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This is so lame it hurts to even hear about it. Ron Fineman.com reports that Jackie Johnson, the new weather reader (bio) on KCAL-9, gave the rain totals tonight as "a 20th of an inch" (for areas receiving 0.26 inches), "a 30th of an inch" for 0.33, and "a 40th of an inch" for 0.46. Thinking she had, perhaps, simply misspoken, Fineman watched her on the next newscast and heard Johnson describe 0.39 inches as "almost a 40th." Fineman's take:
If anyone suspected that new KCAL weatherbabe Jackie Johnson has a degree in meteorology, they can suspect no more. Rather, they may want to question whether she got a passing grade in math....After tonight, I am tempted to say, you wonder what they were thinking when they hired her.
Being charitable, maybe she's just out of practice—it hasn't rained here since she reported for work from Miami last summer. A couple of other local TV women who would never make that mistake are also in the Fineman.com news. He links to a San Bernardino Sun story in which Jennifer York explains she left KTLA because news director Jeff Wald limited her to doing helicopter traffic reports. She desired more varied assignments. (Her website at jenniferyork.com has not been updated to reflect her departure from the station last Friday.) Also, he notes that channel 2's Lisa Joyner is filling in as host of Tuesday night's "Late Late Show" on CBS.