ANGRY STRIPPER
 Sarah
Tressler, the society
reporter for the Houston Chronicle who moonlights as a
stripper and blogs about it, is "no longer with the Chron,"
according
to the Houston Press, which outed her.
Tressler
flew to New York Wednesday and taped a segment that was bumped to
Friday at 7:40 a.m. on "Good Morning America."
She was interviewed by correspondent Bianna Golodryga,
whose hometown is Houston.
"Ever since I was a kid, I've
written little stories and stuff like that," said Tressler,
who started at the Chronicle as a freelancer and eventually
became a full-time staffer.
 On
her blog "Diary
of an Angry Stripper," Tressler says she has been
moonlighting "on and off" since 2004 and typically earns
about $750 a night. She started dancing because "I
couldn't get a job at a bookstore, like Barnes and Noble."
"The most I ever made was
$2000 in one night," she told ABC's Golodryga.
"The idea of someone outing me seemed like it would be, like,
such a mean thing to do, I didn't think anybody would ever do
it."
Tressler,
who has a master's degree from New York University’s School
of Journalism, also teaches writing for print and digital
media and works as a lecturer at Houston University. The
school declined comment on her "personal life."
She has no regrets. "I had
three jobs. I lost one of them," she told GMA. "I
was a stripper/reporter/professor, and now I'm just a
stripper/professor. And I don't think that's too bad."
<<<>>>
CAN KATIE SINK TODAY?
 According
to Fox News, “There were a lot of jaws dropping all
over the place” when ABC announced that Katie Couric
would fill-in for the vacationing Robin Roberts all next
week on "Good Morning America." "Then there
was a lot of sniping."
Gawker
reports that "Robin Roberts and Elizabeth
Vargas are furious over the network's decision." Roberts
"has never been impressed with Couric's pluck or
perceived star-power," and Vargas has "been under
the assumption that as part of ABC/Disney's plan to
increase her role and visibility she was first choice to slide
into the co-anchor seat when Roberts is away."
 Media
analyst Brad Adgate thinks "GMA" ratings
will spike. "I think Katie Couric on for one week will
break the 'Today' show's consecutive string of 800 plus
weeks as the top rated early morning show,” he said.
The irony would be delicious. Couric
spent 15 years on the NBC breakfast show and helped drive
it to #1. Now, her brief return could end the show's record
winning streak. "Today" has been the top morning
show since the first Clinton administration — December
1995.
Last week, "GMA" trailed
"Today" by 137,000 viewers, the closest it has been
in nearly five years.
<<<>>>
Bill O'Reilly crushed
NBC's awful "Rock Center" for a third
week in a row.
 <<<>>>
Those of you who are bothered by
the Rev. Al Sharpton blurring the line between advocacy and
impartial journalism should know that he functions with full
support from the top.
"We didn't hire Al to
become a neutered kind of news presenter," said
MSNBC President Phil Griffin. "That’s not
what we do."
<<<>>>
EXPANDED BOB
 Five
years ago, just off a bout from cancer, Bob Schieffer was
set to retire from CBS's "Face the Nation." That
didn't happen, and now he's doubling
his workload. Starting Sunday, "Nation"
expands to an hour.
Schieffer, who turned 75 in
February, has forgotten retirement. "I'm just having so much
fun," he said. "I don't know what I would do. My wife,
who used to want me to retire, has now decided she doesn't want me
to retire. She said, `You would drive me crazy if you retire.' Now
that I've got her on the team, I'm going to hang around for a
while."
<<<>>>
ANCHORS LOVE ANCHORMAN
 "There
was a time, a time before cable, when the local anchorman reigned
supreme. When people believed everything they heard on TV."
That's how the narrator begins "Anchorman:
The Legend of Ron Burgundy," the 2004 cult comedy
about Ron Burgundy, San Diego's top-rated newsman in the
male-dominated broadcasting of the 1970s.
"It's a different era once
again from when the film came out eight years ago," writes
Michael Malone in B&C. "Countless
big-name, giant-salary anchors were phased out in the recession,
replaced by roving bands of multitasking journalists cranking out
story packages on the fly."
While Burgundy types still
exist at some stations, they're doddering toward extinction.
"The chronicling of my life!" tweeted anchor Stephen
Clark of WXYZ-7-ABC in Detroit (Market #11).
"Local television news viewers
know what's real and what isn't," says anchor Kris Ketz
of KMBC-9-ABC in Kansas City (Market #31). "To suggest
a movie like this is a disservice to local news is to say viewers
don't get it, and I just don't buy it."
Far from being a disservice to the
industry, some anchors are hopeful that "Anchorman 2"
may even spark a little interest in local news. "Local TV
needs personality to continue to be a viable information
source," says Jeff Herndon of KAKE-10-ABC in
Wichita (Market #67). "I don't find the Anchorman
movies insulting. If anything, I think they help promote the one
thing some local TV stations still have -- personality."
<<<>>>
Jim Watkins, who was run off
the WPIX-11 plantation in October after 13 years with the
station, tells
FishbowlNY, "It got a little complicated there at the
end." He declined to get into specifics, adding, "The
other things that happened, they just happened."
Well, there you have it.
<<<>>>
THREE STRIKES AND YOU'RE BACK
 Three
weeks ago, Adrian Whitsett, a reporter and 5:00 p.m. news
anchor at Hearst Television's KETV-7-ABC in Omaha (Market
#76), pleaded guilty to DUI and was sentenced to 30 days in jail
and two years of supervised probation. Whitsett, who has
been on an unpaid leave of absence, was allowed to serve the jail
sentence under house arrest.
