TV Q&A: Where has WTAE’s Janelle Hall been?

Q: We have noticed Janelle Hall missing from the evening news for a few weeks. Is she OK?

— Diane via email

Rob: She is now.

Hall posted to her Facebook page on Monday that she and her husband were diagnosed with covid-19 four weeks ago. She described the first two weeks of the ordeal as scary and she stayed home from work an extra two weeks as a precaution to protect her Channel 4 colleagues.

“We have heard of many cases where people with covid have been asymptomatic. I wish that had been the case for us — but it wasn’t,” Hall wrote. “During different visits to the ER when breathing-related symptoms weren’t improving — between me and my husband — we had a pair of chest x-rays, a CT scan, a covid pneumonia scare and a test for a blood clot (something I didn’t realize can be a side effect of covid until now) and a loss of taste and smell.”

Hall said after learning the Red Cross is accepting plasma donations from recovered covid-19 patients — it’s being studied as a possible treatment for ill patients — she is scheduled to donate plasma in the coming weeks.

“It’s a way for me to try to find some purpose in all of this — a way to try to pay the kindness we’ve received – forward,” wrote Hall, who returned to the air on WTAE Monday night.

Q: Wondering why the 1970 “Scrooge” movie with Albert Finney seems to be missing from broadcasts in recent years. This is a wonderful version of the story with music.

— Ken, Springdale

Rob: Older films tend not to turn up as often particularly when a more contemporary version of the same story (1988’s Bill Murray movie “Scrooged”) has become the “classic” version of the story to the younger viewers prized by advertisers.

But the 1970 “Scrooge” is not missing this year. And it has played in recent years on MeTV as it will again this year at 12:30 a.m. Dec. 25.

“Scrooge” also plays at 10:10 a.m. Dec. 4 and at 3:40 p.m. Dec. 20 on WOSC-TV’s MOVIES! channel, which is not carried on cable but is available over the air on Channel 61.2

“Scrooge” is also available for free through Hoopla, a streaming service you can join using a participating library account, including Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Failing those options, a digital copy of “Scrooge” can be purchased for $13 through Amazon Prime Video or rented there for $4. “Scrooge” is also sold on DVD for $5 at Amazon.com.

Q: While watching national news coverage I noticed networks sometimes display just the name of the city while other times it is “city, state.” Recently on CNN they were showing pictures of the various protests happening throughout the country and in the four boxes it said Baltimore (not Baltimore, Md.), Sacramento, Calif., Louisville, Ky., St. Louis (not St. Louis, Mo.) and Charlotte, N.C.. I’ve always been curious how they determine which cities stand alone and which need the state identifier. I believe Charlotte, Baltimore, Sacramento and St. Louis are all relative similar sized cities/metro areas. After some quick research I found that Sacramento was the 20th largest media market and Charlotte 21st, both higher than Baltimore and St. Louis which ranked 26 and 23 respectively. I’m curious why St. Louis and Baltimore have enough name recognition but Charlotte and Sacramento don’t.

— Steve, Pittsburgh

Rob: It appears the news channels follow AP Style, which says St. Louis and Baltimore are on a list of about 30 cities, including Pittsburgh, that do not require the state to follow after the city name.

Charlotte and Sacramento are not on that list, which was drawn up decades ago, long before both cities’ more recent population growth spurts.