CABLE CHANNEL WGN PLANS THREE-HOURS OF FACT-FILLED NEWS DEBUTING IN SUMMER

 

An alternative to the current cable news networks will debut this summer via Chicago-based cable channel WGN America, notes Grumpy Editor.

“News Nation,” slated for three hours nightly, promises just the facts without opinions — which many viewers will relish.

 

It means luring audiences from MSNBC, Fox News and CNN.

 

The new prime time offering will draw on the news operations of its parent company, Nexstar Media Group which boasts 110 local newsrooms and 5,400 journalists.

 

“I’ve heard so much about how news has become coastal, all with opinionated talk, all far left or far right, with no one covering news anymore in prime time,” says Sean Compton, executive vice president at WGN America, in a Wall Street Journal interview.  “Part of the problem is all this content is created in New York City or Washington, D.C.”

 

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE...

 

 

HEMMER DEBUTS TODAY ON FOX NEWS.   Fox News' Bill Hemmer, starting today, takes over the news hour vacated by Shepard Smith late last year.  Hemmer, with Fox News since 2005, says he has no interest making opinion part of his job.

TRUMP, BLOOMBERG SLATE $10 MILLION SUPER BOWL COMMERCIALS.  President Donald Trump and presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg both plan to run Feb. 2 Super Bowl 60-second commercials.  Those commercials each cost about $10 million.  The game airs a day before the Iowa caucuses.

WOMAN JOINS S.F. GIANTS COACHING STAFF.  The San Francisco Giants makes baseball history by hiring the first woman to a Major League Baseball full-time coaching staff.  Alyssa Nakken, a former Sacramento State softball player, will help round out a 13-person staff as a “major league assistant coach.”  

COWBOY HAT-TOPPED PIGEON DIES.  A Las Vegas pigeon rescue group says one of the birds — called Billie the Pidge — that had a cowboy hat glued to its head has died.  The rescue group figures fumes from the glue could have poisoned it.

CIGARETTE TOSSERS FACE HEAVY FINES.  Drivers in New South Wales, Australia face a penalty of up to $11,000 if they are caught tossing a lit cigarette from their cars during a total fire ban.  Fines also apply to passengers if they toss cigarettes. 

FOX DROPPED FROM STUDIO NAME.  Disney, which bought 20th Century Fox with other media operations last March, cuts the word "Fox" from the studio's name.  

STUDENT JOURNALISTS EYE CRIME STATISTICS.  The Florida Institute of Technology is undergoing scrutiny after student journalists at the school's student newspaper, The Crimson, exposes a discrepancy over crime statistics reported by the university.

HUNGRY DOG EATS AT SUBWAY.  A hungry dog called “Subway Sally" is gaining widespread coverage by daily patiently waiting for supper outside the doors of a Portales, New Mexico, Subway sandwich shop for the past year.  Staff is happy to feed her.

VULTURES ROOST IN RADIO TOWER.  Federal officials are seeking solutions to address the problem posed by about 300 vultures roosting on a Customs and Border Protection radio tower in Kingsville,Texas.

AMBASSADOR'S MUSTACHE BOTHERS SOUTH KOREANS.  Harry Harris, a retired navy admiral and U.S. ambassador in South Korea since 2018, upsets the country with a mustache.  To some South Koreans, it evokes memories of Japanese colonial rule over the country from 1910 until 1945.