Bill Jorgensen takes a dim view of contemporary TV news. “Who are those two broads?” he asks his wife. “Anna Nicole and Britney. Good God, save me.” Jorgensen, 79, is briefly coming out of retirement in North Carolina to make an appearance on Fox 5’s 40th anniversary of New York’s first 10 p.m. local newscast, which he anchored for its first twelve years, complete with signature sign-off “Thanking you for your time this time, until next time.” Among his show’s innovations was the paranoia-inducing tagline, “It’s ten o’clock—do you know where your children are?” So how’s the local TV news in North Carolina? “Rather pitiful and amateurish.” What does he think about Katie Couric? “She should have stayed where she was. The heavy-eyeballs-into-the-lens thing she’s doing now, that’s not her style.” As for his old broadcast today, under Fox, he demurs. “I don’t go to New York often enough to be familiar with it,” he says. He did know Rosanna Scotto, the current co-anchor, “a quarter-century ago. She was working the street at the time.” He laughs heartily. “I mean, she was a street reporter.”
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