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Our Morning Commute Is About to Get Shorter

finally.jpgOur actual drive time won't change, but it's about to feel shorter. Morning host Deborah Brandt is leaving KUOW in mid-February:

At KUOW, Deborah Brandt, who has been the local host for "Morning Edition" for nine years, is departing in mid-February. Derek Wang, who had been weekend host, will succeed Brandt. Wang, in turn, will be replaced by Jamala Henderson.
Excuse us while we reconsider our skepticism about karma. The mighty John Moe may be gone -- but Brandt's departure almost balances the scales.

She's been plaguing our commute since 1998, segueing out of news segments while laughing at her own cornball insights. Many is the morning we'd glance at our wife as Brandt chuckled through some comment and find our own "What the hell...?" expression reflected back at us.

Brandt's worst habit, however, is her zen-esque, Abbott-to-Costello relationship with traffic reporters. Every time she introduces Harmon Shay she mines the previous segment for a pun to connect some element of the human condition (NPR style) to the conditions of the road. Shay forces his way through these conversations, though we suspect he'd rather cut to the chase and recommend taking the I-90 bridge before she eats up all 20 seconds of his slot.

We're sure Brandt has her fans. She's got so much personality she could ground a Christopher Guest mockumentary. She's so darned nice that she uses the word "darned" for emphasis and chuckles at her own daring.

Far too nice to deserve to have us ripping into her. We hope she's moving on to something bigger, better, and far far away from our airwaves. But dammit, we're so relieved that we won't spend odd moments of our commute yelling at her to shut up shut up SHUT UP that we can't help but vent.

Yes, we could just listen to KPLU, but KUOW's local news coverage is better.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By James in on February 2, 2007 9:15 AM

Comments [rss]

  • Rachel

    It's not Sher or even Ross. It's Ken Vincent that is the real problem. That guy can't finish a sentence. "The time is...uh 9: uh.... 18 and the uh... weather conditions for uh....the Seattle area are... going to be...uh cloudy...

    Jeeezus.

  • Bob

    Scher is the worst. I can't fathom how he's not working in some third-rate market like Bakersfield.

  • Justin

    It's funny. I was just thinking about how annoying those little joke she make are this past week. I don't mind her except whenever she introduces Harmon Shay.

  • Ben

    Every time I tune in and hear, "I'm Phyllis Fletcher, filling in for Deborah Brandt," I feel a pang of relief.

    Steve Scher, you're next!

  • LarryB

    I'm sure she's very nice, but I've always hated her banter with the traffic reporter. There's less than a minute slotted for him, so let the traffic dude talk!

  • aaa

    I liked her, and "plaguing our commute since 1998" is just a really weird statement.

  • I'll miss her -- she reminded me of Schweddy Balls and that would sometimes make me laugh

  • fall-line

    Maybe not shorter, but certainly less painful.. I too am happy to hear of this news. She makes me wince in the way you wince when watching the british version of the tv show "The Office"... except you aren't laughing.. you're just wincing..painfully.

  • COMTE

    She also has the worst delivery of just about any newsreader in the area. It's a rare thing indeed if she can get through even the simplest item without mumbling and stumbling over at least a half dozen words or phrases in the course of a story. Considering that she repeats these several times during her shift, you'd think somebody would have mentioned to her that maybe she spend a few minutes off-air reading through things to get the pronunciation and syntax down before trying it out on-the-air.

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