Longtime KATV Anchor/Reporter Leaving.....
22-year KATV Anchor/Reporter Pamela Smith is leaving the station for a job with the local school district. Smith is leaving the local news biz to become the Communications Director for the Little Rock School District. According to her bio at KATV.com, she started at the station as a general assignment reporter in 1990 and was promoted to anchoring the weekend newscasts. August 2011 Smith became the morning host for Good Morning Arkansas.
posted by ATN @ 4:11 PM
70 comments
70 Comments:
Congratulations and best of luck with this new chapter in your life Pamela.
Pam, you have been a great anchor and you will be greatly missed. We wish you the best of everything.
Good for you Pam. You will be successful with whatever you do.
Thanks finally turning in the mic! Those that remember your lawsuit think it has been 22 yrs to long.
Maybe GMA will be watchable again..
Pam, you are the best, I know you will be successful at whatever you do. KATV will never be the same without your kindness, charm and beautiful personality.
You were great on KATV! Good luck Pamela!
Now I will start watching 7 again.
Dreadfully painful to watch. Luckily, I'm not a morning TV watcher. Has been nice to able to watch the weekend shows again.
I'm sure she's a great person, but how can anyone watch a Pam Smith newscast and think she's a great anchor. She has entirely too many mispronunciations, miscues and missteps for someone with so many years in the business.
Great, another overpaid government worker where it is near impossible to get fired.
She still will be on air almost every day unfortunately!!!!!!
Who is going to replace her on GMA. Simoni?
Did Pam get tired of the KATV exercise health plan....
Pam just read too slow. with her they only did 10 minutes of news...but drugg it out for thirty minutes.
When will the February numbers be released?
"Anonymous said...
Pam just read too slow. with her they only did 10 minutes of news...but drugg it out for thirty minutes.
8:48 PM, March 18, 2012"
. . . the reason being so YOU could understand what she was telling you.
8:57 PM March 17
Name 3
She used the race card as the reason for being passed over for main anchor duties. She's not main primetime anchor material. And her hair. Omg. There was something always up with that.
Anyone seen Feb numbers? Any guesses?
I lost respect for her after the lawsuit. The arrogance of thinking that you were denied a promotion because of race rather than because you were not the best person for the job was too much. Singling a person out for their race is racism. But .. NOT singling a person out because of their race is too.
Loved Pam, hate to see her go.
New Management running off folks?
Congratulations to Pam on your new position with the school district! You deserve it! I believe Channel 7didn't realize what they had in you! I have always felt you were being mistreated. The point is that some viewers don't want to see an African-American anchor because they think only whites can do a good job. I never heard Pam mispronounce anything. I'm sure some of Channel 7's viewers will be happy now to see all white anchors. We need to step it up in the LR market and be diverse, that is, as far as television anchors.
As long as they can do the job and get good marks in the books.
Did anyone notice all the bugs on the set of the Weather Garden? Man, that must be fun sitting in that shack on that uncomfortable-looking furniture, looking up to the camera and swatting bugs while off camera. I thought one was going to fly in Craig's mouth.
Bring back Joan Early on GMA!!!!
Racism is still rampant in Arkansas. Pam is one of the best KATV has, but never received the recognition she deserved.
You said:
Racism is still rampant in Arkansas. Pam is one of the best KATV has, but never received the recognition she deserved.
10:40 AM, March 21, 2012
I say:
I assume you mean racism by all races since otherwise your statement would be a racist statement on it's own.
Oh please, we all know its still going on.
Yep, it is. Mostly by blacks these days.
She held KATV hostage for all those years. What would have happened if they had made her the anchor of the main newscasts. She would have been fired for low ratings, not the color if her skin and she wouldn't have lasted 22 years.
Sounds like race & gender may have helped her keep her job all those years. You get a minority female who does minimally acceptable consistent work but doesn't have the chops to go to primetime but fits an EEOC need and hiring balance. An employee like this maintains a status quo and does very little to advance themselves expecting some employment evolution due to tenure but eventually they figure out it ain't gonna happen. I've worked in several newsrooms and I've seen that happen story many, many times.
A"nonymous said...
Racism is still rampant in Arkansas. Pam is one of the best KATV has, but never received the recognition she deserved."
10:40 AM, March 21, 2012
It's not against the law.
I am not sure where the Pam bashing is coming from. Are you upset because of the lawsuit? ... I have watched her on Channel 7 for years and found her to be up to the same level of professionalism as the other reporters\anchors at channel 7. I find the flaws describing her on air performance cited in previous post on this site to have no basis in fact. These statements appear to attack her personally not her professional work product.
^^^^^ That's a good one. ^^^^^ Oh wait, were you serious?
No racism is not gone. When white people can walk down the street in a black neighborhood without fearing physical harm, racism will be gone.
The reverse is already a reality.
Amen brother!
Did KATV weekend news win its time slot with Pam at the helm all those years?
Pam is a nice person, but I didn't like her newscast. That doesn't make me racist because I think the same thing about Munoz and Craig the Clown.
Hmm... I agree there is just something not quite watchable about Munoz, but I don't know if I'd compare her to Pam that way.
