Media Activists Who Smile and Throw Cheese [NYT blogerated link]

… Since Jan. 6, when the five-member Rochester-based group executed its first bust, as it calls them, of a live remote in their hometown, viewers in Boston; New York City; Manchester, N.H.; Columbus, Ohio; and several other cities have seen their local news briefly hijacked by elaborately planned vignettes that are more likely to baffle or alarm reporters than make them curse on the air.

The Newsbreakers’ repertory of characters includes Cheese Ninja, who cavorts in the background of live news broadcasts, derisively tossing slices of processed cheese, and Jiminy Diz, a supposed newspaper reporter, wearing a loud jacket and a hat with a “Press” card in the band, who is angry with local television news for lifting reports from the morning paper.

These humorless aesthetes are clearly a front intended to increase overall viewer numbers for local news!

Grimfaced, I await their eruption hereabouts.