** BREAKING / EXCLUSIVE – Pat Brown Returns to San Diego Television News.

  

* "How's It Going to End?" has learned that four months after leaving KNSD (NBC) Channel 7/39 – long-time San Diego news and weather anchor Pat Brown – has a new weekend gig.

* She will join ABC-affiliate KGTV Channel 10 as a weather anchor beginning this Sunday, November 8, 2009, at 6pm and at 11pm. She will work Saturdays and Sundays through the end of January, 2010.

* Pat Brown declined to comment about her status other than to say she is "happy" to be returning to San Diego television.

* However, Joel Davis, news director for KGTV Channel 10 – confirmed that Ms. Brown will fill in for weathercaster Kerstin Lindquist, who is on maternity leave.


* “We’re thrilled that since KNSD (NBC Channel 7/39) has farmed out their weather duties to Los Angeles, that we have the opportunity to bring someone of Pat’s stature and popularity to the 10 News weather team," Davis said. "It reinforces our commitment to bring San Diegans important local weather information – with the best weathercasters and the most advanced technology.”

* This development means Pat Brown will have worked at all three major network affiliates – KFMB CBS Channel 8, KNSD NBC 7/39 and KGTV ABC Channel 10 – since the late 1980s. Sources say she'll spend her weekdays continuing to serve the community as a tour guide for DayTrippers, a San Diego-based travel firm.

* My original story, posted on July 27, 2009, appears below.

* * * * *MONDAY, JULY 27, 2009
One Month Later -- What does Pat Brown's departure mean for local TV news?


* On Friday, June 26, 2009, Pat Brown gave her last weather report on NBC-owned KNSD 39 (Cable Channel 7) in San Diego.

* The pioneering host of the groundbreaking "P.M. Magazine" show on KFMB Channel 8 during the 1980s – Ms. Brown had a near continuous presence on the San Diego television news landscape. The former state pageant queen from Sheperdstown, West Virginia (1977), moved west – and effortlessly re-invented herself into a beauty-with-brains TV personality and news reporter – before settling into her last incarnation as a weather anchor armed with an effervescently sunny on-air disposition. In an industry never known for stability, Ms. Brown's admirers knew her to be just that – a consistently productive and positive force for San Diego television programming – and for the community she continues to serve.

* The following Monday, Ms. Brown was replaced by Fritz Coleman, a nearly 30-year veteran of the TV wars from KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles, one of NBC's flagship-owned stations (alongside WNBC in New York).


* But that wasn't the headline to some of us. The headline was that the award-winning Mr. Coleman, by all accounts a "nice guy" with broad appeal – is now broadcasting his San Diego weather reports from Los Angeles – on a custom-built set back at KNBC.



* Though such "arrangements" aren't new – the move was the first of its kind involving a network-owned news station in San Diego. It illustrates the dire economic health of local television news – with KNSD NBC 39 (in my view) – probably faring the worst, budget wise, among its competitors. Station managers everywhere have been slashing budgets – first dumping behind-the-scenes staff and "superfluous programming" – while saving their biggest (and most visible) cuts for last.

* Pat Brown's departure wasn't your garden variety "revolving door" personnel change. It was emblematic of something worse that has cast a chill in the rooms and halls of KNSD NBC 39 – and beyond. Wishful-thinking station heads might be blocking out the precedent – and scoffing at satirically minded suggestions that any station that "jobs out" any portion of its local identity to a distant area code – is setting itself up to be wiped out entirely - by a thousand paper cuts afflicted over the next several years. Some TV insiders are quietly saying that "it could've been worse." Well, that's true. Maybe they should be thankful. They believe the tempest surrounding Ms. Brown's departure will "blow over." And likely it will. Fritz Coleman has already won over some skeptics – and I give credit to news director Greg Dawson for trying to manage the ill-smelling winds of anger still blowing after this change.

* But the bigger picture that's unique to KNSD NBC Channel 39 – has less to do with Pat Brown – and more to do with the station itself being owned by NBC. Ms. Brown's departure raised eyebrows, for sure. But what was more ideologically significant to journalists – was that her departure and subsequent replacement by talent based in Los Angeles - was the first blatant evidence of what's been going on for a long time at network-owned stations in markets smaller than San Diego, e.g., the creeping decentralization of news and weather information – led by network executives who work in distant offices. Thus we have a classic instance whereby it's not always good to be OWNED by a network – and why it's sometimes better to be a network affiliate operating with greater independence.



