THE NADIR OF ABC NEWS???

This is the time of the year when we think about the people we miss…and I miss Diane Sawyer. 

No, she didn’t die during 2014, she left the anchor chair of the ABC evening news…and I miss this Kentucky gal..so does the world of journalism, for World News Tonight is not the same and ABC all along the line is slipping, badly.

ABC promoted its weekend anchor, David Muir to succeed our Diane, which is replacing a heavyweight with a middleweight, at best. I don’t notice any changes he has brought to the program, so far, except a lousy opening, but other changes are apparent.

The people who succeeded Muir on weekends are lightweights. One of them, in reporting how close a satellite would come to a comet said "120,000 miles per hour” which is not distance but speed. Another new weekend anchor told us a land-based flag was flying “at half mast," instead of "half staff," a mistake usually reserved for Journalism 101.

I watched a 2 hour ABC special on the main news of 2014. News? Gossip, you mean. The show appeared to give more time in covering a teenage grocery store bagger “hottie” than it did to Ebola or ISIS in Syria. True news events were submerged in comments from editors at “People” magazine, not Time, People..which should have been a clue to avoid wasting my time.

Is this the nadir of ABC News?  No, but the network’s journalistic efforts have slipped badly from the days of Peter Jennings or our Diane.

Locally, Lexington TV news isn’t faring much better. One station is running promos with grammatical errors. A reporter for another station and an anchor of a third both mispronounced “Roosevelt.” Apparently they didn’t watch PBS which got it right. The first syllable rhymes with “rose.” Not that KET doesn’t have its own problems. A minute before “Comment on Kentucky” last Friday it ran a promo saying that program was coming up.  It wasn’t, apparently a holiday change..but still!!!!

Let’s hope the New Year brings better Journalism…nationally and locally.

I'm just sayin'...