Best TV News Anchor 2005 | Julia Yarbough, WTVJ-TV (Channel 6) | Besttropical | South Florida
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Best TV News Anchor

Julia Yarbough, WTVJ-TV (Channel 6)

We could go cheap here and talk about Yarbough's being the Foxy Brown of local TV news. But we won't sink to that level. TV news is a serious business, and Yarbough is a serious journalist. Last fall, for instance, she was a "celebrity judge" of a reality show called America's Most Eligible. There, she bore the critically important responsibility of determining whether any of the contestants was "the next big thing." And she is one heck of a news personality, highly professional and smooth as silk. She's the finest anchor out there, and even at 39 years old, she's still soothing to the eyes. But the window is beginning to close, people. At this late date, she's the little-watched 5 p.m. anchor (and she also does the 10 p.m. news for NBC's sister network, the WB, on Channel 39). Somebody has got to wake up and see that Yarbough deserves the 6 and 11 slots. She's prime-time, baby. The judgment is in: Yarbough is the next big thing.

Best Local Boy Gone Bad

Josephus Eggelletion

It's hard to say that this Broward County commissioner has gone bad because that would mean he suddenly changed. But Eggelletion has been just plain bad for many years. He still deserves this distinction because this past annum has been an especially horrendous one for the man called Joe. Let's see, he's been exposed as a paid shill for developers. The Florida Ethics Commission sustained a complaint against him for improperly lobbying for a garbage company. Lauderdale Lakes, the base and birthplace of his political power, basically came to hate his guts after he hurt the city's attempt to annex several neighborhoods. A paternity suit was filed against him by a woman who claims he had a sexual relationship with her when she was a teenaged high school student and he was her teacher at Dillard High School. And other out-of-wedlock children are being discovered to have been sired by the commissioner (that's why we call him the Egg Man). So he's an unethical, profiteering, disloyal, sleazy, predatory poon hound. He might just become our next president.

Best TV Station

WPLG-TV (Channel 10)

WPLG didn't win just because Dwight Lauderdale is the smoothest MF-er in the history of news broadcasting. No, Lauderdale may be suave, but that doesn't change the fact that his material is sometimes as shallow as the royal gene pool. No, the real reason WPLG is the highest-quality TV station in South Florida is Michael Putney, who has for years kept burning the flickering flame of local political television journalism. His Sunday show, This Week in South Florida, is practically the only place you get to see debate among local candidates. His take on politics is usually pretty astute, the product of more than a quarter century of reporting experience in South Florida (he wrote for the Miami Herald back when it was worth a damn). And he's something of a Renaissance man as well, having recently played the title role in the theater production of Trumbo, about the blacklisted writer. Putney, if one must find a fault with him, could learn a little something from Dalton; he needs to crack the hypocrites and liars populating South Florida politics over the head a little harder. It's in him -- he just needs to do it on the tube.

Best Weathercaster

Elita Loresca, WSVN-TV (Channel 7)

When local weather babe Jackie Johnson left the Sunshine State for a gig in Los Angeles, WSVN-TV (Channel 7) had some purdy shoes to fill. Instead of going the tried-and-true route of replacing Johnson with another bubbly blond, the TV station chose exotic bombshell Elita Loresca, whose oval-shaped eyes and glistening black hair give her a cat-like beauty. To top it off, Loresca seems as comfortable in front of the camera as imprisoned weatherman Bill Kamal was at chatting to young boys on the Internet. A former weathercaster in Fresno, California, Loresca has proven in a short time that easy-on-the-eyes Johnson is all too easy to forget.

Best Sportscaster

Eric Reid, the Sunshine Network

Yeah, the Heat's play-by-play man has a radio voice as polished as an FBI agent's loafers, but he's the real deal -- a genuine sports aficionado. Though he promotes his team a little too much at times (and is paid to do it), Reid has a rare exuberance. He knows the game without talking his head off about it (unlike, say, Dan Dierdorf, whose inane, never-ending blather makes one grateful for the invention of the mute button). And the voice of the Heat, while he must have an ego, hides it well (unlike, say, Bill Walton, whose presence on national television is, to use his favorite expression, inexcusable). Reid works in service to the game. He respects the fans, turns an interesting phrase almost every night, and, even when you're just wasting more of your life watching pro sports, makes you feel like you're doing something worthwhile. Enjoy him while you can; he's so good that it can't be long before ESPN or some other national giant steals him away.

Best Career Move

Rick Sanchez

Ah, the twists and turns of Slick Rick's broadcasting career. He gained local fame and fortune at WSVN-TV (Channel 7), the local Fox affiliate, where he often made fatal car accidents sound like the end of the world. In 2002, Rick made it to the big time at MSNBC, where he took corporate shilling to a new level, once uttering the phrase "here at MSNBC" a record 79 times in 24 hours. But alas, he was more popular for his embarrassing gaffes than for anything else (like the time he referred to Jesse Jackson as "Mr. Sharpton"), and the network mercifully canned him in 2003. Then the local NBC affiliate, WTVJ-TV (Channel 6), hired him for a daytime show, which was kind of like The View, only with Sanchez playing the role of Meredith Vieira (beats Star Jones, huh?). That horrid experiment only proved that Rick, while perhaps a serviceable corporate tool, should never, ever be left to his own devices. Then CNN made a surprise move and brought him to its network this past September for its daytime slot with Daryn Kagan. His fake intensity has been replaced by a nauseating fake smile. The man appears to be getting desperate -- he recently allowed himself to be zapped by a stun gun on camera. He froze in pain for a Lee Harvey Oswald moment before flopping around like a giant Cuban-American flounder. But don't worry, the shock only made Sanchez -- the Frankenstein of American broadcasting -- stronger.

