"Vet Cemetary"? [sic]

For those not in the know, TV newscasts are, generally speaking, an extremely stripped-down barebones production. An industry that once employed many folks (smaller markets like Monterey/Salinas often provided entry-level folks an opportunity to get their foot in the door of broadcasting) now gets by with the least amount of resources possible, thanks mostly to technological advances that eliminated the need for several positions. A studio crew used to be made up of, again generally speaking, a producer, director, technical director (the person who operated a switcher, or video mixer), a graphics operator, at least one videotape operator, an audio mixer, camera operators, a teleprompter operator and stage manager. These days with the exception of national TV news outlets, most of those positions have vanished. Camera operators have been replaced by robotic cams operated by the director. Graphics ops are gone; producers, writers and/or reporters now input graphical info into a central "hub" that tells a computer what graphic/information to insert in a telecast, and when to insert it. Anchors now input their own scripts into the same hub, eliminating the teleprompter op. Even TDs are going by the wayside...replaced by the same hub that is programmed/operated by the director to follow a newscast's format that also determines what video sources (cameras, recorded reports, graphics, etc) to air and when. Not every TV station follows this exact example...this varies from station to station.

So it is with this disregard of fellow humans that I happily point out when an extra set of eyes might have averted on-air mistakes...including two items from a recent KION newscast: 1) The spelling of "cemetary" despite the correctly-spelled sign in the story to help them; 2) An executive producer or even producer should have the admittedly-subjective conclusion that the title "Vet Cemetary [sic]" sounds too much like "pet cemetery". The last item is splitting hairs, perhaps, but the serious subject of the story calls for better judgment.

Spell check much? KION's chronic misspeller strikes again.