So Much for Protected Identities

An alert reader sends us this:"At 5 p.m., Kathy Sarantos-Niver of KMTV interviewed the girlfriend of the homicide victim from last night. Kathy said "she asked us not to show her face" yet we kept seeing shots of Kathy and the woman standing next to each other. There was one shot of the woman's hands, but the other four times they showed the pair, you could clearly see the woman was a 20-

Google TV giveaway update

Last week we announced that we'd be giving out 10,000 Google TV devices over the course of the next several weeks. As part of those efforts, today we sent an email to thousands of U.S.-based web developers in the Google Code community to offer them a free device. This program, combined with last week's Adobe MAX Conference giveaway and our Google TV Giveaway Contest for Web Developers, is going to allow us to realize our goal of getting these devices into the hands of web developers so they can start building optimized websites for TV.

We're also excited to share that our Google TV Giveaway for Web Developers had an overwhelming number of entires prior to last night's contest expiration and we'll be reaching out to notify winners soon.

Thanks for your continued interest and support of Google TV.

Posted by Amanda Surya, Google TV Developer Relations Team

And You Thought Your Job Was Depressing

Imagine being in charge of programming at a television station and thinking that Travis Justice is the answer to your problems. Or knowing that he is you best hope. Then again, when you've been recruiting your talent from KPTM, it all probably just seems like one really long bad dream. Honestly, can you imagine how weird this meeting must've been? "Umm, yeah, I've decided that what people really

Thurfathe Featureth (Surface Features)

It's a question as old as Barbara Walters: Why do TV outlets hire people with speech impediments for on-air positions that involve speaking? In a medium where image and appearance are supposedly so important, there appear to be a disproportionate number of local reporters and anchors who exhibit lisps. We'll avoid naming names, but it brings up two questions: (1) What makes someone with a lisp

Things We've Been Meaning to Post

• KMTV unveiled its new "weather lab" last week. It's an improvement over the old "weather center," if only because the meteorologists no longer appear to be working in a windowed broom closet. The "lab" also appears to have a ceiling that's more than six feet high. (If only they could apply this principle to the rest of 3's claustrophobia-inducing set.)Perhaps it's just the camera angles, but

Buy

In addition to using its online chats to avoid covering news, WOWT is now using commercials disguised as news. Two great examples showed up on Monday's 6 p.m. broadcast.First, Tracy Madden gleefully informed us that Omaha again has a Mitsubishi car dealership after a grim two-month drought. There was b-roll and interview clips with a salesman about how great the new outfit is. How much do you

Vacation Mail

During our four weeks away, we received dozens of emails about this, that, and the other.For example, one alert reader tipped us off to the fact that KPTM's Calvert Collins does not appear to have majored in theology:On Sunday, July 31st, Calvert Collins of KPTM did a report on a reunion of Boystown alums and noted that Father Flanagan's great grandson was in attendance.Another fills us in on

Rate your favorite Super Bowl ads from yesterday's game

If you're an American, you probably know that there was a rather important sporting event that took place yesterday --  the Super Bowl. 

Everyone knows that half the fun of watching the game is watching the commercials. That's why this year we've partnered with our friends at YouTube to optimize the infamous Ad Blitz site so that you can re-watch and rank all of your favorite ads right from your TV. 

Just visit youtube.com/adblitz from the Google TV browser and follow the prompts to rate the best 30-second spots as you watch them in HD. May the best ad win!

- Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google TV Product Marketing

A Mighty Wind: Blowin' You and Me

Saturday evening's severe weather outbreak, which featured a tornado touching down at 180th and Harrison, gave Omaha's three serious TV stations the opportunity to put all their personnel and gadgetry to work, and what a show it was.KETV found itself in the unenviable position of having to alert viewers to the storm dangers while simultaneously broadcasting the Nebraska-USC football game. Except

Judgment

Do you suppose anyone at SuxNews thought it might not be a good idea to have your personnel grinning beneath this headline on one of the station's Facebook pages?























Apparently not.

Drive

Channel 3rd is now hyping something called the "Carol and Craig Caravan." A promo features photos of anchors Carol Wang and Craig Negrelli, along with illustrations of a creepy-looking blue van.Whatever this is, it will be at some shopping center on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. In addition to the chance to meet two real, live, low-rated anchors, there's a promise of "free prizes" for the first 50

Except for the High-Water Pants

We've finally figured out who Travis Justice reminds us of: Remember that kid in school who always sounded like his sinus condition was acting up? You know, the one who sounded like a lower-voiced version of Gilda Radner's Lisa Loopner character on "Saturday Night Live"? Travis is THAT GUY! Only now, instead of giving us his opinions about how cool his Chevy Citation is, he's giving us his

'Twas the Night Before Sweeps...

KMTV's switch to "Action 3 News" is underway. This screenshot of the station's new website (www.action3news.com) suggests that Journal Broadcasting is serious about at least trying to upgrade the look of 3's product (although having His Toolishness grinning like an idiot on the right-hand side of the class picture isn't helping matters).Tonight at 10, we get a look at what could be the first

Flaccidity

This is really too easy. By Thursday afternoon, Jim Flowers' "snowburst" prediction had swollen to "upwards of four inches" for the Omaha metropolitan area. According to the National Weather Service, the actual total was 1.3 inches by midnight Thursday. We'll see how much came after that, but we're guessing it wasn't a lot.The Ejacucast Authority's record so far this season breaks down as follows

Smollen Breaks Halloween Story

WOWT Flatliner/Reporter Gary Smollen landed the lead story on Friday's 10 p.m. newscast with the revelation that "Halloween is becoming popular," and that it's "costing more."We couldn't make shit like this up. This is what he really said. Yeah, Gary. We can remember back in the early '70's when hardly anyone had even heard of Halloween. Back then it ranked behind Arbor Day on the list of

Bubbles

Having combed through the responses we received, both via comment and email, we've taken the best, done a little consolidation and embellishment, and applied them to the SuxNews Facebook photo. See what you think.P.S. No matter what anyone says, those are man-hands.

Justice Draws Praise from New KM3 Boss

In this week's Reader, Sean Weide reports on KMTV's restoration of sports to its 10 p.m. newscast. As we had feared, the station's new owner, Journal Broadcasting, appears to be happy with the work of Travis Justice, who also hosts a call-in show on the company's AM radio station, BigSports 590, and who clings to Z-92's Todd 'n' Tyler like grim death.Weide quotes new KM3 GM Steve Wexler as saying