NewsBlues blog takes dig at former news chief at WXIN

One can’t say former WXIN-TV Channel 59 News Director Lee Rosenthal isn’t a gung-ho kind of guy.

Rosenthal, who left the Indianapolis station in April for KTVU-TV Channel 2, a fellow Fox affiliate in San Francisco, received a heaping of mockery this month from the TV news-insider blog NewsBlues.

The blog noted that Rosenthal made sure his new employer publicly patted itself on the back for its recent coverage of the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International Airport.

KTVU’s website declared it was first on the air, first online, first with alerts to mobile devices, first on Twitter and Facebook, first with a live reporter on the scene, first live interview “with anyone connected to someone on the flight,” and first aerial shots from its news chopper.

KTVU even mocked its ABC-affiliate competitor for relying on that chopper footage. Never mind that KTVU provided the feed to a video pool that allows San Francisco stations to share video during such huge news events.

“Being first on air and on every platform in all aspects of our coverage was a great accomplishment, but being 100 percent accurate, effectively using our great sources and social media without putting a single piece of erroneous information on our air, is what we are most proud of as a newsroom,” Rosenthal declared.

The rapier-witted NewsBlues said Rosenthal “apparently has no filters when it comes to reptilian self-promotion.”

Ouch.

During his four years in Indianapolis, Rosenthal was credited for adding several weekday newscasts and doubling the total hours of news at WXIN to 60 a week, as well as ratings gains against villainous archrivals WTHR-TV Channel 13 and WISH-TV Channel 8.