactic I've seen from third-place stations time and again. Now, I know the ratings aren't that bad, but WGRZ doesn't have a lead in any newscast so they have to brag about something.
ReplyDeleteAlso, somehow WGRZ likes to brag about their "most accurate forecast" claim from Weatherate (a company most people have never heard of) but the only reason they do is because WIVB only uses ranges and not exact numbers because nobody lives at the airport and they also forecast for the Southern Tier (something WGRZ ignores a lot of the time). So they're beating channel 7. Big deal.
Speaking of 7, it wasn't long ago when channel 7 was promoting itself as the hardest working team in local news. I wonder what happened.
Potential channel 2 replacement: considering the Lunch with the Classics block, possibly some public-domain sitcom reruns could fit here.
Oh no Alan, I disagree with you, I loved Corona's little speech. I think she also said something like, "the government should stay out of people's private lives!" or something like that.
ReplyDeleteIf you want the government to stay out of your life then don't have sex in a public park on a picnic table. Just one way.
Alan,
ReplyDeleteBeing a former News employee; can I ask why the Buffalo News posted the girls name who committed the misdemeanor in Batavia yet when three guys got arrested for public lewdness at the Lancaster Town Park, the News said according to their policy they do not publish names of those who committed misdemeanors? This is totally hypocritical to me. Having my family in Lancaster, I would want to know who these people are at a community town park. It’s a sad state of media today when the only reason the News posted the girl on Batavia’s name was due to the sensationalism of the story with the adultery charge.