Secrets of the City

Wow.

Wow. I’m pretty surprised at this.

I … uh, don’t watch local news.

We want Ted Baxter!

Still, a lot of people do watch the local news. And a lot of them watch ‘CCO because of Paul Douglas. This seems like a bad move for the number 4.

Yet another big, non-local conglomerate thinks it can cut its way back to profitability.

Back when it seemed like the business majors were the dumbest ones in school, it really wasn’t just my imagination.

I guess the CBS PTB are serious. To make a baseball analogy, if this is a case of cutting a high salary player in order to bring in a cheap young guy, and if ‘CCO is indeed adopting “the Twins’ way” then that’s b-a-d for the quality of news.

Wow! It seems absolutely no one has job security these days! Hey Jason how is your weather-speak?

lord knows I haven’t got any.

Don’t cry for Mr. Douglas. His various business have made him the wealthiest weather geek in the country.

Still, a remarkablly stupid move, one that only the National Office could make. It does show just how bad things are getting in the MSM world. Yikes!

Is CBS tanking? Good Question!

Douglas should just buy ‘CCO from CBS and hire himself back. He can afford it.

It’s Paul Douglas and I can cry if I want to.

You’d cry too if it happened to you.

My last time doing weather was in college, when I created graphics with “weather spotters” giving temperatures in the dorms. One of those spotters was a girl I thought was cute, so I put her name on TV as an attempt to impress her.

Alyssa in Cobeen is now my wife.

So to answer: no, I have no clue how to do the weather.

Don’t cry maxie.

I’m not feeling sorry for the man moneywise. Well aware he could retire now with no problem. I’m just surprised that they would let a veteran face (and hair) like that go. I’m guessin’ the older generation is gonna be mighty angry.

That’s crazy.

Did he offer to work there for free? He should.

Wow

really liked P. Doug even if he was part robot.

Sadly I fear he will be replaced by a full robot someday

Jason, that’s an awesome story!

There was love in the clouds!

really liked P. Doug even if he was part robot.

What’s wrong with being part robot?

Here’s Douglas’ farewell email to colleagues.

Excerpt:

“Times are tough, many people are losing their jobs, and I am not exempt from this troubling trend. The simple truth: like many other CBS employees I was a target at a time when there are systemic, long-term challenges. No attempt was made to negotiate a lower salary; it was pretty cut and dry. It’s just business, dollars and cents – I get it. My only real regret: not saying goodbye to viewers and radio listeners, who I am indebted to for a glorious 22 year career in this market.”

I never cared for the little Kruhoeffer fella, but this is shocking! Hopefully he’ll do more public speaking, and he’ll continue to use the term “warm taint” when doing so.

His single biggest critic all along has been Dan Barreiro on KFAN…bashes Douglas constantly over his weather fear-mongering. I’m going to have to give Dan a listen today to see whether he gloats, pities or is just plain stunned.

I’m guessin’ the older generation is gonna be mighty angry

Right, tooting their, Sonny Boy. We are all WCCO has left! It is a White Cranky Caucasian Organization!

Expect the angry mob with walkers at the news window tonite — you have been warned!

Wait, he’s just gone? No two weeks? No big farewells?

Wow. That’s hard.

That depends are we talking robo-cop or terminator?

I prefer 100% robot ala Johnny #5

KARE 11 has it on the front page of their website. On wcco.com, it just looks like he disapeared

Five is alive?

I look forward to Douglas buying CBS, renaming it “DBS” and making the execs who fired him fight in a cage match, with the last one standing keeping their job and corner office. All live before a national audience, garning a huge share of the Thursday night viewers.

1st they cancel Jericho {cbs} and now this. Just goes to show you. CBS does indeed stand for C–couldnt B–be S—Sh!ttier

That depends are we talking robo-cop or terminator?

I prefer 100% robot ala Johnny #5

Just wondering. I don’t want any hate coming my way.

I’m not surprised – this is just the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from the conservative media.

rumor on the street is that this is Paul Douglas replacement @ WCCO…DeRusha and Tom Bartel hammered it out over drinks.

Maybe Jerico will rise again on cable, feature new character Floyd Healy (Douglas) the charismatic but dangerous President of the Republic of Texas.

Askari is available.

My last time doing weather was in college, when I created graphics with “weather spotters” giving temperatures in the dorms. One of those spotters was a girl I thought was cute, so I put her name on TV as an attempt to impress her.

So to answer: no, I have no clue how to do the weather.

You know what, I’m going to try that. The next time I get a crush on a girl, won’t she be surprised to see the Legislature pass a bill with her name on it.

“A bill for an act relating to sexy…”

thank god. douglas was the worst of the local weather terrorists. he sucked when he went to chicago and he sucked when he came back.

Wow, this was a shocker!

I enjoyed watching him of all the meterologists and even though he’s gone, he is certainly in a position where he doesn’t have to bust his hump one more day if he doesn’t want to! Already there’s talk of Shelby leaving in 2010 when his current contract ends.

