I’m visiting the 'rents for the holidays, back in Buffalo, New York. Watching various newscasts of local stations, again I noticed that about half of the anchors and reporters often talk with very strong Buffalo accents; the very pronounced nasal flat A is quite prevalent, among other traits of Buffalo English.
When I’ve lived and visited cities throughout the country, newscasters seemed to speak mainly in a generic Midwestern accent; they all sound like they’re from Kansas City or Salt Lake City. I didn’t hear southern drawls on newscasts in Atlanta or Charlotte, clinched-teeth cowboy accents in Denver, south suburban flat-As in Chicago, or Brooklyn and Long Island accents from stations in NYC. Okay, they do pop up occasionally, but it’s usually a feature reporter or some “gotcha” consumer advocate; not the anchors and reporters.
Are there any cities in the US where local accents are the norm for local newscasts?
Things aren’t too far off General Midwestern English here in Cincinnati, so the only distinct linguistic feature I hear is the nasal “a” sound. It really is a funny little pocket of General American bordered on three sides by Appalachian/Southern (southeast Indiana, northern Kentucky and eastern Ohio), so you drive a thirty to forty miles in any direction but directly north and hit a completely different linguistics region. I’d love to know whether I’m just in error, suffering from regional bias, or what the historical reason is.
Some Baltimore stations have reporters with accents – it’s especially common for the sports guy to have a local accent. Typically the anchors don’t have much of an accent, but as soon as they “go live to Jim on the scene” you remember where you are. Bugs the heck outta me whenever I watch the news at one of my parents’ houses.
if it sounds like diversity, really, it’s not. It’s just another Industry Standard.
Sports Guy needs to be super relatable to the local fan, and that means sounding a) local, and b) about 15% louder and 30% more obnoxious than News Guy or Gal. (Sports Gals have never really caught on in local.)
Investigative reporters - those with their own segment and a Beat - should talk (and look) local too. After all, They’re watching out…for YOU!, not for some twerp from Walla Walla.
In my experience, I’ve seen much of the reverse phenomenon. News reporters/anchors who are not from the local market, but have been hired from out of town. It becomes obvious when they read a news story about some local community or person and mangle the pronunciation in a way that no local would ever do.
In the sixties, there was a talking heads who spoke with a local accent. The surprise was, he was a mainlander-a Texan. One did so so successfully, he is considered one of the legendary talk pidgeon story tellers and did a TV children show telling fractured fairy tales. A died a few years ago, make die dead.
I wasn’t aware Pittsburgh had left the mainland, or that pidgin had become widely spoken there.
I also wasn’t aware ouryL had hi/r coordinates posted in Location, accustomed as I am to posters Just Assuming we all live inside their heads. My bad, ouryL.
I saw that in El Paso. Not only that, but any word or location that was even remotely Spanish was said with a flourish that bordered on the ridiculous. There were rumors that some reporters and anchors had real-life Anglo names, but adopted Spanish screen names to better appeal to the audience and boost ratings.
