Barely news

It may shock you to learn that local television stations don't always have the highest standards when it comes to their news broadcasts. KNBC seems eager to wallow in this reality, as illustrated by the screen shot of the station's top stories captured by Kevin Roderick at LA Observed.

Roderick writes:

Notice in the screen grab that the very top story in the left-hand column is that PETA ads feature stars who also are...naked. Not visible is another story slightly down page about celebrities in bikinis, with a photo of Britney Spears. I know local TV stations are on life support these days, but geez.

Indeed, everything on the page starts to look like a double entendre.

Roderick adds:

Perhaps this all fits with KNBC's hire yesterday of Alycia Lane, a newscaster-slash-tabloid fave who first came to national attention for her bikini photos — a hire that one newsroom source calls a real "head scratcher" in these times of cutbacks.

You might also have noticed in the upper left of the page NBC's new mood rating tool, which is designed to make you feel part of it all.

I am laughing at NBC.

Working out the kinks

California pulled the plug on an employee training program after a public records request from a San Francisco Weekly writer revealed cash was going to teach post-production techniques to workers at a fetish-porn website.