In our newsroom, sometimes reporting on controversial stories requires you to be in a conference room between your managing editor, the assistant news director, the news director and the general management and the station’s standards and practices (the legal dept.) cause you posted something wild.
OK, I’m being a little cute. But I take what I write very seriously while not so with my personality This is on the post last week in regards to the passing of the New England based meteorologist, Mish Michaels who suddenly passed away in March.
After the original publishing, I received feedback via a tweet from Emily Rooney (yes that one) about the extent of her death.
As you had seen your’s truly kindly replied
I had initially had intentions to publish it on the week of April 11th, but got tied up. My schedule for MNG is typically Wednesdays through Saturdays, and the following week, April 17th, I had to shuffle up my schedule, so I then started to finish up the draft.
At the time of the publishing, all I knew was from some comment out there about some form of self-lethal harm or suicide. On April 22nd, I did a Google search to see what came up (part of it was for self purposes to see how the Minifig Newsguy is tracking on the search engines, and second what was out there.)
The stuff out there, was literally out there, from WordPress-y like blogs, coming from various places literally around the world, and I don’t even know how to authenticate some of these sites. Unfortunately a lot of these sites are sketchy, poorly coded, videos are playing, and a lot of bots generating rip-and-read without much human touch. It’s not a new thing and it’s getting worse to find facts.
One bloggy site (I will paraphrase because I cannot verify) the “former WBZ and WGBH” (yes the site claimed she worked there and she did not get hired) basically jumped on a suburban T track because she was bullied by her peers of her views.
I also stride for a strong zero-tolerance on rip-and-read, meaning you take some written copy and paste half of it. I am well known for taking copy from CNN or CBS News and literally re-write it on my radio news wheels to add as much depth. Writing from a named writer with their own words for the most part is a better standard if you’re going to go WordPress.
Also why the heck do I want to muddy the waters? After all it was the Why Do You Strongly Dislike Mish – What Did She Do to You Personally?
I want to defend Mish at the end, her name was in Chyron only. Her legal name was Anuradha Mukherjee. WMUR-TV had a really wild and nutcrack of an ND, named Jack Heath. While I cannot (repeat… I CANNOT) confirm he was the man who hired her in early 1992, it’s alleged that the ND had some strong sense of xenophobia (from his other works after 9.) The aforementioned link explains:
“But the name Anuradha Mukherjee bothered them. They urged the Calcutta-born Anuradha, who had spent most of her life in America, to choose a name that was easy for Americans.
Though in neighboring Massachusetts, Umma [I believe it’s only 1 “m”] Pemmaraju had succeeded in keeping her name and had gone to become a hotshot television reporter in Boston, Mukherjee could not win.”
I remember Uma at WBZ-TV who I believe went to FNC years later and a nice career in TV News
I can confirm that a former WMUR-TV meteorologist, Chris Jarzynka, told me and my videographer after a live stream from the 2017 NAB Show (while I need to stress was actively employed with VizRT) that WMUR-TV was the last station in the country to allow different names other than their legal (or perhaps preferred name.) When said man as “Chris Thomas” in the 1990s re-joined as a Hearst O&O, he went by his legal name. When both joined, it was an Immes Communications Station with very little corporate management, leaving locals to do whatever the hell they want, like this garbage!
I think it’s safe to say the station’s management at the time was a bit effed up, and I am sorry to say there is strong sense of American (or even New Hampshire)-purity to this day amongst the viewers of the station. Heath is still talking it up on the right wing and even was the ND when WNDS started full length newscasts in 1998 after a failed attempt in politics in 1996.
With that said, Rest in Peace – Boston’s Imperfect Meteorologist.
One thought on “FOLLOW UP to COMMENTARY: on Mish Michaels’ Passing”