MEDIA: Airwave Impressions

  Ridin’ the remote and surfin’ the local airwaves for a few quickie impressions:
  Dana Wagner, won’t you please ... blink. Please. Just a little. You’re certainly a genial gent on Channel 3, but that eye thing. ... You look like TV’s zestiest zombie.
  Thumbs-up to Fox-5’s Monica Jackson, who when noting the birth of the Jolie-Pitt twins — named Knox and Vivienne — spoke for many of us when she quipped: “At least they didn’t name them Grapefruit and Homogenized Milk.” Although now that we think about it, there’s something amusing about Grapefruit Pitt. And rather than Homogenized Milk, how about Fat-Free Milk? Then you could shorten it to Fat-Free Jolie.
  In local stations’ eternal quest for self-aggrandizement and campaign to make themselves seem indispensable, Channel 13 dubs their traffic report “Traffic Problem Solver” and Channel 5 prefers “Traffic Solutions.” What self-important nonsense. How about this: “Here’s the Accidents and Lane Closures Now Figure Your Route Out Yourself You Road Rage Maniac and Keep Your Middle Finger In Neutral and Your Uzi In the Trunk Traffic Report.” ... Glad we could help.
  More self-inflating twaddle, and even though this complaint is so ancient you could scrape a dozen layers of mold off it, that whole So-and-So-Reporting-LIVE-From-The-Newsroom bit seems like a way of spotlighting a reporter whose effort apparently amounted to walking a few feet from their desk to the set and plopping their fanny in the chair. (OK, maybe they climbed the stairs from one floor to another.) Then again, is that any more pointless that reporting LIVE from the nighttime, it’s-black-and-I-can’t-see-a-thing-behind-you-anyway scene of an I-15 accident that was cleared away six hours before airtime? Well, as I write this, I’m LIVE at my keyboard. Impressed?
  Having heard an anchor discussing plane crashes and referring to “near misses” over the skies at McCarran, I’m reminded of the late, great comic/language genius George Carlin, who once observed: “When two planes almost collide, they call it a ‘near miss.’ It’s a ‘near hit!’ A collision is a ‘near-miss.’ BOOM! ‘Look, they nearly missed — but not quite!’ ”
  Sleep well, sweet George.