News for Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

• One of the news presenters for the local news operation at WPMI-TV (Kelly Jones) gasped at a video recording of an automobile being driven over a motorcycle while presenting a report about it on their local news program for the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. ("Local 15 Today") this Tuesday. 

• WPMI-TV had a programming segment named "UMinute" on their main broadcast channel this Tuesday during a break for their local news program for the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (they usually had segments under that name in their programming on a regular basis between last spring and last autumn).

• One of the news presenters and news reporters for the local news operation at WKRG-TV (Chad Petri) had used a certain slogan (or "catchphrase") at the beginnings of their local news programs for Saturday and Sunday mornings ("WKRG News 5 This Morning: Saturday" and "WKRG News 5 This Morning: Sunday") in recent times at the beginnings of their local 9:00 a.m. and midday news programs for Monday through Friday("WKRG News 5 at 9" and "WKRG News 5 at Noon") this past Monday on the thirtieth day of this May (he was saying, "I don't know who's watching, but I'm glad you are").

News for Monday, May 30th, 2016

• A member of WALA-TV who usually only did reports about traffic conditions for their local news programming in recent times was the news presenter for the local news programming they had past Saturday evening (between 9:39 p.m. and 10:09 p.m.) on the twenty-eighth day of this May (her name was Asha Staples).  

• One of the news presenters for the local news operation at WKRG-TV (Ashley Knight) had used the word "monster" while presenting a report about fishing tournament said to had occurred in their local broadcast area this past Sunday on the twenty-ninth day of this May (specifically near the city of Orange Beach in southwest Alabama) as a "monster" while presenting the report on their local 10:00 p.m. news program that day ("WKRG News 5 at 10").

• One of the news presenters for the local news program WKRG-TV had in their programming between 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. this Monday (Jessica Taloney of "WKRG News 5 This Morning") had erroneously referred to one candidates for the presidency of the United States (Bernard (Bernie) Sanders) as "Democratic presidential nominee" whereas its other news presenter (Chad Petri*) had erroneously referred to another one of the candidates for the presidency (Donald Trump) as "Republican presidential nominee" on the program (the news presenter named Chad Petri had referred to the one named Donald Trump as "presumptive Republican presidential nominee" shortly before referring to him as "Republican presidential nominee" on the same edition of the program.** 

 (*he was substituting for a regular news presenter for the program: Bill Riales)

 (**both instances in which the candidates were called "nominee" occurred in a regular feature of the program named "5 Things You Need to Know") .

Commentary: A sneaky comment by a local news broadcaster, a teaser in a contest, and a rare type of news report in broadcasting

• One of the news presenters for the local news operation at WPMI-TV (Greg Peterson) had sneakingly used part of their local 6:30 p.m. news program for their companion station ("Local 15 News at 6:30" for WJTC-TV) to say that the idea of a debate between two specific candidates for the presidency of the United States (Bernard (Bernie) Sanders and Donald Trump) could be "interesting" after presenting a report about the idea and mentioning a public poll about it on the official World Wide Web site for his own station earlier this calendar week.  

• I was glad to a see a member of the local news operation for WALA-TV (Lee Peck) present a report about a convention for nominating candidates for the positions of president and vice president of the United States for a political party named the Libertarian Party on their local 9:00 p.m. news program ("FOX 10 News at 9:00 p.m.") this past Friday on the twenty-seventh day of this May since they and other news broadcasters usually did not have reports about candidates for either one of those positions representing that party or any other political party besides the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in their broadcasts over the past year.* 

• One of the weather reporters for the local news operation at WALA-TV (Jason Smith) should have not said anything about a certain word for a recent contest of theirs ("The Cell phone for a Year Sweepstakes") not having "anything to do with any specific championship football program" or made any reference to it at all while presenting the word on their local 9:00 p.m. news program ("FOX 10 News at 9:00 p.m.") this past Friday since many residents of their local broadcast area would have been reminded of the team either way (he made its connection to the football program even more obvious for then when he said, All of the [University of] Alabama [football] fans will be thrilled; the Auburn [University football] fans, you can still get a free cell phone [service plan] for a year if you put in [the word] 'Tide' [for the contest] "). 