A real shitty time to be an employee of CBS!

Ah! Everyone is losing their jobs! Widespread panic abounds!

i just liked him cause he did rap songs.

I’m afraid I would be tempted to saw “just look outside your window, you $#@* idiots!” if I was a weatherman on teevee. It’s an art, as Bill Murray showed us all in Groundhog’s Day.

I’ll be @ the Local @ 5:15 if anyone wants to have a mini-wake for the mini-weatherman. I’ll pour out some OE for my dead weather homie.

What will happen to the startribune column?

You’re all fired.

I hear DeRusha is getting a corner office…with a very low ceiling.

Stop it! No more layoff jokes or news for the rest of the hour.

Wait a minute… Terminator was all robot.

Let’s hope that P.D. gets to keep the StarTribune column and he goes all apeshit on CBS.

Terminator had human skin.

and what happened to Tom Barnard? Jeff passolt doing the KQ morning show?

speaking of TBs, what happened to the Bartel Cartel?
They never stop by anymore.

Matt did a post just a few days ago.

oh I must have missed it

but still nowhere near the level of interaction there used to be.

My desk actually did relocate in the newsroom, which caused a bit of an unintentional dust-up.

Did all your girlie magazines accidentally spill out on the ground when you moved your desk?

Because, man — been there!

Did all your girlie magazines accidentally spill out on the ground when you moved your desk?

Max, I thought it was a dead hooker. Or was that a different desk move?

some people have a real desk and not a tv-dinner-tray, max

I keep the magazines in my locker, not in my desk.

Smart. They’re just too unbalanced on my tv dinner tray, er, desk.

Admit it Max, you’re sitting in your underpants right now, aren’t you?

I bet Paul Douglas is sitting in his underpants right now. And loving it.

I’m on the 15th floor of Moos tower at the moment, updating the dental School’s Web page.

So, yes.

Those crazy dentists! THey’re all perverts, so watch your bacon hole!

I bet Max is sitting around in Paul Douglas’s underpants, and loving it!

I wonder if PD took the blue screen and slide clicker when he left.

Cause it’s hard to balance a dinner tray on top of a boner.

What are Paul Douglas’ underpants made from? Good Question.

Aliecat: “Admit it Max, you’re sitting in your underpants right now, aren’t you?”

Admit it? He revels in it.

yuck.

Cause it’s hard to balance a dinner tray on top of a boner.

Also, I can’t reach the food when it’s more than 12 inches away from me.

Count me in for the Sparber Harem.

I’m trying to think of the woman we installed the wireless for on the 15th floor of Moos…. Her name escapes me now.

Douglas was a joke in the weather field than others I’d seen on local TV. I mean, come on! His forecast wasn’t always that accurate and he acts like the world was going to end if a storm passes by the Twin Cities.

By the way, didn’t he just recently piss off the former CEO of the Weather Channel Cable Network over the debate upon whether Global Warming is real or not?

Oh my god, they already took down his page.

Matt did a post just a few days ago.

And things were better when he was here.

Since he doesn’t have to do the weather tonight, Paul can stay home and give his wife the “digital cyclone”.

Wait a minute… Terminator was all robot.

Terminator had human skin.

Flesh, skin, hair,…blood. All grown for the cyborgs.

I just read that line at lunch time.

I’ve also been looking around the past couple of days for a copy of Cyborg by Martin Caidin.

Isn’t that the basis for The Six Million Dollar Man? I remember it being a pretty good book, but I read it when I was 10.

Maybe Douglas is going to be part of some Big Brother 9 plot twist.

Does he continue to get the weekly Botox shots as part of his severence package?

Yeah, I trust the CEO of the Weather Channel to tell me whether 99.9 percent of scientists are right.

Isn’t that the basis for The Six Million Dollar Man? I remember it being a pretty good book, but I read it when I was 10.

Yes. The current book I’m reading references it a lot.

Yeah, I trust the CEO of the Weather Channel to tell me whether 99.9 percent of scientists are right.

’bout as much as I truest politicians.

I’m less afraid of cyborgs than I am the crawling fish with eyes that face forward. You hear about that? It’s a fish that doesn’t swim. Beginning of the end, folks. These crawling fish are going to storm our beaches and kill us all. The only way to stop them is to raise sea levels so they have farther up to go.

Big G: “His forecast wasn’t always that accurate and he acts like the world was going to end if a storm passes by the Twin Cities.”

The latter is the TV Meteorologist’s prerogative; a perk of the job, if you will.

Kevin: “These crawling fish are going to storm our beaches and kill us all. The only way to stop them is to raise sea levels so they have farther up to go.”

Wouldn’t that actually help them in their genocidal quest? You’ve become confused and will fall easy prey to these monsters.

Paul’s forecasts were less hyperbolic and “fear mongering” than the stuff that passes for weather on KSTP-TV. (And I really gag on most of the forecasting being on KMSP, too. Pew-pew-pew.) We just think of Paul first because we all watched him more than we did the other guys/gals doing TV weather in the market.