* Since about 2002, TV news stations have been trending toward hiring more versatile reporters and anchors. These so-called "video-journalists" carry their own cameras and edit their own news segments – and sometimes get the privilege to present them live on the anchor desks where their higher-paid colleagues sit. Everyone knows that every "hybrid journalist" invited to the anchor desk to present his or her story – is being "screen tested." Such "hybrids" save big-time dollars for station managers – and equally significant, they can serve as "leverage" when the contracts of highly paid news anchors come up for renewal.

* On the surface, it appears to some that Pat Brown's "Achilles heel" was not being "versatile" enough. If so, you can count on other anchors at NBC 7/39 to be reviewed similarly for "fitness and compatibility" with the network's finance department. Hence the oft-heard advice during the last few years remains sound, e.g., "if you're still in TV news – the faster you can jump on the "hybrid train" the better – thus avoiding obsolescence and/or getting dragged or tossed behind.

* Local news anchors draw salaries that are double, triple or even higher than those working behind the scenes. An anchor's "work" is to bring in ratings. So what's that got to do with Pat Brown? Nothing unless you think she was a drag on ratings. I personally don't. It was all about saving money – but in a way more pernicious because the station is owned by a network - that decreed that news about the weather – does NOT require a local person to deliver it, hence can be pared less painfully than other departments.

* Everyone working in television news sees the handwriting on the wall. But in the past, even when times were good - that handwriting was mostly about being dumped in a budget cut and being replaced by someone cheaper, usually someone younger from a smaller market.

* But at a network-OWNED station – you have the additional fear of watching departments consolidated or phased out in stages, replaced by talent or crews located hundreds of miles away at other stations bigger than your own. It's analogous to newspapers shedding staff while publishing articles by news syndicates or wire services that are written in other states.


* What's unfortunate is despite the acknowledged downturn in local TV news nationwide - (because web-based news keeps siphoning viewers away) – the band-aid patches applied by network-owned-and-operated "suits" can't stop the bleeding. And watering down a station's local news product – under the aegis of saving money during a recession – also risks washing away the higher purpose of targeting audiences and advertisers in a region that will drift further away from KNSD NBC Channel 39 – and toward competing stations that remain committed to San Diego.

* It bears repeating that San Diego is the ninth largest city in the U.S. Yet corporate America and NBC keeps treating San Diego as if it's geographically, demographically and politically identical to Los Angeles. I sense that Mr. Dawson knows this to be true, even if he can't say it. Corporate America has always acted as if San Diego is a suburb of Los Angeles – and even believe its WEATHER is the same – despite San Diego's location on a harbor and Los Angeles's location on a smoggy basin.

* NOTE: Philadelphia is about the same distance to New York (and yet so different in character) - as San Diego is to Los Angeles. But NBC knows that replacing Philly-based weather anchors at WCAU NBC Channel 10 - with their counterparts at WNBC 4 in New York - would be greeted with outrage. Yet network executives continue to have a "blind spot" about San Diego - seeing it as being the same as L.A. - despite the polarizing political and cultural differences that are obvious to viewers in both cities.

* Pat Brown will re-invent herself like she always has – and will turn up soon because of her strong ties to the community. But in my view, intra-state or interstate consolidations – involving network-owned news stations like KNSD Channel 39 in San Diego – are incompatible with efforts to maintain revenues from local advertisers. Magnify that when you consider NBC's prime-time lineup is weak on every evening except Thursday – and that its sports product is limited to golf, NFL Sunday Night Football and the Olympics.

* The final irony amid all these words is this. A visit to KNSD NBC 7/39's website on Monday, July 27, 2009 at 9:45 p.m. Pacific Time – yielded the following banner slogan:

* * * * * *

(Original material © 2009 by David Kusumoto.)

Why are some dog-loving atheists choking up over a two-minute cartoon?

    

* On August 4, 2009, Wendy Francisco, a 54-year-old artist-musician-animal breeder from Del Mar, California (north of San Diego) – who now lives "somewhere in the mountains of Colorado" – uploaded a 1 minute, 58 second music video on You Tube.

* Her lyrics are so simple that a child can understand them. That makes sense. Mrs. Francisco is an editor of children's books.

* Her melody is so simple that it seems mined from an old nursery tune pulled from the public domain. It's not. It's original. Mrs. Francisco learned guitar at age 8, had a record deal by age 24 and has toured the country "and beyond," giving concerts for decades.

* Her hand-drawn images are so simple that they seem almost primitive. But Mrs. Francisco has been a self-taught artist since she was a child. In sum, she's not a novice.


* But what's NOT so simple - is explaining the explosion of emotions that have poured forth from hundreds of thousands of people who have seen "GoD and DoG" since its debut on August 4.