(*this Sunday was the last day of the convention (the candidate nominated for the position of president was a person named Gary Johnson whereas the candidate nominated for the position of vice president was a person named William (Bill) Weld))

News for Saturday, May 28th, 2016

• WALA-TV was "off the air" (or not broadcasting) between the hours of 12:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. this Saturday and this past Friday (the twenty-seventh day of this May).*

• According to WKRG-TV, technical problems caused one of the news presenters and news reporters for their local news operation (Ashley Knight) to present news from a tablet computer instead of a teleprompter on their local 6:00 p.m. news program ("WKRG News 5 at 6:00") this Saturday. 

• According to WEAR-TV, their main broadcast channel was set to have a special local program about tropical cyclones ("Stormwatch 2016") during a time period when it was usually set to have network programming from their main provider of network programming (the American Broadcasting Company (ABC)) on a weekly basis this Sunday (between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.). As for the network program it would have been set to have during that time period this Sunday if not for this plan to have the special local program during that time period (its name was "America's Funniest Home Videos"), well, according to the guides to the channel from the World Wide Web sites for TitanTV, TV Guide, and Zap2it, it was set to have a recording of the network program later the next day (between 1:36 a.m. and 2:36 a.m. next Monday on the thirtieth day of this May). 

(*they usually had programming during this time period on a daily basis in recent times) 

News for Friday, May 27th, 2016

• WPMI-TV had an interview with a member of Alabama Public Radio (named Barbara Charnetski) on their local news program for the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. ("Local 15 Today") this Friday (she was there promoting a plan to raise funds for Alabama Public Radio on the Saturday of the fourth day of this June). 

• One of the news presenters for the local news operation at WPMI-TV (Kelly Jones) had mentioned their holding company (or "parent company" (the Sinclair Broadcast Group)) while presenting a news report in which the company was said to have had an "exclusive" interview with a person in a video recording that had accompanied the report without acknowledging them as their holding company for their local news program for the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. this past Tuesday on the twenty-fourth day of this May.

• According to WALA-TV, they had an "experiment" in which two members of their local news operation (a news reporter named Rebekah Hoeger and a camera operator named Guy Turnbow) each took one of two different ways to get across Mobile Bay from their broadcast facility in Mobile to a "scenic overlook" in the city of Spanish Fort in southwest Alabama to determine which of them could get across the bay the fastest as part of their local 5:00 p.m. news program ("FOX 10 News at 5:00 p.m.") this Friday (the reporter was said to had gotten there first (in 35 minutes and 30 seconds); the camera operator was said to had gotten there by the end of the program (in 45 minutes).

News for Thursday, May 26th, 2016

• According to a notice from the Comcast Corporation, the prices for some of the cable TV and Internet services provided by their subsidiary in Mobile County (Comcast Cablevision of Mobile) were set to change on the Friday of the first day of this July. 

• One of the local radio announcers for WAVH-FM was interviewed for a series of audio recordings about residents within or around Mobile with their own businesses (the name of the announcer was Sean Sullivan; the name of the series of audio recordings was the "Mobile, Alabama Business Podcast"). 

• Some of the news presenters for the local news operation at WPMI-TV had used some of their local news programming for this Thursday to promote a special program about tropical cyclones ("Surviving the Storm") set to appear on their main broadcast channel next Wednesday (between 6:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.) on the first day of this June (it was also set to appear on the main broadcast channel for their companion station (WJTC-TV) later that day between 9:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.).  

News for Wednesday, May 25th, 2016

• One of the news presenters for the local news operation at WPMI-TV (Darwin Singleton) had promoted a plan by their holding company (or "parent company") to host a public discussion about heroin as if it were their own plan while part of their local news program for the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. ("Local 15 Today") this Wednesday. 

• The wife of a news reporter for the local news operation at WKRG-TV appeared in the first part of a series of news reports about a virus named "Zika" planned for their programming this calendar week this past Monday on the twenty-third day of this May (the name of the wife was Stephany Carter; the name of the news reporter to whom she was married was Allen Carter).

• WJTC-TV recently had a national religious TV program that had been part of their regular programming plans for at least 20 years removed from their current regular programming plans (they usually had it in their programming from Monday through Friday between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.; as for what it was usually called, it was usually called "Believer's Voice of Victory")* 

(*according to a World Wide Web site named TitanTV, WMPV-TV and WHBR-TV still had "Believer's Voice of Victory" in their regular programming plans; as for the program that took its place in WJTC-TV's regular programming plans, it was a syndicated courtroom program named "Divorce Court")