Given that there also have been cuts at Gannett, I bet Sven won’t be seeing a raise for a while. He was Douglas’ only real competition in the market among women viewers, IMHO.

Paul’s a cool guy, though. Definitely a tech head. It’s funny how we dump on people like him when they’re often the most original minds to come along in a while.

I’d certainly give Sven a raise!

no local weather personality was worse than Janie Peterson…I swear If I heard her say “Viper Radar” one more time….

Why do all these radar systems have homo-erotic-masculo-bruce-tastic names like Viper, Titan and Thunderf*k?

Oh wait that last one is weed.

They are all giving essentially the same forcast. They all get the same feeds from the National Weather Service. So, blaming the TV weather person for incorrect forecasts is silly. He/she/it is just passing on the information that he/she/it was given.

@noodleman
I think Sven may appeal to a slightly different demographic?

Oh my god, they already took down his page.

That ol’ interweb can be a cruel bastard. In other Barnard/Douglas news, I recall Tommy B. referring to PD’s (one time) home as “Steak and Ale West.” I think Paul will land on his feet. You just know they could hire 4 or 5 more DeRushas for what they laid out for Paul.

Gotta go; Bells Hopslam is calling my name!

Oliver we must not fight amongst ourselves. The enemy is the crawling fish with eyes that face forward. They do not yet swim, so unless there’s some kind of rope they will have a hard time getting from the sea floor to our beaches. So the higher our sea levels are, the farther they have to learn to swim. This delay should give us enough time to prepare a counter offensive, futile though it may be.

Unless you’ve got a plan to lower the sea floor, raising the sea levels are our only hope to delay the coming global super fish.

Upon looking out the window of my suburban office, it seems that Douglas is summoning dark skies.

how many svens can you get with one paul douglas?

I’m going to assemble a crack special operations team from the Bassmaster program on the cable. Git ‘er done! Whoo!

@johnjohn
based on height I would say about 1 1/2

paul is quit leprechaunish but based on his dinosaur arms I estimate sven to be roughly 4′6″ tall

You just know they could hire 4 or 5 more DeRushas for what they laid out for Paul.

That’s too damn many DeRushas! I might go along with that plan if a few more Trompeters were thrown in, though.

paul d was always @ the capitol talking about global warming when i was @ the capitol back in 2003. he was just there cause he cared about it, and it was pretty cool to watch.

Douglas: They all get the info from the NWS, and they get about 4 or 5 computer models, which usually spit out the same things. But before storms, the models often show widely varying predictions. Which is where the expertise of the local micro-climate comes in.

This is why one forecaster will predict 3 inches of snow, another will say 6, another will say a dusting. They’re beliving different models. In the Twin Cities: the forecasters actually make forecasts. They’re not “Weather presenters” like in some markets.

I think Sven may appeal to a slightly different demographic?

Heh. Appeal is one thing; saleable demos is another, and I don’t think the rainbow demo is quite that strong yet.

They’re not “Weather presenters” like in some markets.

Hawai’i comes immediately to mind … as does Singapore. How many ways can you creatively say “sunshine with possible afternoon rain” 365 days a year?

DeRusha, you went to MU? Ring out ahoya…

Wait a minute… Terminator was all robot.
—–
Terminator had human skin.
—–
Flesh, skin, hair,…blood. All grown for the cyborgs.

I’ve also been looking around the past couple of days for a copy of Cyborg by Martin Caidin.

And, I should have kept reading. Terminators have no humanity, and hence are not cyborgs, but robots. Manfred Clynes (who coined the term cyborg in 1960) said this:

“This recent film with this Terminator, with Scharzenegger playing this thing-dehumanized the concept completely. This is a travesty of the real scientific concept we had. It’s not even a caricature. It’s worse, creating a monster out of something that is a human enlargement of function…”

Not to sound like a name droppin’ wanker, but I’ve gotten to know the man over the past couple of years, and I can tell you that I’ve never met a person who clearly LOVES the weather more that Paul. It runs in his veins so it’s hard to imagine that he won’t be involved in one way or another.

At this rate…. all the $500K+ salaries are gonna fall.

Did ya see the ratings?

I was too busy watching Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations on TLC between 10-11 last night.

Wow. The spin doctors are idiots at ‘CCO.

Here’s the copy posted on the website “PAUL DOUGLAS LEAVES WCCO

Paul Douglas Leaves WCCO
(WCCO) There’s a change in the weather at WCCO.

Paul said Minnesota is home, and he and his wife Laurie will remain in the area, committed to the community.

Man this sucks. Paul’s sense of humor and passion are going to be missed by many. The only science class I took at UW in which I tried to do well was meteorology.

One night, about a year ago, as Paul was using the slide show thing he brought up a state map with town names that had no temps inserted and said something like, “And these cities are exactly where they should be, geographically…”. Effin priceless.

