Rochester TV Reporter Featured in 'Conan' Comedy Bit

Conan O'Brien has a segment that he does every so often on his show that features a dozen or so local TV news reporters and anchors all repeating the same lede to a fluff piece. In the past, he's showed reporters teasing to a story about a social network for dogs. On last night's episode of Conan, the late-night host showed a bunch of TV anchors all repeating the same line: "I scream, you scream ... well, you know the rest."* One of those anchors was Rochester, N.Y.'s own Jennifer Johnson, a reporter and anchor who anyone familiar with Rochester's media scene would know.

While this is a funny bit on Conan, this kind of repetition is commonplace in today's media world. Just like how every newspaper is running national and lifestyle-type stories from the Associated Press, TV news is doing the same thing. It's just not as funny to cut out a bunch of newspaper clips and put them next to each other. That kind of joke doesn't really translate on TV.

*With the exception of one anchor who flubbed the line, pronouncing it "Ice cream, you scream," which, unless the ice cream is either terrified or terrifying, makes no sense.