* I know what some of you are thinking. Being a secular sort of fellow, I thought the same thing. I told myself, "I'm not going to watch some sappy tribute about dogs and religion." A pal forwarded it to me by e-mail and I dismissed it. I don't even own a dog, even though my love for canines is well known. If you've ever owned a dog (or still own one), you know what I mean. They ARE family.

* Then another friend forwarded the video. Full disclosure: I dislike some (not all) "pay it forward" inspirational notes, because some feel like canned chain letters sent by people who let greeting cards carry messages - that they themselves – cannot articulate. Sincerity doesn't require perfect sentences or phrasing inspired by great poets. All that's required in my book – are words from the heart, fractured, imperfect, incomplete but real. Nevertheless, I clicked on the video.

* In less than two minutes, using a child's grasp of melody, lyrics and images – Wendy Francisco builds a case about the relationship between a higher being – and the co-existence of dogs and man. She doesn't cite scripture, she makes no references to Christianity – and she avoids conventional, confrontational and controversial dogma.


* In other words, Wendy Francisco delivers a message with such deceptive simplicity that it appears purposely designed to avoid trouble. She sings softly with an acoustic guitar, amid a montage of scribbled images and stock fonts which push her lyrics forward. She wrote, recorded and animated everything in about three days. She says her work was inspired by her dog, "Caspian." (See picture above.) This snow-white creature is described as being "3/4 Great Pyrenees and 1/4 Anatolian Shepherd Cross." Dog breeders will know what that means. I don't, but it doesn't matter. Nor apparently do you have to believe in a deity - to still be moved – by what Mrs. Francisco has to say.

* If you want to watch this video with with a higher quality image, click here. Otherwise, click below.



* "Religion masks the character of God," Francisco says on her website. Perhaps she means this: the ceremonial trappings of organized religion have stripped away the power and emotion associated with being in the presence of a higher being and of all living things. Mrs. Francisco admits she "struggles with modern day religion" because it "limits most people...women in particular."

* Ironically, I think it's the "religion" part that may stall the "mainstream media" from writing lengthy stories about Wendy Francisco, at least not until her view count at You Tube goes over 2 million hits. And I predict it will within the next two months. (As I write this, it's sitting around 860,000 views). While the evangelical press has fully embraced this work (no surprise), I found only two glancing references thus far in news stories on the Web (one in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the other in Atlanta for the Examiner group of newspapers).


* In my view, Mrs. Francisco has smartly taken a path of least resistance to get her message across. Mucking her work up with provocative language and complicated dogma would have stunted the video's reach beyond the church choir. Take away just ONE of the four elements in her music video: her lyrics, her melody, her calm singing voice or her hand-drawn images – and the power of her work goes from extraordinary to ordinary. Her message is NOT the analytical think piece you're reading now. Just read the comments that have been left behind. Many viewers say they cried or were deeply moved. Believers have expressed their thanks. And I believe many non-believers will acknowledge the video's emotional power, even if their views remain unchanged.

* While the video is unlikely to convert atheists – it does capture their deep appreciation for dogs. I will go further and say it may cause many dog-loving atheists to yearn to believe, that is, to want to believe – (even if it's no more than wishful thinking as from a child) – that a higher being "of some sort" is indeed responsible for putting dogs on Earth – for the express purpose of meeting man's instinctual need for companionship.


* But this is all mushy stuff. This is NOT the language of atheists. Atheists tend to be educated. I don't even have to look it up. They just are. Religion may have once worked at some level, perhaps at an early age. Or maybe it never worked at all. But the video is tantalizing because it conveys an abstract meaning (feelings) – and an appreciation of something beyond the reach of words.

* Most educated people, myself included, get visibly uncomfortable about things that can't be broken down into parts that can be objectively analyzed. "An 'A' equals an 'A' and that's that," we say. So why then, do our tear ducts squeeze a little while we're watching this video? What's that all about? If I knew the answer, I wouldn't be writing this.


(Original material © 2009 by David Kusumoto.)

Why is getting published in the New Yorker a career-changing event?

    
* The following was written and drawn by Portland, Oregon-based cartoonist Shannon Wheeler -- and appears in the August, 10, 2009 issue of The New Yorker.


* No further information is required to get the joke above, but it's worth noting that many people subscribe to the New Yorker -- just for its cartoons alone. According to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), this seemingly "recession-proof" magazine still boasts a weekly circulation of 1.05 million copies.

* Shannon Wheeler is better known for his previous efforts, e.g., his alternative comic-strip series, "Too Much Coffee, Man" (which will soon be re-printed in book format) -- and for his Postage Stamp Funnies in the satirical publication, "The Onion." His cartoon collections have also been published by Dark Horse.

