The first NYT City Section of 2006 led with a celebration of NY1, which kicked some ass during the transit strike, because the playing field gets significantly leveled when all you can do is camp out with Cheetos in a hotel ballroom. Writer Alex Mindlin knows that everyone loves the underdog, so he kicks off with the tale of how boyish newsman Bobby Cuza broke the news of the strike before any of his better-equipped counterparts. Fishbowl's man on the scene, strike-watcher and Animal Magazine publisher Bucky Turco who was at the Hyatt on both nights of strike-watching, said of Cuza: "He seemed generally
pumped about the situation while his counterparts seemed kind of on edge. He was quite bouncy." Aw. Cute!

Not as cute: the NYT's chosen pic of adorable Canadian morning anchor Pat Kiernan. They shot him from below and made him look all square and puffy and jowly. Seriously, Robert Caplin for the New York Times, what were you thinking? Pat's so adorable! Luckily, we have a jaunty pic to prove it (and is it me or does he kind of look like Topher Grace here?). But Caplin did manage to catch Kiernan's shoes in the frame - perhaps it's just that they're in the foreground but they do look rather sizeable. I report, you decide. We lifted this photo from The Panopticist, who noticed that viewer comments being read by Kiernan off a laptop were displayed in Microsoft Word - complete with telltale squiggly underline marks denoting grammatical and spelling errors. Panopticist Andrew Hearst agrees with the NYT and apparently with the channel's loyal viewers: "Oh, NY1, you are so low-rent, and it's charming."

The Little Channel That Could [NYT]
Note to NY1: Disable Spellcheck and Grammar Check Before Showing Microsoft Word Files on the Air [Panopticist]

Related:
Transit Strike Coverage: News You Can Snooze [FishbowlNY]

Slideshow:
Stalking Bobby Cuza [AnimalNY on Flickr]

NB: Photo of Bobby Cuza above by Bucky Turco, who submitted a whole whack of great photos and commentary for the second night of strike-watching - sadly I was not able to post them at that time because I, too, was strike-addled and stuck working on a Mac, which everyone says is so much better but I couldn't figure out how to use without a right-click button. Oops.