Media Buzz | News/views about local media

Guadian returns on Monday

Stephanie Guadian will return to her morning anchor desk at the KFOX Morning News on Monday, the station announced via Twitter today.

Officials at the station had said Guadian had been out for "several" weeks due to an emergency surgery. Many people had wondered where she had been or even if she had left the station. The Twitter announcement said she is feeling much better and will rejoin Bill Young, Brad Montgomery and Martina Valverde on Monday morning at 5 a.m.

Speaking of Young, I met him this weekend and he said he is very much enjoying living in El Paso. He said people have been very friendly here.

It's a girl for Stephanie Valle!

KVIA-TV Channel 7 (cable Channel) reporter/anchor Stephanie Valle gave birth to a girl Saturday.

Baby Velora was born nearly two months prematurely and weighed in at 3 pounds and 12 ounces, according to kvia.com. Stephanie's co-anchor and friend, Bob Harp, told me that despite the scare of an early delivery, both mom and daughter are doing well.

Congratulations to both Stephanie and her husband, Scott, on the new addition to their family.

This makes two baby in the last 20 days for KVIA. Sports Director Raul Martinez and his wife, former Channel 7 reporter Rachel Abell, welcomed their daughter Noella on Dec. 31.

Chupacabras in the media

Not too surprisingly, the El Paso Times story, Chicken deaths near Horizon City spark talk of Chupacabras, got a lot of attention in the media. The story is continuing to make the Internet rounds, and is the most-viewed story on elpasotimes.com today, three days after it was first published.

Several local television stations followed up with their own reports, but one of my favorite follow-ups was this report from an Albuquerque station. They hit the right tone:

Robby Holguin, who grew up in the Horizon City area, called to tell me that he had something to show me that would "blow my mind," and help explain what killed all those chickens.

Holguin took me out to a desert area about two or three miles from where the chickens were killed. It was there where he said his father recently saw a mountain lion and its cub. Here is a picture one of the tracks he showed me:

Interesting stuff, though the family with the dead chickens said the prints they saw included a heel behind the paw. So, maybe the mystery is still alive.

I'm still awaiting word from the Paso Del Norte Paranormal Society on a possible chupacabras hunt/investigation soon near Horizon City. So, hopefully there will be more fun to come.

Ayoub and Bettes now in Brownsville ... sorta.

Word is that Nichole Ayoub and Robet Bettes are the new faces of KVEO-TV, the NBC affiliate in Brownsville, Texas. Sources inside KTSM-TV Channel 9 say the two KDBC-TV personalities are not leaving El Paso, though.

ComCorp, the owner of KTSM and KVEO and manager of KDBC, are shutting down most news operations in Bownsville and having Ayoub and Bettes record the nightly news show for the Rio Grande Valley out of the Channel 9 studios in Downtown El Paso. My sources said KVEO will keep just a couple of reporters to gather news there, but that their video and script will be sent to El Paso for production.

So when viewers in Brownsville tune in to watch KVEO news, they'll be watching a recording of two El Paso journalists reading news from hundreds of miles away.

By the way, the anchor at KVEO is Jeanine Reyes, a former reporter and weekend anchor at KTSM. My sources say the last day of Brownsville-produced newscasts at KVEO will be Friday.