This just in: A night in the lives of D-FW's 10 p.m. newscasts (Tues., Feb. 27)
Local TV's two queen bees of tease squared off again Tuesday on the penultimate night of the February sweeps.
NBC5's Jane McGarry and Belo8's Gloria Campos both wore leopard print anchor blouses and the well-practiced smiles of news wars veterans.
Otherwise the playing field tilted, as it usually does, to the unabashed McGarry. Campos has the noisier, bawdier cheerleader pipes. But she just doesn't get the material McGarry does during NBC5's nightly, mid-newscast pump-ups of junk news. On Tuesday, McGarry got to work with bras while Campos had to make do with ice cream. Sometimes life isn't fair.
McGarry's a marvel at shilling the hokum handed to her. About 11 minutes into NBC5's newscasts, Jane tunes out the bulky Tarzan seated beside her and gets in the zone. This is her time, but she has to be quick about it. Face the camera, let 'er rip and then always tell 'em, "The news continues in 30 seconds."
On Tuesday it went like this: "Move over, Wonder Bra, there's a new bra that's all the rage. One that makes almost every woman look slimmer in seconds. You have to see the before-and-after shots to believe this one.
"And the medical miracle that could be the beginning of the end of heart disease. This is true."
All together now: "The news continues in 30 seconds."
It's easy to envision McGarry gulping a couple of stiff shots after each newscast. But that's probably not the case. She seems to be a true believer, dispensing these promos as though they were soft-serve ice cream twirling into a happy sugar cone. Viewers then usually are tricked by either a far-fetched medical study from ACME University or a thinly veiled informercial.
Tuesday night's uplifting bra story, by Meredith Land, touted the $85 All You Bra, with its saleswoman happy to talk it up. NBC5 began the piece with an assortment of woman-on-the-street bosoms before settling on a full-figured young lady who first was shown in her crummy old gold brassiere.
She then strapped on the black All You Bra, which indeed made her torso look less more so. Land gushed a bit, and that was it, save for McGarry's obligatory push of NBC5's web site for all the details on how you can get one.
Over on Belo8, Campos took her best shot with this loudly proclaimed come-on: "If we all scream for ice cream, what will some women do when they hear it might aid fertility?"
Viewers had to sweat out the answer during a commercial break. But anyone expecting a big medical breakthrough story by Janet St. James instead got a 21-second reader from Campos, who essentially said there's really no story at all.
A new study by the Harvard School of Public Health says that a "diet rich in ice cream and other high-fat dairy foods lowers the risk of some types of fertility," Campos said. "But critics warn not to rush for the double fudge just yet. The study's based on what women said they eat, not a strict scientific experiment."
In other words, never mind.
Tuesday's 10 p.m. newscasts also had some good reporting, as well as a very clever gambit by Belo8 sports anchor Dale Hansen. Let's go to the highlight reel:
*** Reporting from Fort Worth, Belo8's Chris Hawes had an interesting story on efforts to curb frequent blasts from noisy freight train hornes. And sports reporter Erin Hawksworth had a nice piece on Dunbar High School's highly spirited women's basketball team, which will be competing for a state title this weekend.
***NBC5's Kristi Nelson reported on new $1 fees being imposed on users of Benbrook Lake Park. That's a first, and it has many frequenters understandably miffed.
***Over on CBS11, Jay Gormley pressed Dallas officials about losing the Cotton Bowl game to the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in 2010. They simply wouldn't give him a straight answer on the subject of failed, earlier efforts to build a Cowboys palace in Dallas.
The station's Joel Thomas had a nice human interest story on an elderly man's dogged search for his missing dog, Dakota. Beset with numerous medical problems, the man had relied on Dakota for what he called his "survivability." Passing out leaflets and offering a small reward, the man said plaintively, "I've got to get my dog back. I've got to."
CBS11's Jack Fink also excelled with an extended report on the worst commutes in North Texas, and why they aren't likely to get better any time soon.
***Fox4's Lari Barager also reported on Dallas' loss of the Cotton Bowl, but more from the perspective of Arlington, the city that's gaining it. That side of the story was interesting, too.
***Hansen gets the last word, as he regularly does on Belo8. Announcing a hockey trade between the Dallas Stars and Los Angeles Kings, he asked viewers to "read along with me at home."
A chart listing the names of the four players then appeared, with Hansen saying, "Stars get those guys on top and they give up those guys on the bottom."
Actually the names weren't all tongue-tanglers -- Mattias Norstrom, Konstantin Pushkarev, Jaroslav Modry, Johan Fransson. Still, it was an imaginative, fun idea for which Hansen deserves full credit -- and will take it.
Here's Tuesday's violent crime story count, with the 19-night running totals in parentheses:
NBC5 -- 1 (66)
CBS11 -- 1 (30)
Fox4 -- 0 (37)
Belo8 -- 0 (23)