Awful Hirings at Fox 25

[southofboston]

I'm not sure who does the hiring of on-air personalities at Fox 25 but they should be fired! The last few hirings have been atrocious. Shannon is uninteresting and monotone. Tayisha is unprofessional, unintelligent and just plain bad. If she couldn't use her hands she wouldn't be able to talk. Erin Hopkins -- oh my god where to begin -- she is absolutely horrendous. She definitely is Rhode Island quality but definitely not for a Boston market. Her presentation is so low quality one must wonder what the execs at Fox where thinking. We don't need the Boston market to be dummed down any lower. I am a huge Fox 25 fan but they really are testing my limits with these hirings. Can we please get some real professionals?

[bkstring]

I like Shannon Mulaire. I think her delivery is geat, not monotone at all. As for the other two, I wouldnt say Tayisha is unintelligent, but she is plain bad. Elizabeth Hopkins (not Erin) is not much better. She seems to try too hard and those goofy faces she makes are distracting

[BTVNadmin]

Elizabeth (or Lily as her colleagues call her) was literally the star of the show down in Providence, so it's understandable why she may be overdoing it a little. She may need to scale it back until she earns her place a bit more, but she may also end up doing well, as she's certainly a talented screen presence.

[southofboston]

Sorry for getting her name wrong. As you can see, she made such a little impression on me! Yes she might have been a star in RI but that's just the point. She is not in RI anymore. And I couldn't disagree with you more. She is absolutely NOT a screen presence. She is horrendous. But you get what you pay for and I'm sorry to see Fox 25 scaling down their talent.

[BTVNadmin]

Jan 5, 2011 23:09:58 GMT -5 southofboston said:

Sorry for getting her name wrong. As you can see, she made such a little impression on me! Yes she might have been a star in RI but that's just the point. She is not in RI anymore. And I couldn't disagree with you more. She is absolutely NOT a screen presence. She is horrendous. But you get what you pay for and I'm sorry to see Fox 25 scaling down their talent.

What I meant to say was that "The Rhode Show" was almost custom-built to her; without wishing to be disrespectful, I didn't particularly care for her either, but when you're the brand (as she was), you're naturally allowed to take some liberties with how you express yourself on-air - essentially, you can let loose a bit.

What she needs to understand (if your assertions about her being over-the-top on 25 are right), though, is that you have to slowly earn the right to be more than just a reporter or anchor, and become a personality, especially in a large and local-TV-centric market like Boston. Being too chummy too early on with an audience who doesn't feel like they know if, first and foremost, you're actually qualified to do your job as a journalist, is probably going to alienate people.

If you want a good example, look no further than Maria Stephanos. While admittedly, the looser morning show wasn't there in her early days, she did it the right way by spending years as a hard-nosed general assignment reporter, before moving into a fairly straight but not widely-recognized anchor role. Then, when the station re-formatted in 2003, she and David Wade were gradually allowed to stretch their legs a little bit in terms of on-air personality, and in doing so, they slowly built a brand of which she is now the sole carrier.

Ask a Boston TV viewer the first thing or person they think of when you mention Fox 25 and they'll more-than-likely say Maria, but it's because she SLOWLY built up a rapport with viewers, and what Ms. Hopkins needs to realize is that you can't skip the building part if you want that rapport. She may get there someday, but she isn't there yet.

[southofboston]

That was a fabulous response. Your points were well made and factual. Let's hope that Elizabeth follows Maria's example.

[BTVNadmin]

Jan 6, 2011 21:54:00 GMT -5 southofboston said:

That was a fabulous response. Your points were well made and factual. Let's hope that Elizabeth follows Maria's example.

That's very kind of you. It's the way we try to do things around here. Other sites like this often degenerate into personal insults of on-air talent (their hair, mode of dress, etc), and while I've never seen it as BTVN's job to be their protectors, I've always found it's best to insist that any criticism be limited to factors pertaining to their on-air performance, and excluding their personal lives except in very limited circumstances (like Jeff Derderian's nightclub fire). It's something I hope we'll be able to continue when Stephen, our new Managing Editor, takes over in a week or two.

[southofboston]

Nice job!

[waianae]

Good answer Max! I have seen Elizabeth when Kim was on vacation and thought she was way too comfortable while filling in. Kim better watch out! I don't watch Fox 25 very often anymore. Miss Dougie and got tired of VB a long time ago.

[southofboston]

Okay - I t hought Fox 25 couldn't get any worse when they hired Shannon Mulaire and Elizabeth Hopkins. I still don't like either one of them but I can at least tolerate Elizabeth. But now Fox is totally recruiting from the bottom of the barrel: Nicole Jacobs, Tyisha Fernades, and Crystal Haynes. Can you get any worse than the three of these "reporters"? Give Fox a chance and they will. This is very disheartening to me because I LOVED Fox. It was my all time favorite news cast to watch. But the quality of the reporters and anchors have deteriorated so badly that it is almost impossible to watch. Fox used to be the best! Please tell me what happened!!!

[dotcomeditor]

Perhaps anchor Stephanos will teach these young, impressionalbe reporters to yell at the camera and speak with a valley girl accent -- just like she does.

[maxbtvn]

If you think that's bad, check out this frankly moronic video (and that's not a level of rhetoric I use very often) of former Fox 25 reporter Erin Hawksworth in her new gig on sports on the Fox station out in Seattle.

WARNING: CONTAINS AN ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY AND POTENTIALLY CAREER-THREATENING USE OF STRONG LANGUAGE!



Admttedly, she may have said: "If I can kick..." but she was still way too giddy and (even in the best-case scenario) having series enunciation problems.

[jdemeo6898]

Oh wow. Definitely sounded like she said the F-Bomb

[southofboston]

Amazing. I just wish Fox Boston would retain some of the quality reporters they used to have. Crystal Haynes by far has to be the worst one. Not that Tyisha Fernandez, who could not report if she didn't have her hands to use, is much better. But the bar has been set so low at Fox recently that it is definitely an insult to the "professional" journalists who are still left at the station. Those 3 cannot be called professional anything.

[bkstring]

I have to say that Lilly Hopkins has grown on me. I thouht at first she was trying to hard. But, she has really started to fit into the morning show over the summer. The back and forth with the others on the show, her ability to read copy, and the overall presentation is very good, IMO. Whoever did her "remake" in terms of hair, makeup, and clothes did a really good job as well.

As far as Shannon goes, I liked her from the start. I think she does a really nice job.

In terms of the other 3 new reporters that were mentioned, yes, absolutely horrible, awful hires. Their delivery stinks, cant read copy, stumbles over words. This goes for all 3 of them. Bob Ward is about the only reporter left there that does a good job. and he's mostly a features guy, not a feild reporter. Fox 25 has definately gone on the cheap with these last 3 hires. Heck, i'd put some of the ladies on channel 7 above these three.