Plus, Sven stood up a prominent local Norwegian who invited him to Torsk Club, a major faux pas for an aspiring local scandinavian chap.

I can’t believe this! Paul Douglas is the main reason I watch WCCO. (Frank, Amelia, and Don come in at close seconds, though.) This makes me sad….

They should have cut Jeanette Trompeter. She is about as ditzy as they come.

When the VRWC decided to take down CBS News, we really didn’t intend or anticipate that it would affect local affiliates to the degree that it has. And for that, we sincerely apologize to misters Reger and Douglas, by all accounts, two very fine fellows.

It’s amazing you can type at all, Mazaspazza, with both hands in your pants.

Yep. Funny how you assumed correctly that it’s a two-hander.

Wow. I never realized mazasapa translates into: “He With Infant-Sized Hands.”

heh

Curious: WCCO has taken the “Contact Us” form link off the bottom of their home page. Weak.

What a stupid idea to let him go. It won’t be the same without him.

dumb dumb dumb

I listened to WCCO in the days of Cedric Adams and have watched the
TV WCCO regularly.

This looks like typical MBA management practice. I will continue to watch channel 4–probably not as often. I will try my best to avoid the channel 4 advertisers.

I don’t think That’s true, Oh Really. Here’s the contact page. It’s still listed in the navigation on the left side of the page, and in the same “send a news tip” box at the bottom lower right.

I stand corrected, Jason. Thanks.

Well, actually, Jason: Try to submit something. Maybe it’s getting hammered, but it doesn’t appear to be working correctly.

Well great, my fake message of complaint went right through. You can always send in feedback to my Good Question mailbox, I’m sending them all on to management.

OK, now I sit, corrected and befuddled. Thanks. Maybe I need that $150 Comcast modem…

There also seems to be a bit of a comment party happening in one of my recent blog entries. ((And just send me $150, I’ll guide you through any internet traffic jams))

Okay, I understand why they do these things. But to just axe P. Douglas like they did is just horrible (that’s an understatement). They should have let him have the option to broadcast once or twice more and allow him to say goodbye and let the viewers know that he will be “off to do new adventures”. In our company when someone is asked to resign(a nicer version of saying they are fired) they alow the person to leave with diginity. The ones who are “fired” they just walk them out and clean out their desk. And leaves the rest of us wondering what in the heck did that person do?? It just wasn’t right how they ended his career at WCCO. SHAME ON YOU CBS AND WCCO EXEC’S. You just don’t get it.

What really does seem to be broken though, is the rss feed for Deblog.

Bring back Bud Kraehling!

Paul Douglas has had his highs and lows (no pun intended), and his charismatic personality will be missed by all Minnesotans. Thanks for keeping it real P. Diddy

Thanks David, I’ll look into it.

As long as they don’t replace him with someone who tries to mimic the weather with facial expressions, it’s ok.

I don’t know who the crack smoking fool is who fired Paul Douglas, but in an era of competitive news the only thing that differentiates news are the personalities of the people who deliver it. Paul was the quirky personality of WCCO and 50% of the reason I even bother to tune in to the weather instead of get it from the web.

I stopped watching Channel Five when they got rid of Harris Faulkner and Kent Nynomia to bring the 1980’s corpse of Cindy Brucato back from the dead. I started watching WCCO again. Now they get rid of the only bit of character the newroom has.

They should send the crack smoking management to rehab and get Paul back before they discover just how low their ratings can go.

Thank goodness Paul Douglas is gone! Another global warming loony toon bites the dust. Now, when is Don Shelby hitting the road with his buddy?

In my opinion this is a very bad, and really stupid move for ‘CCO. I have been a loyal viewer of 4 new for more than 20 years and Paul is a member of my family. When you mess with my family you mess with me. I do not like this and I want it fixed. It is not just that he was let go, it was the underhanded way it was done. Paul deserves much more respect than this and if you have so little regard for your long term employees you must have even less for us little viewers. This is wrong!

Now, wait a minute. I agree that this was probably a bad move by the PTB, but I haven’t seen anything that indicates that this was handled in a particularly underhanded manner. In fact, while the decision appears to have been finalized at the same time as John Reger’s, it sounds like they held off announcing it until Douglas was back in town. That actually indicates some level of sensitivity to me.

From the info I’ve seen this is certainly not anything like City Pages handling of its letting go their music editor. (That one almost reminds me of the first episode of Newsradio, where Jimmy James leaves it to Dave to fire his own predecessor as news director)

Don’t despair Paul Douglas fans! It appears the man has landed on his feet!

I don’t get this whole lay-off thing at all. Most companies will lay off the people that have been there the least amount of time first, and also people who aren’t very good or aren’t very likeable (in the case of newspeople). This isn’t the case with Paul Douglas. He was such a good meteorologist. Why not cut the programming of little watched news shows (such as the ones John Reger was on)? Other stations have done it.

Point to Raindogg.

I’ve always been one to say: Why don’t you cut the people selling advertising for not doing their job?

