WLOS: The dailies

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Winning wardrobe

Scott and Candace looked splendiferous in their matching pink outfits. The cutest couple on local TV news.

Tammy and Darcel smartly matched their shades of green. Darcel, please get some new wigs.

Charu, you were radiant in your powder blue jacket and dark skirt. Perfect accents for your olive skin and raven tresses.

Have you noticed?
This from an observant watcher. I’ll call him Bulldog for now:

Channel 4 has Live Super Doppler.
Channel 7 has Super Pinpoint Doppler and Storm Team 7 with Live Vipir Doppler.
Fox has First Alert Doppler and Live Genesis Triple Doppler.
WLOS has the Leicester Carpet Sales Sky and Vita Nations reporting from Cherokee. What would it take for WLOS to upgrade?

I don’t know, ‘Dog, but you’re right. The local doppler sucks. Every time they zoom in on a “neighborhood” with the “Neighborhood Doppler,” it looks like the year-old vomit spot my dog left on the carpet in the guest room.

You know it’s sweeps when…

Sheraldo is shouting from a riverbank about a dead body found in the French Broad, then takes it down several notches at the end of the report to tell us it’s a suicide.

And the Ego of the Day award goes to…

JenX for her new Web site. Jen, the word your searching for is brand new. I make spelling goofs too, honey, but try to get it right.

Simon says

Seems that CabanaBoy Cuevas was actually Mike Simon in another life. Here’s what I got:

Remember meteorologist Mike Simon of “NewsChannel 3” WTKR (CBS in Hampton Roads, Va.)? After WTKR cut him loose in early October (2003), he signed on as the chief meteorologist at Sinclair Broadcast Group’s “News 13” WLOS (ABC) Asheville.

But don’t look for “Mike Simon.” At News 13, he’s known as Mike Cuevas. He’s using his Spanish wife’s surname. He wanted to use it at WTKR and was told – no. Cuevas does the weather on the 5, 5:30, 6 and 11PM newscasts for WLOS.

The writer goes on to say that such name-switching is commonplace in TV. Why? To me, it’s just more dishonesty. Does “Cuevas” give you more mino (minority) street cred when you’re standing out in the rain talking about low pressure systems?

It reminds me again of the Karen Coulon affair (see earlier post). When her court case hit, people were shocked to learn that at the time she was 36 years old, not the 26 she was going around telling everyone. I’ll make my point again: with TV, it’s all about surface – looks, youth, entertainment. Nothing real.

Back to Mike Simon. I guess I’m lucky. CabanaBoy Cuevas has a much better ring to it.

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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3 Comments

  1. anonymous May 12, 2005

    Yeah, it is old news. La Voz, the Spanish-language newspaper in Western North Carolina, interviewed Mike last year after he took the job at WLOS. He said he took his wife’s last name to carry on the Cuevas lineage. She was the last in her family to have the name.

    My co-workers were pretty disappointed when the story came out and the La Voz publisher told us that “cuevas” is Spanish for “caves.” Took a lot of the fun out of calling him Mike Huevos.

    Reply
  2. Ash May 12, 2005

    Read on, DoneRight. There’s plenty of happening stuff here. And if you’ve got a tip, send it my way.

    Reply
  3. DoneRight May 12, 2005

    If this is going to be a true Asheville blog, you need to mention current events, everybody already knew Cuevas was Simon. Old News pal!

    Reply

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