Eyewitness News Morning Edition Wjz December 2011 (BEST)

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.

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. 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. But the secret weapon of the December 2011