How does cutting ad sales job come into play here, Rat? And nice that you assume they aren’t doing their job.

Farewell Paul D! Look me up if you want to start vlogging.

I have to re-tell my story of meeting him. He was one of our early guinea pigs doing live web chats during TPT’s Almanac. During rehearsal, JG Preston introduced me to Paul Douglas and he said, “Golden showers? What are golden showers, I don’t know anything about those…”

Bottom line, you can thank Katie Couric and the moron who hired her.

“Now, when is Don Shelby hitting the road with his buddy?”

Likely in 2010, when his contract expires. Even if he wanted to come back, and his health is good (he has already had a stroke and a TSA), it is highly unlikely CBS will be willing to pay more than $1 million a year for a local teevee news anchor.

It’s lack of viewers, Rat, not lack of sales (or effort). WCCO-TV eyeballs went down by double digits this year, same thing happened at KARE-TV and KSTP-TV. Advertising rates are tied directly to audience figures, when viewership drops, so does your income. Even a Herculian effort to sell more at a lower rate will only get you so far — the ad space they have to sell has a finite number. They could sell more ad time than last fiscal year and still have less incoming dollars.

If it make you feel better, I think ALAMN is buying some ad time on WCCO-TV soon, so we are doing our part.

It’s truly unfortunate for all of us viewers who REALLY enjoyed watching
Mr. Douglas. His personality and humor will be deeply missed by my family and I. Is there anyone left out there that for even a few seconds, could put a smile on our faces just because they are telling us how the wind is going to blow. ? Our family wishes him the best because in our opinion, he is the BEST.

WCCO didn’t know a good thing when they had him. I loved watching Paul Douglas because he really LOVES what he does and it shows. That’s why he’s good at weather! I hope one of the other stations is smart enough to snap him up.

Local news – making themselves more and more irrelevant every day.

I liked PD because he seemed like he had a glimmer of actual weather knowledge about him – being a somewhat weather-geekish guy glued to the NWS website, that’s a big deal.

I hope he sticks around.

Oh God, Katie Couric. What a horrible commencement speech she gave.

Bummer. He made 50 Mill sellings his side project…and he.. just like others in the cities was 50% right. Was he overpaid? Yes I think so. Could I be wrong as much as they weather folks in the cities and keep my job no. Could you be as wrong with the technoloty at your fingertips..no…be honest now…Is he a human being, yes he is. I’ll miss the spread off his eyes and his nose. Maybe he’ll move down to area 51 with the rest of the aliens….

Fortunately, my job is not to predict the future down to the degree, the amount of precip, and the time the precip. will start to fall. So there’s that.

WCCO TV shown so very brightly a short time ago, when they dedicated the needed staff and technical resources to let us say a respectful goodbye to our longtime on air friend, Bill Carlson. That proud light has quickly dimmed this week with the quiet and unceremonious dismissal of our beloved Paul Douglas.

Here in the Midwest, we live and die by weather forecasting. Paul has been our friend and chief weather guru for 22 years, serving as a leading force of weather tools and programming trends. And, he’s made the weather fun for viewers, while innovating and being the best at what he does.

To push Paul out into the night without showing appreciation and respect to him -OR- ‘CCO’s dedicated viewers is unbelievable, unconscionable, unacceptable! We expect (and deserve) so much more from ‘CCO! At the very least, a gracious on air thank you and goodbye by Paul himself. CBS has set a new low for ‘CCO in community sensitivity regarding its staffing changes…somewhere down low near the notorious Hubbard operation.

By the way, KARE11 has served our community well by posting a warm tribute and acknowledgement for Paul. It just isn’t right how Paul’s career ended at ‘CCO, without even a goodbye from our friend. Shame on both the CBS and ‘CCO execs.

Did the Star Trib buy WCCO while I wasn’t looking?
If WCCO doesn’t want respected knowledge then they should atleast provide us with some candy to look at…tan, muscular, shirtless, great smile…

I watch WCCO for Paul Douglas. His coverage during serious storms is always helpful and he brings an excitement to the weather.The only plus side to this is that I will no longer have to listen to that ass Don Shelby, because I wont watch without Paul.
We’ll miss you Paul, please come back on another station!

Jeez, he’s a weatherman people. Settle down.

To the executives at WCCO- the public can understand budget cuts due to ecomomy. However, Paul Douglas and his audience deserves more respect than how this was handled. If anything, this has further hurt your viewership. Your lack of integrity has been eposed, and you have lost this viewer because of your treatment of this talented man.

To Mr. Douglas; Thank you for your many years of excellence. I am glad to hear that you are staying in the Twin Cities. Should any of the other local affiliates snatch you up, I will grant that station my new attention.

So CBS wants to cut back on expenses, seems to me like they want to cut back on viewers as well. I liked Paul Douglas, and I will no longer watch CBS . even when you are good at your job it’s an “Off with their heads” mentality. CBS you have your head in your ass on this one.

come on, derusha…you couldn’t hold Paul’s sling psychrometer. Ask management how you managed to be spared. Get to the bottom of a fuzzy navel at ten, will you?

