Don Shelby Retires. So What Else Is News?

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It comes as no surprise that Don Shelby is retiring as WCCO news anchor after a 32-year career at the Minneapolis TV station.  It comes as even less of a surprise that Frank Vascellaro will become his replacement.

The only surprise is that Shelby's last newscast won't be until November, so he has an entire summer and part of the fall to say his goodbyes.  That's better than being dumped out on the street, like so many of his colleagues are these days.

Shelby started out as an investigative reporter, winning many local and national honors for himself and for WCCO.  Then he replaced local broadcasting legend Dave Moore as 10 p.m. news anchor in 1985, but still did some reporting.

More recently, Shelby restricted himself to anchoring the 10 with Amelia Santaniello (Frank's wife), and to doing nightly commentaries in which he often beat the drum about the environment and the possibilities of renewable energy.  For this, conservative viewers would label him "DFL Don" and worse.

What Shelby leaves behind at WCCO is a news operation that used to be the envy of the industry, but is getting more unwatchable by the minute.  Like these:

• The novelty of Frank and Amelia as a husband-and-wife anchor team is wearing thin, with sweeps-month stories on parenting issues and on how they coped with remodeling their basement.
• Resorting to gimmicks such as "The Six" (reporters standing around and chattering) and "Good Question" (no question too ridiculous for Jason DeRusha).
• On crime stories, the "zoom-outs" (for lack of a better term) of pictures of perpetrators and victims against a plain background is annoying and needs to stop.  Like how many times do we have to see mug shots of Faisal Shahzad, who allegedly tried to blow up Times Square, expand like a balloon?
• The use of the word "share" when introducing a report.
• Meteorologist Chris Shaffer may be a nice guy, but he's no Paul Douglas.
• Someone needs to get over the idea that Amelia Santaniello knows anything about sports.  And please cut off her mike while Mark Rosen narrates Twins highlights.  It makes her sound like the Peanut Gallery.

Don Shelby, whatever you thought of him, is one of the last remaining links to the days when WCCO was the gold standard of local TV news.  But style matters now, and it has less to do with journalism than with catering to a certain section of the audience.  And we are all the poorer for it.  Enjoy your retirement, Don.