On-Air Fashion

KSHB‘s Jack Harry proved this weekend that being caught with your pants down is not just a figure of speech.

Harry, who has been with the Kansas City-area NBC affiliate since 2002, had knee surgery last week. He had trouble fitting his pants over his bandaged leg, so he went on-air without them. The studio crew promised to shoot him from the waist up. One problem: they didn’t.

“Did we interrupt the July 4th picnic, or what?” KHSB’s sports contributor Frank Boal asked Harry as the two men collapsed into laughter. Watch:

(h/t NewsBlues)

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Former WBNS anchor Anietra Hamper received some unwelcome attention in February as details of her dispute with the IRS were widely circulated, revealing a long list of items that she had questionably listed as business expenses–including thongs, a detail that the Daily News, and many others, pounced on.

Now Hamper, who has been ordered to pay back nearly $20,000 in inappropriate deductions, is trying to set the record straight and make sure that others don’t make the same mistakes she did.

“I would hate for anyone else to go through this,” Hamper recently told The Columbus Dispatch, saying that the deductions were honest mistakes made under the advisement of a tax accountant.

It turns out that much of Hamper’s problems with the IRS came down to the interpretation of the tax law governing work clothes. Read more

Looking to give back to the New York community, veteran WNYW anchor Ernie Anastos found that the answer was right under his nose.

“I’ve collected ties over the years,” Anastos told TVSpy sister site FishbowlNY recently. “I’ve had a lot of ties as gifts. I’ve bought ties… It’s my passion. It’s just like being in a candy store when I go into a tie shop.”

Anastos realized that he could use his tie obsession for the greater good. In May, WNYW, a Fox O&O, is launching the “Ernie Great Tie Giveaway.” Viewers will be able to register online to win one of Anastos’s ties plus a photo of him wearing it. In turn, Anastos will donate money to a local charity.

“It’s a combination of thank you and having a little fun with it, and at the same time doing something good to help people,” Anastos says. Read more at FishbowlNY

According to scholars from Indiana University, female anchors who are easy on the eyes make it difficult for male viewers to remember the news.

Researchers Lelia Samson and Maria Elizabeth Grabe found that, for male viewers, “emphasis on the sexual attractiveness of female news anchors distracts from memory formation for news content” because “men’s cognitive mechanisms favored visual over verbal processing.”

In the study, the researchers prepared two short newscasts that they then showed to participants.  The nearly 400 participants were shown one of the two newscasts, both of which included the same 24-year-old female anchor.

Samson and Grabe wrote in the journal Communication Research, that for one newscast the anchor “was dressed in a tight-fitting dark blue jacket and skirt that accented her waist-to-hip ratio” and for the other she wore “a shapeless and loose-fitting dark blue jacket and skirt.”  As well, the anchor wore lipstick in the first newscast but didn’t in the second. Read more

Twin Cities viewers sounded off last week over a jacket worn by fashion-forward WCCO anchor Amelia Santaniello (above).

Santaniello, who has been with the CBS O&O since 1996, wore a white trenchcoat-like jacket with baggy sleeves that caused one viewer to send her a critical email before the 6:00 p.m. newscast was even over and others to contact the local newspaper.

“I need to check things out before I wear them on air. Sometimes it doesn’t translate,” Santaniello told the Star-Tribune. “Can’t win them all, right?”

While Santaniello seems apologetic about her choice in attire that night, local fashion experts have defended the jacket.

“I love Amelia because she takes more fashion chances,” said Sara Glassman of the Star-Tribune. “She’s definitely the fashion-forward person among Twin Cities female anchors.”

What do you think?  Should anchors be allowed to make daring fashion decisions or should they stick to the conventional suit jacket?  Sound off in the comments section… Read more