Local News on the Eightball

[Peg Herring]

I know I pick on them, but jeez! I used to be a speech teacher, and I wonder what happened to all those speech classes that one assumes newspeople must take.

A few hints:

Read/scan your copy ahead of time. If you don't know how to pronounce something, ask somebody and then write it phonetically. Giving the audience multiple choice versions is not cool.

Keep your lame attempts at humor to yourself. You're only revealing what we already suspected: that weathermen are nerds, that girl anchors are ditzes, and that sports guys are just a hair on the manic side.

Try to match your facial expression to the copy. Your big ol' smile as you tell us about that fire where three children died is disturbing.

And ladies, answer this: what did your eyebrows ever do to you to make you shave them off and draw them back on? Is it a rule somewhere that the morning show girl has to look like someone has a gun to her back?