Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The News Is Strange Here

I don't know if any other transplants have noticed this before, but, I've had a certain issue with the news networks here in Pittsburgh, and I'm not sure how to articulate them. There's something strange about them that I can't quite put my finger on, and I'm mostly afraid to point them out.
Why, you ask? Well, it's pretty simple: Pittsburghers are proud of anything. Anything. We all know about Steelers mania, Penguin / Pirate fever, The Deep Down Iron City Beer Crazies, and more, but Pittsburghers take it way further. If you pay attention, you can hear the elation in their voices when they hear that a celebrity is a Pittsburgh native, or something is or once was located here. Andy Warhol, Jeff Goldblum, Jose Conseco, the Pittsburgh Philaharmonic; it's crazy!
So, you can see what I'm up against when I say that KDKA looks like crap. I don't care that it's broadcast in HD, and I don't care that they were the first news network in the nation. It looks like the news broadcast for Podunk, Wisconsin. The set is a single lazy paint-job from looking like a Soviet-era news program, and all of the freakin' news anchors look like they can't remember if they fed their cat or not.
C'mon! What the heck! Get with the program, Pittsburgh. The Fifties ended fifty years ago! Throw us a fast one and make all of your anchors have pushbroom mustaches or something –– anything! Either that, or draft Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz.
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