But that does beg the question: is there any correlation with Munoz sitting at home on maternity leave, while KATV had their best book in long long time?
Obviously the numbers speak for themselves.
Well we can postulate all we want, but I met Munoz has a pretty solid contract. Probably be tough to replace her for that reason.
Why would you want to replace an anchor that's been on the air for years and consistently pulls in number one ratings? Jealousy can be an ugly thing girls.
Sweetie that is so true. There is a room full of people who would do anything to get her chair.
Ok listen, Munoz's accent to the big chair was never anything more than attempt to attract the "Hispanic boom" audience that Arkansas experienced in the early 2000's. They put her on, added an accent mark over the N in her name to make it look a bit more Hispanic, and her profile boasted that "she was learning spanish".
Right or not, that's what happened, and sure KATV's ratings slid and slid until this most recent book...
Well of course they want her chair. Anchors in this market work about 4-5 hours a day, and make a lot of money. The rest of the newsroom busts their ass working long hours for marginal money. This is not new and it's across the board as far as I know.
Wrong again 10:35. She's been fluent in Spanish her entire life.
This is 10:35 speaking... Hey I'm just going off what the website said back then.
I don't know about the pandering to Hispanic stuff.
But back to the numbers, I would argue it just means the audience doesn't miss her when she's gone. But that may be related to the part-time anchor schedules 12:45 pointed out - they may be the best paid and most recognized, but Anchors in this town just don't do a whole lot. So it's not hard to believe viewers wouldn't notice the difference.
I think viewer identification is a little more important on the morning shows, where "personality" is more encouraged and they have more time for it. I work across town and I think I know (at least what they show on TV), what Melinda, Chris, and Alyson are like... couldn't say the same for evening anchors. Heck, I'm not sure I could name them all.
The amount of wrong information on this blog is astounding.
Look at her bio 10:35. I'm assuming it would be pretty hard to graduate college with a minor in Spanish if she was just learning when she got the anchor chair.
10:35 here again... Hey, I believe it says that now. And I'm sure it's probably true. What I'm saying is years ago it said she enjoyed learning Spanish. Perhaps that meant continuing to learn Spanish, kinda like English PhD's continue to learn English - I dunno, but I'm sure that's what it said. My point was that it was all part of an effort to gain from the Hispanic boom... Not that there is anything wrong with that. And I'm sure she's a nice person.
I say if you are saying something good don't say anything .Pam YOU BE BLESSED.
I say if you are not saying something good don't say anything. PAM you be blessed i will miss you and your smile.
Who replaces Pam! Shapiro!!!!!
Congratulations to Pam on your new position with the school district! You deserve it! I believe Channel 7didn't realize what they had in you! I have always felt you were being mistreated. The point is that some viewers don't want to see an African-American anchor because they think only whites can do a good job. I never heard Pam mispronounce anything. I'm sure some of Channel 7's viewers will be happy now to see all white anchors. We need to step it up in the LR market and be diverse, that is, as far as television anchors.
Congratulations to Pam on your new position with the school district! You deserve it! I believe Channel 7didn't realize what they had in you! I have always felt you were being mistreated. The point is that some viewers don't want to see an African-American anchor because they think only whites can do a good job. I never heard Pam mispronounce anything. I'm sure some of Channel 7's viewers will be happy now to see all white anchors. We need to step it up in the LR market and be diverse, that is, as far as television anchors.
Racism is still rampant in Arkansas. Pam is one of the best KATV has, but never received the recognition she deserved.
So Munoz is white?
@11:57 AM
No. Munoz is chilean. She moved from chile to little rock.
Actually she moved from Duluth, Minnesota to Little Rock.
@ 6:00 PM, March 20, 2012 who said:
New Management running off folks?
Running Pam off? No.
I think she wanted to out stay the people she had beef with.
New management took her off weekends, she has been a weekend anchor for 18-years!
She finally got to anchor Monday - Friday and host show.
She had it good in the end.
So get your facts straight!
Muñoz isn't white because she's Chilean? Chile is at least half white. "Chilean" isn't a race. It's a nationality. Whether you work in news or not, you should probably know the difference.
Chile is a Latin American country, that's makes her Hispanic.
Chile being a Latin American country would make her Latin American. Chile's cultural ties to Spain would make her Hispanic.
Spain.
In Europe.
Where the white people live.
You can be Hispanic, Latin American, and white all at the same time.
All this said, I have no idea how she self-identifies. I don't know her.
U need to back off of Pam...as long as I've known her she is a wonderful person....AND WHAT LAWSUIT???? DOES IT REALLY MATTER IF ITS BEEN 22 YRS LIKE U SAID!!!!
Thank God! Good riddance and don't come back!!! Or as Pam would say 'Thank Gott and Goot Rittance'!
Many who are first will be last and the last first.Hooteyhoo
Times are changing and some cant handle it. So sad.
I'm sure Pam finds success in her new position.
I think it's all about ratings. Seems like the stations aim for the "youthful" anchors with possible sex appeal.
I no longer reside in Arkansas; however, everytime I come home to visit, I see a new anchor on KARK and KATV.
I'm really surprised the KATV maintains the older female Daybreak anchor with the rustic, hoarse voice.
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