But the secret weapon of the December 2011 broadcast was on weather. Standing in front of the green screen (which was having an unusually glitch-free month), Marty was in his element. December 2011 was historically mild in Baltimore—we saw a record-breaking 70°F on the 7th. Marty wasn't just reporting the "balmy anomaly"; he was celebrating it, telling viewers to leave the heavy parkas in the closet for one more week while pointing at isobars with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning.
The Warm Glow of the AM Dial: Revisiting WJZ’s Eyewitness News Morning Edition in December 2011
That scarcity made it essential. For commuters in Dundalk, teachers in Towson, and nurses coming off the night shift at Hopkins, that specific block of WJZ programming wasn't just background noise. It was the glue holding the chaos of the holidays together—one grainy traffic map and one warm "Good Morning, Baltimore" at a time. eyewitness news morning edition wjz december 2011
What makes rewinding to December 2011 so fascinating is the technology. This was the era of the "Early Adopter" smartphone. You had a BlackBerry Bold or maybe an iPhone 4S (Siri had just launched that October, and she was hilariously bad). WJZ’s graphics were still chunky, the lower thirds were bold, and the sound of the news ticker was the white noise of a million kitchens.
Looking back, Eyewitness News Morning Edition in December 2011 represents the last exhale of the pre-streaming era. It was local, it was tactile, and it was limited. You couldn't pause it easily. You couldn't swipe to the next story. If you missed Marty’s forecast at 6:15, you had to wait until 6:45. But the secret weapon of the December 2011
If you lived in Baltimore during that frosty December, your VCR (or, for the tech-savvy, your DVR) was likely set to Channel 13. WJZ Eyewitness News Morning Edition wasn’t just a newscast; it was a survival guide.
Do you have a specific memory of watching WJZ in late 2011? Was it the snow that didn't come, or the story about the rescued cat from the Francis Scott Key Bridge? Share your nostalgia below. Marty wasn't just reporting the "balmy anomaly"; he
The "Morning Edition" was still a ritual. You watched it while your single-cup Keurig brewed a K-Cup of Pumpkin Spice (which was still a seasonal novelty, not a cultural cliché). The teleprompter would flash stories about the ongoing Iraq War withdrawal, the final space shuttle moves to museums, and the Ravens’ playoff push (the Harbaughs were about to face off in the AFC Championship, though nobody knew it yet).
By December 2011, the chemistry on the set was bulletproof. was at the anchor desk, delivering the day’s top stories with that signature blend of gravitas and approachability that made you feel like she’d already had three coffees so you didn’t have to. Across the desk, Don Scott handled the flow, his baritone voice a steady promise that, despite the debt ceiling crises and holiday shipping deadlines, everything would be fine.
BALTIMORE — In the winter of 2011, the world was still shaking off the Occupy Wall Street tents and preparing for the end of the Mayan calendar’s “long count” (a panic that would peak exactly one year later). But for early risers in Central Maryland, the only count that mattered at 5:00 AM was the one leading to traffic on the JFX and the wind chill off the Patapsco.