* But many believe Mr. Wheeler's career will soon shoot into the stratosphere -- because the New Yorker Magazine only began publishing his cartoons this year.

* "My age is 'old,'" wrote Mr. Wheeler in an e-mail reply to this column, "though when I met another New Yorker cartoonist, he recently called me a 'young cartoonist.' I'm 42 -- a very nice 'meaning of life' age to start getting published in the New Yorker."

* Nevertheless, getting published in The New Yorker remains a dream achievement for many budding artists and writers. It's believed to carry an instant stamp of acceptance by higher literary and artistic circles in the United States -- even though there are no guarantees that a creative talent will subsequently achieve long-term commercial success. Still, imagine what it means to an artist to get paid to do what he or she already loves -- with near complete freedom to "color outside the lines."

* No matter how agreeable or disagreeable one might feel about the New Yorker Magazine's politics, its cartoons are univerally admired for their dry wit. From the legendary James Thurber, Peter Arno and Charles Addams -- to today's Roz Chast and Leo Cullum -- the magazine's cartoonists have consistently entertained millions of readers for more than 80 years. (The New Yorker's first issue was published in February 1925. The cartoon below was drawn by Ward Sutton and appeared in the July 21, 2008 issue of the magazine.)

(Original material © 2009 by David Kusumoto.)

One Month Later -- What does Pat Brown's departure mean for local TV news?

    


* On Friday, June 26, 2009, Pat Brown gave her last weather report on NBC-owned KNSD 39 (Cable Channel 7) in San Diego.

* The pioneering host of the groundbreaking "P.M. Magazine" show on KFMB Channel 8 during the 1980s – Ms. Brown had a near continuous presence on the San Diego television news landscape. The former state pageant queen from Sheperdstown, West Virginia (1977), moved west – and effortlessly re-invented herself into a beauty-with-brains TV personality and news reporter – before settling into her last incarnation as a weather anchor armed with an effervescently sunny on-air disposition. In an industry never known for stability, Ms. Brown's admirers knew her to be just that – a consistently productive and positive force for San Diego television programming – and for the community she continues to serve.

* The following Monday, Ms. Brown was replaced by Fritz Coleman, a nearly 30-year veteran of the TV wars from KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles, one of NBC's flagship-owned stations (alongside WNBC in New York).



* But that wasn't the headline to some of us. The headline was that the award-winning Mr. Coleman, by all accounts a "nice guy" with broad appeal – is now broadcasting his San Diego weather reports from Los Angeles – on a custom-built set back at KNBC.



* Though such "arrangements" aren't new – the move was the first of its kind involving a network-owned news station in San Diego. It illustrates the dire economic health of local television news – with KNSD NBC 39 (in my view) – probably faring the worst, budget wise, among its competitors. Station managers everywhere have been slashing budgets – first dumping behind-the-scenes staff and "superfluous programming" – while saving their biggest (and most visible) cuts for last.

* Pat Brown's departure wasn't your garden variety "revolving door" personnel change. It was emblematic of something worse that has cast a chill in the rooms and halls of KNSD NBC 39 – and beyond. Wishful-thinking station heads might be blocking out the precedent – and scoffing at satirically minded suggestions that any station that "jobs out" any portion of its local identity to a distant area code – is setting itself up to be wiped out entirely - by a thousand paper cuts afflicted over the next several years. Some TV insiders are quietly saying that "it could've been worse." Well, that's true. Maybe they should be thankful. They believe the tempest surrounding Ms. Brown's departure will "blow over." And likely it will. Fritz Coleman has already won over some skeptics – and I give credit to news director Greg Dawson for trying to manage the ill-smelling winds of anger still blowing after this change.

* But the bigger picture that's unique to KNSD NBC Channel 39 – has less to do with Pat Brown – and more to do with the station itself being owned by NBC. Ms. Brown's departure raised eyebrows, for sure. But what was more ideologically significant to journalists – was that her departure and subsequent replacement by talent based in Los Angeles - was the first blatant evidence of what's been going on for a long time at network-owned stations in markets smaller than San Diego, e.g., the creeping decentralization of news and weather information – led by network executives who work in distant offices. Thus we have a classic instance whereby it's not always good to be OWNED by a network – and why it's sometimes better to be a network affiliate operating with greater independence.



* Since about 2002, TV news stations have been trending toward hiring more versatile reporters and anchors. These so-called "video-journalists" carry their own cameras and edit their own news segments – and sometimes get the privilege to present them live on the anchor desks where their higher-paid colleagues sit. Everyone knows that every "hybrid journalist" invited to the anchor desk to present his or her story – is being "screen tested." Such "hybrids" save big-time dollars for station managers – and equally significant, they can serve as "leverage" when the contracts of highly paid news anchors come up for renewal.