Best Radio Station

89.1 FM

It costs only around $10,000 to buy a transmitter, wire an antenna atop the Norfolk Island pine in your front yard, and transmit your jams to the world. But the FCC will hit you with a $100,000 fine if they catch you. So you've got to admire the tenacity of our local pirate/underground stations, whose proprietors risk ruin to bring you the finest in gangsta/crunk. When your boy Mark T. and his crusty partner-in-crime, Smiley, start kickin' it, good times follow. Listeners from the nine-five-fo', the three-oh-five, and the five-six-one flood the station's telephone lines nightly, calling to participate in a "freestyle session" in which amateur rappers test their flowage. Mark either gives participants a thumbs-up ("You were fingerin' the beat; it sound good!") or shuts 'em down hard ("Aw, you got played! I ain't feeling that. Keep your day job!"). It's unmediated, raw, and totally live.

Best FM Radio Personality

Andy Wagner, WLRN-FM (91.3)

Dry like a martini in the Sahara, WLRN-FM (91.3)'s Andy Wagner has become a local favorite thanks to his unflappable British calm and quick wit. A world traveler and ten-year veteran of the BBC in London, the Bristol native landed in Miami on assignment in '99 and started with the station in late '02. As local host and producer of the daily All Things Considered program (4 to 6 p.m.), Wagner typically elicits laughter from his cohosts by tinkering with the segues from news to traffic reports from the "D.O.T. 5-1-1 Traffic Center." One of Wagner's recent transitions came after a story on keeping livestock safe, which he followed by asking traffic guy Mike Millard to "take stock of the afternoon commute." Droll, innit? It seems Wagner's goal is to get Millard -- a salty old cur, by the sound of him -- to burst out laughing while delivering the traffic report. Balanced by an affable trustworthiness as he delivers the news, Wagner's sense of humor makes a normally dull, frustrating part of the day a little more tolerable.

Best AM Radio Personality

Jamusa, WAVS-AM (1170)

Thousands of Caribbean expats know and love the man born Denver Silvera and rechristened with an acronym for Jamaican Artists and Music United with the Sound of America. Part roots-reggae disc jockey, part comedian, part motivational speaker, Jamusa fills his drive-time show (Wednesday 4 to 6 p.m., Thursday and Friday 3 to 6 p.m.) with laughter, high jinks, and loads of great music. His love for Motown ballads and the romantic stylings of some of reggae's more genteel artists -- Freddie MacGregor, Luciano, Beres Hammond, Maxi Priest, Dennis Brown, Jimmy Cliff, Cocoa Tea -- gives the afternoon a dreamy glow. And Jamusa doesn't skimp on the "adaptations" -- reggae versions of pop songs like "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" or "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone." Hilarity ensues during Jamusa's call-in segment when listeners share home remedies for everything from diabetes and hypertension to whooping cough ("Vinegar an' honey!") or just laugh, reminisce, and swap stories about favorite songs, high school teachers, or childhood games. As a dispenser of sage advice --"A chicken dinner cya'an make up for broke eggs, yuh know!" -- Jamusa has no peer on talk radio or any other radio, for that matter.

Best Flack

Jan Mitchell

Take it from us. The best public relations specialists aren't the shrillest or the ones with the most free goodies (don't expect a story in New Times just because you sent an unsolicited gifty) or even the ones who call you the most. The best ones are, like Jan Mitchell, the ones who deliver the goods. Mitchell, one of the movie industry's mainstays in South Florida, started out 20 years ago in partnership with her dad, Jack Mitchell; the father-daughter combination handled accounts for most of the major studios, repping movies like Dances with Wolves and Silence of the Lambs. Since she started her own agency four years ago, Mitchell has gone indie, representing a wide range of flicks, recently including everything from the ground-breaking The Brown Bunny to the blockbuster The Passion of the Christ (if you know the movies, you know the stretch doesn't get any wider). But she's been most visible as a spokesperson for both the Fort Lauderdale and the Palm Beach international film festivals. It's not as easy as it sounds. Doing public relations in the film biz means getting the word out quickly to reporters about unexpected events, throwing together well-crafted press packets under impossible deadlines, and keeping touchy, egotistical reviewers happy. "You gotta be prepared to wing it," she says. "You can have a film pulled at the last minute or have one fall into place and it's so good you can't turn it down. Things happen." Mitchell's secret is, it seems to us, her likability. The easygoing Mitchell, who sometimes volunteers her services for charities like the National Family Caregivers Association, knows how to make conversation without edging into the awful what-are-you-going-to-do-for-me territory. Like she's a normal human being. A flack? Who woulda thunk it?

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