Did you go to Marquette?

hopefully he turns up somewhere else..

I did go to Marquette, hoimang. And maybe you missed this last week.

Rash touched on some really good points in your Good Question last week, Jason.

One, that Wall Street pretty much dictates what happens in the media. Media companies are still profitable, but Wall Street doesn’t like that they are not the cash cows they used to be and journalists (along with non-rev generating employees) are paying the price. Rash admits that there are fewer journalists, but that important stories like the 35W bridge were well covered. Not a stretch when it happens in your backyard. And with fewer journalists, even local news becomes sound bitey and sensationalized and seemingly less “investigative” or in-depth.

Seems really shortsighted of not only CBS, but most media companies as they bow to the whims of Wall Street.

It’s become painfully clear that media companies moved way too slowly incorporating online into their business. And too few are still bucking the idea of treating the internets as a solid revenue stream.

Paul Douglas may be “just a weather guy” to many, but his layoff represents a sad trend in media.

There has to be a way for citizen and traditional journalists to play well with each other as the independent news voice is much needed in light of corporate media imploding.

Wait… where’s dude weather?

All things considered, Paul Douglas had a better weekend than Chuck Heston. RIP, Mr. H. Those dirty apes can’t touch you now….

I will not be watching WCCO news, because of the departure of Paul Douglas. This seems like a terrible decision on the Execs part.
Thanks Paul!

Justpbob: “Those dirty apes can’t touch you now….”

Unless, of course, he goes to Heaven Of The Apes.

After playing Moses, Ben Hur, and narrating the Bible DVDs, Mr. H is bound to get into some kind of Heaven. Gun Heaven, perhaps.

the good news…it looks like we can have ol Charlton’s gun

Boy….can you imagine Paul Douglas debating against Micheal Crichton on the subject of Global Warming?

Why is global warming capitalized? What are the criteria for earning capitalization. About alls I can discern is it has to be a cause championed by the left. The left really likes to capitalize words.

Didn’t your english teacher ever tell you that all works of fiction should be capitalized? sheesh.

Aw, c’mon Kev!

The Right’s causes get capitalized, too.

Halliburton, Wal-Mart, Clear Channel Communications…

Ugh. Why don’t you guys just get chains and bottles and duke out whether liberals are stupider than conservatives in the street, instead of crapping up MnSpeak endlessly.

Yes, Paul Douglas was concerned about global climate change. Just like a majority of climatologists. If you’re doing a merry little jig because he got fired because you were so offended by this, you may want to reconsider your life’s priorities.

That’s right. MNspeak is supposed to be about bacon and vaginas. What is wrong with you people?!

I see. You are unable to distinguish between a civil and educated political discussion and pure partisan braying. I guess I knew it all along.

You said: The left really likes to capitalize words.

You meant to say: The Right really likes to capitalize on human misery.

I just wondered cause I see it all the time. Sometimes there’ll even be a news story that capitalizes “Big Oil” and I’m like, “What am I missing here?” I don’t notice peopleon the right capitalizing Taxes or Transit Subsidies. It must be something in the brains.

WTF, a B-52s video is on VH1???

How about “Big Science“?

Or “Big Government”?

This is the fallacy of trying to “bring us together.” In his attempt to “reach across the isle,” George Bush has ushered in massive new spending programs such as prescription drug coverage in medicare, the TSA, NCLB, etc. His reward has been approval ratings in the low 30s, half of it coming from disapproving conservatives, but the other half coming from ungrateful democrats.

The lesson here? Don’t give the democrats anything because they’ll only want more and give you no credit for what you did give them. If Bill Clinton had signed the prescription drug benefit for example, that’s all Hillary would be talking about … how she gave america’s seniors free prescription drugs.

How’s the weather under the bridge today, Maz?

Truly a bad move by “CCO. What were they thinking? I enjoyed Paul Douglas immensely for his professionalism, his humor and his style. Because of this we won’t watch the weather on that channel anymore. They should reconsider and hire him back. A lot of viewers are pretty upset. Bring Paul back…..

I am glad Paul was fired. He was a crocky jerk of a weatherman. I never liked the fact the Star bumped Ken’s forecast for Paul’s. Paul, good riddens.

agreed. douglas was the worst kind of weatherman: a self-promoting alarmist convinced of his own importance.

i, for one, will not miss his spastic, sky-is-falling ‘reporting’. soz paulie, but 2″ of snow != catastrophic conditions, no matter how loud you might scream it.

there’s a reason they let him go.

I’ll certainly miss Paul. No other weather person could put as many creative adjectives to the weather as Paul could. I’d watch to hear them far more than I cared to hear about the weather, but when I did care about the weather–it was Paul I tuned into.

Clearly a cut above the rest, it sounds as though he isn’t crying for himself. Good luck, Paul and I will look for news of you. You did a wonderful job here.