It was his third DUI conviction.
Now insiders report he has returned to work.
"Looks like Hearst
corporate gave him a pass," said one tipster.
<<<>>>
Another tipster reports Sinclair's
KOKH-25-Fox in OK City (Market #44) yesterday parted ways with
News Director Joe Spadea. He was hired in August 2006 from Gannett's
KPNX-12-NBC in Phoenix (Market #12), where he had been
managing editor.
<<<>>>
Matt Griffin, an assignment
manager at Gray Television's KXII-12-CBS in Sherman, TX
(Market #161), has been promoted to news director. He replaces Anthony
Maisel, who left earlier this month to become the general
manager across the market at Lockwood Broadcasting's
KTEN-10-NBC in Denison.
<<<>>>
  With
longtime sports reporter Paul Peck out the door at Lin's
top-rated WIVB-4-CBS in Buffalo (Market #51) and veteran
Sports Director John Murphy reportedly considering a jump
to a full-time job with the Buffalo Bills, the local
newsrag asks and answers the age-old question: Is sports
dying on local TV?
<<<>>>
HOOPS HISTORY
 Friends
in Kentucky report that Saturday's NCAA Final Four showdown
between Kentucky (#1) and Louisville (#4) in New
Orleans (CBS - 6:09 p.m.) has practically everyone in
the Bluegrass State atwitter. And local media in this
hoops-crazed state has gone appropriately nuts. TV stations have
sent squadrons of reporters to stand in the New Orleans Arena
parking lot.
 Your
Surly Editor® was the play-by-play guy for the University
of Louisville in 1975, the last time these two teams made it
to the Final Four. The two schools didn't play each other
back then, and there was hope that they might finally meet on the
biggest stage in college basketball. WHAS, the station I
worked for, owned the radio rights for both UK and Louisville. We
sent a total of two people to San Diego...both of us
announcers. No TV crews.
But UCLA beat Louisville
in overtime 75-74 in the semifinals, then beat Kentucky for
the national championship, spoiling the party. It was legendary UCLA
Coach John Wooden's final game.
<<<>>>
Lenslinger
got invited to the White House this week and toured the
vegetable garden out back. The "boss" was "out of
town"...in Korea.
<<<>>>
EXTREME DEFAMATION
 In
Nov. 2011, a Minneapolis jury (Market #15) found Hubbard's
KSTP-5-ABC guilty of "actual malice" in a defamation
lawsuit brought by a holistic healer, who claimed the station
"manufactured" a damaging report against her in 2009 and
"knew that the story...was false."
The jury awarded her $1 million,
believed to be the largest verdict ever in a Minnesota defamation
lawsuit.
Reporter Jennifer Griswold,
who fronted the piece and continues to work at KSTP,
interviewed Cheryl Blaha, who claimed she had tried to
commit suicide after she stopped taking anti-anxiety medication on
the advice of Susan Anderson, a doctor of naturopathy.
In the lawsuit, Anderson
produced medical records that showed Blaha's own medical
doctor had reduced the medication and that there was no proof of
the alleged suicide attempt. "That was certainly the heart of
it," said her attorney. "KSTP bought [Blaha's
story] hook, line and sinker, and that's what this case was
about."
 Now
CityPages.com
has an epic 3,000-word deconstruction of the case in its
"Million Dollar Mistake" cover story.
"No one has the right to walk
into your life and make false claims and outright lies and
fabrications to drum up sympathy for a self-proclaimed master
victim, nor do the jackals of the news media have the right
to publish it without even the most minimal foundation," said
Anderson, who won the record settlement.
St. Paul attorney Bill Tilton,
who initially represented Anderson, called KSTP's
report "ambush journalism at its most scurrilous."
Attorney Pat Tierney, who
won the case, thinks KSTP's report signaled a broader
problem with television news. "Every time you watch an
investigative report nowadays they try to get the same video clip
of the person running away from the camera, ducking, not wanting
to be interviewed," Tierney says. "It all makes
for great TV, but are those reporters trying to get to the
truth, trying to find out what really happened? I don't think
that's how you do it."
<<<>>>
The NewsBlues speedster will
be in action this weekend at Sebring International Raceway
with the National Auto Sports Association. We'll see you
back here Monday.
<<<>>>
 MRS.
BLUEZETTE'S GRAMMAR YAMMER
"A PBS mind in an MTV world."
Mrs. B hopes that you'll write April
Fools' Day correctly, come Sunday. "Fools" is the
plural of "fool," and in this case it's possessive, so
the apostrophe goes at the end.
Way back in sixteenth century France, New Year's Day was April 1.
Then in 1562 Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar for the
Christian world and changed the start of the new year to January
1. Those who hadn't heard about the change (or who refused to
believe it) continued to celebrate on April 1. Others played
tricks on them and called them "April Fools."
Some of the more famous April Fools' Day hoaxes include one
by the BBC's 1957 news show "Panorama." It announced a
bumper crop of spaghetti because of a mild winter and the
elimination of the spaghetti weevil.The film of Swiss peasants
pulling strands of spaghetti from trees had so many viewers
fooled, they called the BBC to find out how to grow their own
spaghetti trees.
On April 1 of 1998, USA Today carried a full page Burger King ad
for a "left-handed Whopper." The ad explained that all
the condiments were turned 180 degrees for America's 38-million
southpaws. Thousands asked for the new burger.
Mrs. B sends you off to work with a quotation especially
appropriate for the weekend:
- There is a foolish corner in the
brain of the wisest man.--Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
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