Channel 12 says one of its main anchors, Toya Washington, is cutting back to part-time and has left the most important daily newscast, 10 p.m.
That means an opening in the important seat alongside veteran Kathy Mykleby, and the ABC affiliate is conducting both an internal and nationwide search to find a new anchor.
Washington, who's been with Channel 12 for nearly a decade, is cutting back to spend more time with her family. She approached management looking for a way to decrease her work load. Washington said in a statement, "I consider my colleagues at WISN 12 to be a second family."
She'll continue to anchor at 5 p.m. weekdays alongside Mykleby.
A pundit responds: In Wednesday's column, I was tough on legal analyst Richard Herman who was on CNN before Tuesday's Casey Anthony verdict expressing the certainty that she had been found guilty.
He emailed a response, which I offer a large piece of:
"Fair enough. I was wrong and if you continued to watch CNN, I acknowledged it, I apologized to (defense attorney Jose) Baez for harshly criticizing his strategy and I am only human.
"Tim, sometimes a Perfect Storm comes and this was it. Listen to the alternate juror saying there was some "horrific" accident to Caylee. Oh really?? Absolutely NO evidence to support that and NO trauma to the bones. The juror also felt the family dysfunction explained all of Casey’s lies huh??
"Throughout the trial I was extremely critical of the Prosecution case and the lack of evidence and horrible forensics. I just felt the Prosecution gave the jurors an out if they felt an accidental chloroform overdose occurred to come back with Murder. Most people felt this was the case.
"I called the Prosecution on No Cause of Death, on (prosecutor Jeff) Ashton’s asinine courtroom behavior throughout the entire trial and last week I blasted Nancy Grace on her show about the lack of evidence. I praised the defense forensic case experts and constantly suggested Baez should focus on that strategy. On last night’s show I went after Nancy concerning the post trial celebrations before she cut off my mic."
On TV: NBC has scheduled its fall premieres. Here's the complete schedule.
- It's official, James Spader is joining NBC's "The Office" in Kathy Bates old role as the big boss of Dunder Mifflin.
- CNN has finally axed Eliot Spitzer's show at 7, and is moving Anderson Cooper into that hour.
- HLN, which focused like a laser beam on the Casey Anthony case, pulled in 4.6 million viewers between 1 and 2 p.m. Tuesday for the verdict. It's a record for the CNN sister channel that used to be called Headline News.
- HBO's "Entourage" will start its final, eight-episode, season on July 28 at 9:30 p.m.
Jennifer and James: Bravo's next "Inside the Actor's Studio" features Jennifer Aniston under questioning from James Lipton. In the show, which airs at 7 p.m. Monday, she reveals how important "Friends" was to her and her career.
Here's a clip:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
