The Cincinnati Enquirer has decided to re-do the round of voting for the “TV Anchor Dream Team” contest pairings that were hacked, this time with security measures in place to ensure the purity of the vote.

For those who haven’t been following the drama surrounding the local anchor popularity tournament, eight anchors ranked from one to eight were paired off against each other in four categories: male, female, sports and weather in NCAA style brackets. However, the first round of meteorologists and one sports anchor pairing was hacked by an Internet bot which supercharged the totals for some anchors. One pairing drew more than 105,000 votes in a little more than ten hour period.

The Enquirer’s John Kiesewetter told TVSpy the paper still doesn’t know who hacked the contest or why. Voters will now have to enter a security code for each vote they cast. Read more

After being off the air for two months, WKRC‘s Tim Hedrick will return to the weather desk at 5 and 6 p.m. for the Cincinnati CBS affiliate.

Kirk Varner, WKRC news director, posted a statement to the station’s website saying in part,

“Tim has been on an extended personal leave.  He will back to also doing the weather at 11 p.m. by week’s end.

I would like to take a moment to personally thank meteorologists Michelle Boutillette, John Gumm, Scott Dimmich and freelancer Erin Sebree—who each did a great job on all of our weather.”

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WKRC chief meteorologist Tim Hedrick, who has been with the Cincinnati CBS-affiliate for the past 24 years, is taking a six-week leave of absence from the station.

In a statement, WKRC vice president and general manager Les Vann explained that Hedrick was taking leave “to handle some personal matters.”

Vann also assured viewers that Hedrick “is feeling fine and will return in late September to his regular schedule and duties as chief meteorologist.” Read more