Media Buzz | News/views about local media

Cyrus broke Fort Bliss' heart ... its achy breaky heart

This has nothing to do with local media, but it is too good not to share. This blog entry is courtesy of El Paso Times reporter Daniel Borunda:

If it’s Sunday, it must be Fort Bliss
FORT BLISS — Country-rock singer Billy Ray Cyrus made one of those uncomfortable rocker slips at the start of his free USO concert for the military Sunday evening at a park in Fort Bliss.
Cyrus told the crowd he was glad to be in “Fort Sill, Texas.”
Members of the audience looked at each other wondering if they heard what they heard. Soon a colonel, who had introduced Cyrus, gave him a jokingly friendly reminder that the country star was in Fort Bliss.
Fort Sill is in Oklahoma.

Lots of new faces

 Media Buzz has been busy reporting lots of departures recently. Of course, that means that there are loads of new faces on local newscasts. No official notices have been sent in regarding the new hires at each of the stations featuring new faces, but it's not hard to figure out that a new batch of young reporters are here.

At KVIA-TV Channel 7 (cable Channel 6) there is a new reporter and a new weather forecaster. The station recently lost weekend morning anchor Abe Lubetkin and weather guy Andrew Chung. Presumably to replace them are two new people: reporter Gaby Loria and forecaster Jennifer Myers. We're still waiting for an official notice from KVIA on the new hires and we'll share whatever background information we can about these two new faces on Channel 7. We do know that Loria is a Miami native and a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, for which she had the distinction of being a student anchor during the 2009 national convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Perhaps the most new TV faces are on KTSM-TV Channel 9 (cable Channel 10)/KDBC-TV Channel 4 (cable Channel 3). The sister stations have at least four new reporters, which they are labeling as multimedia journalists because they are mostly shooting their own video. The stations have had their share of recent departures (Nichole Ayoub, Melanie Olivas, Trevor Connor, Ramon Herrera and Russ Papas) and that means loads of new faces on the two oldest stations in town.

The new reporters on the Channel 9/Channel 4 combo are Alexa Helms, Lindsey Reiser, Eric Fink and Matt Rivers. They are all on air now and posting stories to the stations' webpages. They join recent hires Anthony Garcia and Phillip Mena.

Again, not much information has been provided, but we can tell you that Mena is a local guy who graduated from Montwood High School and went to college at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Also, Helms is a Dallas native who graduated from Oklahoma University. Don't let the last name fool you. Helms is a Latina and fluent in Spanish. This is her first reporting job out of college.

One new face on KFOX-TV Channel 14 (cable Channel 14) is Kandolite Flores. She's beeing doing the morning traffic reports for several weeks now. You can read her bio on the KFOX website here.

This last one is not necessarily a new face, but rather the return of a familiar one. Former KVIA News Director Eric Huesby is back at the station. We don't know exactly what his new role at the station is (News Director Brenda de Anda-Swann is still in charge at ABC 7) but he has been making appearances on air with some in-depth stories.

Gaby Loria

Jennifer Myers

Alexa Helms

Lindsey Reiser

Eric Fink

Matt Rivers

Kandolite Flores 

Media Softball

If you want to check out your favorite reporters, anchors, photographers and radio hosts in action, go check out the Media Charity Softball Tournament at at Cohen Stadium this Sunday.

Fielding teams this year are KTSM-TV Channel 9, KINT-TV Channel 26, KVIA-TV Channel 7, KROD 600 AM, Clearchannel Communications, the El Paso Times, KFOX-TV Channel 14 and the El Paso Parks and Rec Department.

Admission to the tournament is free as long as you bring a canned-food item to donate to the West Texas Food Bank.

The tournament starts at 9 a.m. when Channel 9 takes on Channel 26.

At 10:15 a.m. Channel 7 will play KROD.

At 11:30 a.m. Clearchannel will play the Times.

At 12:45 p.m. Channel 14 will take on Parks and Rec.

The top two teams based on run differentials will play for the championship at 2 p.m.

Two more departures

Abe Lubetkin, the weekend morning anchor at KVIA-TV Channel 7, is leaving the station. His last day is next Sunday.

Lubetkin is also a reporter and producer at Channel 7. He spent two years in El Paso.

Lubetkin has accepted a reporting position with the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, Wis. That television market is larger than El Paso.

His departure leaves an opening in the weekend morning anchor desk. Word is that reporter Daniel Marin will be filling in on the anchor desk next to regular anchor Maria Garcia.

Also, Matt Johnson, the sports editor for the El Paso Times, has left the paper. He said he is going to pursue other career opportunities. His last day on the job was today.

Chung leaving KVIA

Andrew Chung, the meteorologist and reporter at KVIA-TV Channel 7 (cable Channel 6), is leaving the ABC affiliate later this summer.

He has landed a job at the ABC affiliate in Austin, KVUE-TV.

Chung came to El Paso in 2008 after spending time in stations in Tallahassee, Fla., and Beaumont, Texas.

At KVUE, Chung will be joining two former El Paso television journalists: former KVIAer Martin Bartlett and former KFOX anchor Tyler Sieswerda.