* On the surface, it appears to some that Pat Brown's "Achilles heel" was not being "versatile" enough. If so, you can count on other anchors at NBC 7/39 to be reviewed similarly for "fitness and compatibility" with the network's finance department. Hence the oft-heard advice during the last few years remains sound, e.g., "if you're still in TV news – the faster you can jump on the "hybrid train" the better – thus avoiding obsolescence and/or getting dragged or tossed behind.

* Local news anchors draw salaries that are double, triple or even higher than those working behind the scenes. An anchor's "work" is to bring in ratings. So what's that got to do with Pat Brown? Nothing unless you think she was a drag on ratings. I personally don't. It was all about saving money – but in a way more pernicious because the station is owned by a network - that decreed that news about the weather – does NOT require a local person to deliver it, hence can be pared less painfully than other departments.

* Everyone working in television news sees the handwriting on the wall. But in the past, even when times were good - that handwriting was mostly about being dumped in a budget cut and being replaced by someone cheaper, usually someone younger from a smaller market.

* But at a network-OWNED station – you have the additional fear of watching departments consolidated or phased out in stages, replaced by talent or crews located hundreds of miles away at other stations bigger than your own. It's analogous to newspapers shedding staff while publishing articles by news syndicates or wire services that are written in other states.

* What's unfortunate is despite the acknowledged downturn in local TV news nationwide - (because web-based news keeps siphoning viewers away) – the band-aid patches applied by network-owned-and-operated "suits" can't stop the bleeding. And watering down a station's local news product – under the aegis of saving money during a recession – also risks washing away the higher purpose of targeting audiences and advertisers in a region that will drift further away from KNSD NBC Channel 39 – and toward competing stations that remain committed to San Diego.

* It bears repeating that San Diego is the ninth largest city in the U.S. Yet corporate America and NBC keeps treating San Diego as if it's geographically, demographically and politically identical to Los Angeles. I sense that Mr. Dawson knows this to be true, even if he can't say it. Corporate America has always acted as if San Diego is a suburb of Los Angeles – and even believe its WEATHER is the same – despite San Diego's location on a harbor and Los Angeles's location on a smoggy basin.

* NOTE: Philadelphia is about the same distance to New York (and yet so different in character) - as San Diego is to Los Angeles. But NBC knows that replacing Philly-based weather anchors at WCAU NBC Channel 10 - with their counterparts at WNBC 4 in New York - would be greeted with outrage. Yet network executives continue to have a "blind spot" about San Diego - seeing it as being the same as L.A. - despite the polarizing political and cultural differences that are obvious to viewers in both cities.

* Pat Brown will re-invent herself like she always has – and will turn up soon because of her strong ties to the community. But in my view, intra-state or interstate consolidations – involving network-owned news stations like KNSD Channel 39 in San Diego – are incompatible with efforts to maintain revenues from local advertisers. Magnify that when you consider NBC's prime-time lineup is weak on every evening except Thursday – and that its sports product is limited to golf, NFL Sunday Night Football and the Olympics.

* The final irony amid all these words is this. A visit to KNSD NBC 7/39's website on Monday, July 27, 2009 at 9:45 p.m. Pacific Time – yielded the following banner slogan:

* * * * * *

(Original material © 2009 by David Kusumoto.)

What a way to get into the Wall Street Journal.

   
The following is probably the only context whereby a PR-type like myself -- whose signature is to write prolifically while working behind the scenes -- will ever see his name in any publication, let alone the Wall Street Journal. The following was published on Thursday, May 28, 2009, on the Letters Page of the WSJ:

WALL STREET JOURNAL – OPINION – LETTERS
Dry the Starting Tear For This Mortgagee

James Hagerty's excellent review of Edmund Andrews's book "Busted" ("Nice House, Big Loan," Bookshelf, May 26) underlines the small window of shelf relevance of titles trying to "cash in" on a recession that's still being referred to in the present tense.

Mr. Andrews trivializes his woes with the home loan meltdown by setting them against a backdrop of a mildly lurid midlife crisis. Mr. Hagerty correctly notes that, contrary to Mr. Andrews's assertions, most economists and housing analysts did, in fact, buy into generations of accepted thinking about how real-estate markets work, which makes all the more puzzling Mr. Andrews's alternating bouts of inward-directed self-loathing and outward-directed rage. Amid this recession, I want instructive and cautionary insiders' tales, not confessionals.

David Kusumoto
San Diego

(Original material © 2009 by David Kusumoto.)