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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Wednesday, September 11, 2002

KGMB shuffles newscast crew

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Shuffles in the TV news line-ups at KGMB and KHON continue, making women more prominent on-screen personalities on KGMB, and including a woman anchor's departure from KHON.

With KGMB-9 news anchor Kim Gennaula returning from maternity leave and sports reporter Liz Chun upgraded to sports director, the CBS affiliate will showcase an all-women line-up of anchors — a Hawai'i first — starting Monday.

Gennaula joins Jade Moon on the anchor desk, at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays, but will do the 10 p.m. newscast alone.

Chun, Hawai'i's first full-time staff woman sports anchor, will man the desk at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. weekdays. Chun, previously the weekend sports anchor, succeeds Dave Vinton, whose last day as sports director is Friday.

"We are not afraid of it," said Bob Loy, KGMB news director, of the all-woman lineup. "We think our viewers will respond to it, too. And we're certainly not doing it by default; we had choices, and we chose this line-up."

Jim Mendoza, the current co-anchor, will return to active reporting effective Monday, said Loy: "He's one of the best reporters in the market. We've been looking at all our resources, to make sure we have the best people suited for the job."

These changes, and more expected in the weeks ahead, are largely ordered by Rick Blangiardi in his role as sole general manager of both the KGMB and KHON-Fox 2 newsrooms. Both stations are owned by Emmis Communications Corp. of Indianapolis.

Malia Mattoch, reporter and weekend anchor at Channel 2, last week gave her two-week notice.

"I want to take a trip to San Francisco with my husband and enjoy some time together," she said. Her friend Heather Ho was a victim of the World Trade Center terrorism a year ago, "and the loss made anchoring hard to do; it was hard to talk about 9/11 and be impartial when it was so personal."

Ramsay Wharton has taken over the weekend slot at Channel 2.

While Guy Hagi continues to be the principal weather anchor at Channel 9, he will be joined by Britt Ridel, who is completing her meteorology studies. Ridel will handle weekend weather duties and work three days as a reporter; because Hagi will be out of town, however, she will debut as the weather anchor Friday. Starting next week, KGMB is discontinuing its morning news updates.

The big surprise was the release of Fox news director Jim McCoy on Monday.