BlogMissouriSt. LouisWork from Home Newscaster

The news isn’t all bad these days. Some good news in this Covid-19, work from home world is some of us now get to see cats on the local T.V. news. Every night. Just as our own Zoom calls have been photobombed by our resident cats, so too are the cat loving T.V. newscasters who now broadcast from home..

In St. Louis, fans of the KMOV evening news are delighting in watching co-anchor Samantha Jones’ cats co-host the nightly broadcast. As days of Covid-19 lockdown have become weeks, local cat lovers are tuning in to see what the cats will do next. Which is: not much. Turns out that even sleeping cats are a welcome distraction during lockdown.

Samantha Jones and Cat

Cat or pillow? Is that plushy figure on the chair a real cat? The first days of St. Louis news anchor Samantha Jones’ work from home broadcasts had us fixated on the cat-like form in the background. Spoiler Alert: it’s a cat!

Cat Life During Coronavirus Confinement

Such are the long days in lockdown that spotting a cat on the evening news is something to look forward to. Seeing the cat actually move? Exhilarating! Watching a cat walk across the kitchen counter while their cat mom delivers the news? Pure suspense.

Cats Cohost as Newscasters Work from home

Must See TV! What will those darn cats do next?

We’re like: “Hey Samantha! The cat is on on the stove!” Or “Samantha, Turn around! Do you know what your cat is doing!”

Embarrassing cats

Paws in the air, don’t care! Mom’s on the air!

 

Embarrassing Work from Home Cats

10 pm is the purrrfect time for grooming sesh. Kitties gotta look their best for the kamera too.


Samantha Jones and cat

Don’t look now, Sam!

But mostly the cats sleep. In the first days of Ms. Jones’ work from home broadcast, we weren’t quite sure what we were seeing. We spied a cat-like silhouette on a living room chair. Ooooh, is it a cat? A pillow? Then it moved. A cat it is! And then one cat became two cats, doubling the fun. The Siamese type cat that claims the chair is sometimes joined by the handsome grey and white cat. Oh joy, cat peoples!

Meet The KMOV Work From Home Cat Team

Work from home cats

Working hard for the tuna. Credit: SamanthaJonesNews/FB

Before the Covid-19 lockdown, Samantha Jones‘ cats were just regular ole stay-at-home kitties. Now they are public figures. St. Louis cat lovers want DETAILS: who are the kitty cohosts! Inquiring cat people want to know.

Tink

Tink is the Siamese kitty reliably occupying the co-cat chair. Off air, Tink will be found hunting for something to get into. Both Tink and her brother will celebrate their 1st birthday soon.

Tink

Co-Cat
Cat Mom

Samantha Jones is St. Louis’s favorite cat mom, news anchor. Tune in at 6 PM and 10 PM to watch the KMOV cat team on Channel 4. She’ll quickly be your favorite anchor, with or without cats.

Samantha

Cat Mom and Cohost
Litty

Litty is the handsome, grey and white tuxedo boy. Usually Litty is off-camera, sleeping on the job under his cat mom, co-host’s chair. Described as a bit of a “lurker” by his cat mom, Litty has brought us some of the most exciting on-air moments during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Litty

Co-Cat

Of course Samantha Jones isn’t the only pet lover on the KMOV team. Fans of KMOV are well acquainted with Chief Meteorologist Steve Templeton’s golden retriever Seamus. Seamus is something of a virtual therapy dog, delivering PSA’s and distracting us from the St. Louis weather.

Steve Templeton

How to be the #1 weatherman in St. Louis? Bring your dog to work! Steve Templeton’s dog Seamus is always a big hit with viewers. Credit: KMOV/YouTube

Reporter Kim St. Onge, usually out on location, has delighted us during lockdown by appearing on her couch, with dog Levi as co-host.

KMOV Reporter Kim St. Onge and dog

St Louis news is going to the dogs! KMOV’s Kim St. Onge is joined on air by her dog Levi. A delightful silver lining of the Covid-19 work from home directive has been seeing pets on the nightly news.

 

Betty the Weathercat: Work From Home Cat Goes Viral

Betty the Weather Cat and Jeff Lyons

Cat finds new career in the work from home, Covid-19 lockdown. Meteorologist Jeff Lyons’ cat Betty is now better known as Betty the Weather Cat Photo: Jeff Lyon-14 News/FB

St. Louis’s Litty and Tink aren’t the only kitties that have been thrust into the spotlight with Covid-19, work from home broadcasts. Betty the cat from small-market Evansville, Indiana has gone big by joining the 14 NEWS live weather report. Betty has literally leapt to fame overnight.

Lucky for us, cat dad and Chief Meteorologist Jeff Lyons has welcomed Betty on air and graciously shared the work from home spotlight. Assisted by his equally good humored wife and son, Lyons recently hosted a Facebook Live featuring Betty and telling more about the new star. A must-watch where we learn Betty hails from humble beginnings as a stray who adopted the Lyons family by appearing at their window. Among other things, we learn she likes to drink water from a glass, but only with ice. She will also work for ham. She may or may not be a Norwegian Forest cat.

Betty the Work From Home Weathercat Gets Paid

While the post-work from home future is not certain for Betty’s live on-camera career, she is making the most of her moment. A true diva, she is now demands fresh tuna tins for her live shots. A win-win for all.

Why Work From Home Cats Are Thrilling Audiences

Would these on-air cats be quite so amusing in a pre-lockdown world? Who knows. Who remembers? Now we live for today. Cats appearing on the evening news, doing what cats enough cause for a joyful interlude. We’ll take it. One Betty the Weathercat fan put it this way: “We’re all anxious to get back to normal. Cats are normal.”

Mauhaus Cat Cafe & Lounge

If we are to use cat cafes as a measure, both St.Louis and Evansville are major kitty loving cities. St. Louis is home to two fabulous cat cafes. Evansville, a river town on the Ohio River of about one hundred and seventeen thousand people, serves the cat loving community with River Kitty Cat Cafe. All are temporarily closed at the moment for the Covid-19 lockdown. So until we’re can get our live kitty fix, we’ll just have to settle for cats on the news.

What will the post-lockdown newscast look like when our favorite cat parents return to the studio? Can we keep cats on the news? Yes, please.

I’m so glad my kitties are bringing joy to others right now! I’d be in a bad way with out them, so I can only hope they’re helping others cope too. -Samantha Jones

6 Comments

  1. Oh what a great post. It would just be the cat’s ass if everyone you featured saw this and commented, too. What a great way to make us all smile during our shut-in season. Thank you!

  2. How interesting to see the television hosts and their pets! Doesn’t a pet make television people look and feel more ‘human’ and real? Seeing that people have lives and homes gives what could just be a talking face’ real humanity and love.

    I remember a viral video of a weather man being photo bombed by a cat and I think the world laughed itself silly!

  3. I love seeing the pets while all of these television hosts are broadcasting from home. I’ve been on a few Zoom chats and our cats always show up. We never know what they are going to do.

  4. It has been a lot of fun to see the television hosts and their pets during this pandemic. Years ago, our local channel had a weather cat that lived at the studio. He made an appearance almost every night on the weather deck.

Leave a Reply to Ruth Epstein Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Post comment