One Man Band

On the News

Excerpt of last night's newscast:

Viewer mail from an actual viewer

OK, former viewer, apparently. This comes, the author claims, from a minister. Ready?

Larrry

Dear WTVT:

I cannot understand why you would replace Wheel and Jeopardy (7 & 7:30 PM weeknights) with Millionaire. No sane person would even consider such a thing. I am so angry at WTVT because I really thought you cared about your viewers. Obviously I was wrong, you have no concern for who has been loyal to your station since WTVT 40 was on.

My wife and I, along with SEVERAL other families we know will no longer be watching WTVT 7. When your viewership drops like a rock and your annual renewal comes along for your license, it will be NO surprise how many people will file complaints against you.

May you all burn in Hell.

Rev. LRSmith

Note: This once loyal viewer apparently never noticed that WTVT are not our call letters.

Amazing? Ha!

All the anchors at my station had to do stories about a most awkward subject for the May ratings period — ourselves! The station dubbed them "The Amazing Men/Women of ABC7."

So, of course, I had to tell my story ironically.



I shot and edited the piece with my own cameras and editing equipment.

Parrot Heads

That title refers not to Jimmy Buffet fans, but to actual birds. I took some shots at Sarasota Jungle Gardens last week. My apologies if they're too large to view on your screen. My photo blog has more, and better, shots that are landscape oriented (wider than they are tall) and may also fit your screen better.

That's not her nose itching

I'm not sure that this woman who faces charges for practicing medicine without a license did herself any good when she noticed our station's camera focused on her during her first appearance before a judge Friday.

Blast from the past: WFLA

Wow. My website's stat counter tells me that someone found JohnMcQuiston.com by Google searching "john mcquiston wfla." It takes a long memory for someone to remember my two-year tenure at Tampa's NBC affiliate. I left that station 14 years ago.

I much more hair then. And fewer pounds.

Double Duty

Some recent changes at our station include our sports guy moving to co-host the morning show. Since he used to do sports on our weekend newscasts, which I anchor, that leaves me to carry the ball, if you will, on sports, too.

I spent the first dozen years or so of my career doing sports, so it's not difficult. The challenge now is writing and editing the sports segment AND still writing much of the newscast, too.

I'm not complaining. Although the double duty divides my attention and leaves me less time to polish the news scripts, once the stress of getting it all finished has passed, I have fun reading the sports on the air.



And if I am lucky enough that you enjoy my work on ABC7, you are lucky enough that I just signed a new contract to stay there.

2012 Election Post-Mortem

For all the progress this nation has made, there is clearly still more to go. While we can elect an African-American man with a Muslim-sounding name to be president, we are not yet ready for a white Mormon named after a baseball glove.