I think your decision to remove such a good tv personality from your programming just to save money is a stupid move. You rely on people watching the program to see the advertisments, that make the station money. If you lose your viewing audience then you lose money, because no one is going to buy the product that is being advertised. WCCO has some good people but I mainly watched for the weather. And enjoyed the humor and knowledge that Paul Douglas had to offer. Therefore I have decided that WCCO may not be the best new station to watch anymore.

Mike

Who will be promoting global warming now?

Paul Douglas goofball is gone. Yeah! As arrogant in person as on the air.
Never got the forcast right, and never said sorry.
Please let Don Shelby go!

Give me a call when you get fired, Rick, so I can gloat.

I only watched and listened to the evil neighbor for laughs,
mainly from Paul, who I will miss for his highly spewing his global warming religion to all, even when it’s snowing and 40 below for weeks at a time, oh yeah, then he talked about climate change. Guess what Paul -that is called SEASONS! In summer it is hot, in winter it is cold.
some winters are colder, and some summers are hotter. Don is crying in his tea right now, that he grew in his backyard, which he learned in china, when he studied there for years, and……is anyone more biased and arrogant as these people?

Oh great. The lunatics have arrived.

Douglas’s notoriety is only surpassed by Melinda Jacobs’

I can’t call anyone, I don’t have a phone or a job to be fired from,
I live off the tax-payers in public housing- so there.

Oh great. The lunatics have arrived.

“They’re a-l-r-e-a-d-y here!.”

BTW…can you believe what an officious prick Stephen Sondheim is?

Who new?

(Besides everyone.)

Everyone has had their fun, but no matter what things Paul said or did or how filthy rich he is, he still is a good neighbor, don’t forget that!
So be nice, ok?

Your quite right, Jane.
And I’m sorry. Nice snowstorm.

the above jane is not this jane.

me jane.

Neither of the prior Janes are me. Matter of fact, I’m not even a Jane. This is getting so confusing.

You Tarzan.

Me Jane.

I’m not sure raindog knows what “officious” means. Either that or he doesn’t understand the context of the video.

Hint: He’s supposed to be helping her and she’s grateful to be coached by Sondheim.

Another Jane! Welcome, Jane or not-Jane.

I’ll be Tarzan.

Who will be promoting global warming now?

Somehow I don’t think that’ll be a problem.

Maybe if they fire everyone who talks about global warming, it won’t happen.

Couldn’t hurt.

I want them to start referring to “threads” as “vines” around here.

I’ll be Tarzan.

I’m going to need to see your loin cloth for proof…

Ew.

Awwwwwww riiiiiiiiiiiight!

Hey I’M Jane over here. I’ll be checking kev… tarzan’s loins.

heh

Ladies, care to join me?

Tarzan, you okay with that?

Cool.

First EVAR MNspeak loin-checking.

of·fi·cious (-fshs)
adj.
1. Marked by excessive eagerness in offering unwanted services or advice to others: an officious host; officious attention.(i.e. Stephen Sondheim.)
2. Informal; unofficial.
3. Archaic Eager to render services or help others.

So suck it.

Alie is pretending she doesn’t like loins, so I guess it is just you and me Jane.

Kevin, hold still… this won’t hurt, I promise.

(Tarzan yell)

The word “loin” is icky.

Coulda been worse, I might have said moist loin.

I’ve been drinking.

Blargh!

“1. Marked by excessive eagerness in offering unwanted services or advice to others: an officious host; officious attention.(i.e. Stephen Sondheim.)”

Hooray for dictionaries! So what do you think, that he was just in the audience and started heckling? That some gal pursuing a stage career is actually annoyed by the opportunity to be working with Stephen Sondheim?

I think you were trying to say something else and failed. Whatever.

Moist loins give rise to fungus

That must be the most poetic sentence ever composed on mnspeak. Sniff.

I’m applying to be the next Minnesota Poet laureate

alie is just grasping at straws to come up with an excuse for her own throbbing desires. Fail.

Nice Kurtis!

Glad to see you are doing your best to become the CJ Grammar police of MNspeak.

I would think someone taking a random and semantically fractured potshot at somebody famous for no discernible reason would be compared to the gossip columnist. But I accept the police analogy. Somebody has to pull these guys over when they’re weaving all over the road.

Paul was one of the ones who could make a 30 second piece into a 5 minute piece with a comercial in the midddle. And we watched because of the “talent”, not the content. Proof – watch the 10:00 pm weather, then watch the 6:00 am weather, it’s always different. As enterntainment, fine, as news, not hardly. Paul will somehow manage to get by………..

Kevin, I told you to never mention my throbbing desires in public! Jerk.

But they’re all that exists between us!

