Archive for the ‘WESH-2’ category

WESH’s Claire Metz recovering after crash

January 28th, 2010

Veteran WESH 2 News reporter Claire Metz gives Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker an update on her condition. She and her videographer were injured last week when a car slammed into the side of a WESH live truck in Daytona Beach.

“I have four broken ribs and a broken, displaced clavicle,” Metz told Boedeker. “They debated whether to operate, but they decided it was so close to blood vessels. I’m in a strap that holds your shoulders back in the hope the two bones will meet and heal. I have a lot of bumps and bruises. My left arm is swollen. It’s not a pretty picture. I’ll never be a hand model.”

Another casualty of the the crash — a favorite suit. “I had this great red suit on,” Metz said. “The paramedics said, ‘We have to cut it off.’ I said, ‘I’ve dreamed of people cutting off my clothes.’ ”

OK, that got a little weird. Still, best wishes to Metz and Hutch Breneman for speedy recoveries.

Read the full interview here.

WESH pioneer Nick Pfeifauf dies

December 15th, 2009
Nick Pfeifauf (left) anchoring at WESH

Nick Pfeifauf (left) anchoring at WESH

Former WESH 2 pioneer Nick Pfeifauf, 77, died last week after having a heart attack. Pfeifauf was the anchor for WESH news when I first started watching Central Florida television back in the 1970s.

 

According to WESH.com, Pfeifauf worked as news anchor, news director and vice president of research and development at Channel 2 from the 1960s until 1990. His wife, Eloise, said Pfeifauf started as a cameraman.
 
 ”About two months later, someone could not go on the air and since Nick had a shirt and tie on, he was asked to deliver the news,” she said. “With his 10 years in radio, he was able to pull it off, and from then on he was on the air. ”
 
I believe he was the first anchor of “NewsCenter 2″ when WESH first tried to emulate the Star Trek-like set (not the one in the picture) that was pioneered by WNBC, and I believe he was succeeded by Wayne Bennett. More on Pfeifauf here from the Orlando Sentinel.

Casey Anthony: WESH analyst blasts WFTV analyst

November 22nd, 2009

tvnotesAs if the long, strange saga of infamous “tot mom” Casey Anthony could not get any stranger … it does, of course. This time it involves attorneys Orlando TV stations are using as legal experts to help analyze the case.

It started Thursday, when Anthony’s defense attorneys filed motions that meter reader Roy Kronk — who discovered Caylee Anthony’s body — should be considered a suspect in the death of the toddler. WFTV-Channel 9 legal analyst Bill Sheaffer criticized the move, calling it “an all-time low on a grand scale.” But Richard Hornsby — who is providing analysis to WESH-2 as well as other local stations – disagreed saying it was a “significant and credible” defense and “has a high likelihood of success.”

But Hornsby didn’t stop there in his analysis. He decided to analyze the analysis of WFTV’s Sheaffer.

Hornsby wrote on his blog, “I was flabbergasted when WFTV-ABC ‘legal analyst’ William ‘Bill’ Sheaffer said: I deem these tactics as despicable’ and then ‘blasted’ Mr. Baez on his blog (Does Casey’s Defense Have No Sense Of Decency?), local news, and web video footage for WFTV-ABC. … The very conviction with which Mr. Sheaffer blasts the Anthony Defense on the Motion makes me question when he last opened up one of those law books he is always sitting in front of.”

Hornsby also criticized WFTV reporter Kathi Belich. He wrote, “I think it is time that someone puts WFTV-ABC reporter Kathi Belich and her sidekick Mr. Sheaffer to task for their Pro-Prosecution pandering to the anti-Anthony sentiment, rather than providing objective analysis of the legal issues in the case so that the Central Florida community can have an informed understanding of the legal issues in this case.”

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Click here to read Hornsby’s blog, click here to read Sheaffer’s blog and click here to read Orlando Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedker’s take on this.