Day: February 13, 2026

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • The Denver television news landscape continues to be a dumpster fire:
    • There was a bloodbath among the senior ranks at Denver7 (ABC) this week. GM Brian Joyce shared with employees that Senior Director of News Megan McRae, Assistant News Director Olivia Dickenson and Digital Director Landon Haaf have all left the station effective immediately.
    • And the uncertainty at Denver7 isn’t just in the newsroom. The station is owned by E.W. Scripps Company, which continues to be aggressively pursued by right-wing news holding group Sinclair.
    • Meanwhile, President Donald Trump reversed his position and has now endorsed Nexstar‘s proposed takeover of Tegna, a deal which would have the owner of Fox31/CW2 absorb 9News, potentially dismantling the highest-functioning television newsroom in the state.
  • Speaking of President Donald Trump, his ongoing war against the media is working. A Pew Research Center survey finds that a majority of Americans – 57% – lack confidence that journalists act in “the best interests of the public.” That confidence level split significantly along party lines, with just 25% of Republicans expressing confidence in journalists while 61% of Democrats saying they had confidence.
  • Omnicom is consolidating PR agencies Porter Novelli with FleishmanHillard and Ketchum with Golin following the completion of its merger with IPG. It is the latest big-agency restructuring and it underscores the economic pressures larger agencies are under with more-demanding clients and AI disruption.
    • PRWeek, which broke the story, noted, “…This is a new era for marketing services holding companies where tough decisions have to be made, and we have already seen the death of similarly famous brand names in the creative and media agency sectors, both after the Omnicom acquisition of IPG and at competitor holdcos such as WPP. Nothing is sacred anymore.”
  • The co-owner of the storied Manchester United soccer team is apologizing for his statement that the UK has been “colonized by immigrants.” On the one hand, who would know more about colonizing than an Englander? On the other, that’s probably not a statement you want to make when more than two-thirds of your players are foreign-born.
  • Tennis players can be quick to complain about a lot of things – line calls, distracting fans, matches that end too late. But Daniil Medvedev dropped an entirely new one this week: the Head Tour XT tennis balls used in a tournament in Rotterdam are “not round.“ Medvedev added, “I think maybe we should consider not playing with Head (tennis) balls,” which no doubt sent the company’s public relations team into full crisis mode.
  • A few Winter Olympics updates:
    • U.S. Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn‘s comeback tour after rupturing her ACL in her final tune-up race before the Winter Olympics came to a disastrous end. A horrific crash in the Women’s Downhill resulted in what doctors described as a “complex tibia fracture” – a term often used to describe when the shin bone shatters. She has had three surgeries since the accident to repair her leg, and doctors caution that her recovery will take at least another six months.
    • The U.S.O.C. disqualified Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych after he refused to stop wearing a helmet that includes photos of Ukrainian athletes and coaches who have died defending Ukraine from Russian forces.
    • The Olympic medals from Milano Cortina keep breaking.
    • Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid used a perfunctory media interview that came with his bronze medal win as an opportunity to reveal that he had been unfaithful to his former girlfriend in an attempt to win her back. Not surprisingly, that move did not go over well with the ex-girlfriend.
  • The HGTV show “Rehab Addict” has been cancelled after leaked footage showed host Nicole Curtis using the N-word on-camera.
  • The Ontario Hockey League has apologized for sending an email to season-ticket holders asking them to “be mindful of personal cleanliness while sharing our space with fellow fans.” Before backtracking and apologizing, a team representative elaborated on the reason for the email, saying, “I got a lot of people complaining about the (person) next to them smelling like cat pee, bad breath, this, that and everything else.”
  • James Van Der Beek, the actor who co-starred with Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson in the late 1990s/early 2000s teen drama “Dawson’s Creek” has died from complications of colorectal cancer. He was 48. And Brad Arnold, the lead singer of 3 Doors Down, died from kidney cancer. He was 47.

Who won the week?