CBS News Flash!
It’s all about family here in the upper mid-west.
For nearly two decades Paul Douglas has been family to us here is the Twin Cities. Through sun, snow and storm we have relied on his counsel and enjoyed the pleasure of his company. Many of us have moved with Paul as he has moved. Both from KARE11, to the internet and print media and then to WCCO. We have spent our hard earned dollars with CBS’s advertisers over the past years with Uncle Pauls good blessing. I realize that it was a “Business Decision” that CBS terminated Paul Douglas as weatherman at WCCO. So I hope that CBS does not take it personally that we the “Fam” (the thousands of Twin Cities viewers) have terminated CBS as our weather and news source. Dear CBS, Please forward our change of address to your advertisers who can now find us at KARE11, FOX9, KSTP5 and other broadcasters in this market. Please, do not be offended that we are taking away your precious advertising dollars, it’s not personal, it is strictly a “Business Decision”
By the way, would the last person out the door at CBS please shut off the lights. Thank you.

Neil Justin has the real story on the Paul Douglas departure. Interesting.

Good gawd, Wilcox, could you be more dramatic?

People get fired every damn day and as much as it would suck to have your firing so public, Douglas will lick his bruised ego for being canned (don’t let this make you bitter, Paul), move on, and laugh as he finds a way to make another 45 million.

Don’t put the other stations on the pedestal just yet. Just because the shite doesn’t play out in public, doesn’t mean it ain’t happening.

Sing it Cat.

Paul usually had more in-depth take on the weather and sometimes it was pretty amazing when he would get the locals pretty right on for tornadic or bad weather actions. I can’t understand why CBS would ax someone valuable to our safety. I mean, replacing him with weather “talking heads” or keeping the Santenellos , who look like they would just as soon not sit next to each other, is a total mistake. I would have rather them axed, Rigor be put with Jeanette and Don take an early retirement and bring back Paul. Like Don a lot but safety first.

’safety’ lol

Reading Neal Justin’s filling-in-the-blanks on the PD story made the whole thing make somewhat more sense. Something I’m realizing as somebody who cares about quality journalism, is that this whole PD debacle has been rather a watershed event: The tv news has been steadily declining in news-worthiness for sometime now, emulating E! Entertainment more than meaningful news. Those of us who care about such things have been bemoaning this fact but continuing to watch, mostly out of habit, and because at least we’d see PD’s best guess for tomorrow’s weather. But with that solid and earnest presence yanked away we are left to see that there really is very little, if anything that is NEWSWORTHY in these news reports, so we’ll take the dogs for their last walk of the day at 10 instead of 10:19 (or whenever the weather report ended), or tune into KARE-11 if we have need for a late night weather fix. I’m so sad to say that we’ve pretty well written off the local print media as well, since there is so very, very little of substance left after the last several waves of lay-offs. What I dearly miss is thoughtful discourse on issues and culture in our community that these constant waves of lay-offs in print, and this inane pandering to the entertainment value of tv “news” broadcasts have destroyed. It’s tragic because these are such pivotally important times and there really is no central, trustworthy media for exchange of information and ideas. I don’t think that it’s so much that print and broadcast media were so fabulously profitable in the past, but that the folks who owned them did so as a community trust. If you’re looking to define business success by expecting the same sort of short-term profit as MacDonald’s or Target then you will not be able to sustain a meaningful exchange of information and ideas. Alas, perhaps I’m just too old….who knew?

in a world of bel jensens ever changung coats.(she wears a new one every day)and the trendy svens,old mike (i dye my hair)fairborn to ians triton raidar.I WILL MISS paul douglas(DOUG K>)because he told me about weather in a way i could understand it.he explained all the terms and i’ll always remember it. i hope he pops up soon because i don’t know what jacket bel will wear next!!!!!

he explained all the terms and i’ll always remember it.

Could you explain the terms of your typing so I can understand it?

We sure do miss Paul’s weather reports, measured humor, and team camaraderie. Getting our weather from Paul had always made us feel a bit safer, smarter, and happier!

Paul, best of luck in your new endeavors! We’re happy to hear you’ll “be OK”. We can only hope that we will too, when the spring/summer Midwest storms blow into town!

(In the current required cost-cutting environment, image our surprise to discover ‘CCO TV has already posted job listings for Weather Anchor and News Anchor positions!)

Up here in the sticks, WCCO was revered since its beginning….farmers would come in from fields/barns to catch the weather/commodities and stockyard report/news. Cedric Adams, Joyce LaMont and a few others were part of the family. WCCO enjoyed an almost sacred tradition up here. We had to be quiet while dad or grandpa would strain to hear the important things of life through the static. Paul Douglas (and Don S) were the closest living continuation of that extended family. now, we have lost another ‘family member’. We will miss PD there–same as we are STILL getting over the insane loss of Patty Peterson. She’s still out there, having a beautiful life–as will Paul D. He connects the weather with nature and living. After WCCO’s stupid chop job, WE WILL be following PD when and where ever he turns up again….. We’ve already turned to public radio to hear the BBC broadcast for the world news less likely manipulated for American ears.

You made a big mistake. Paul is a wonderful person. We will miss him and want him back.