Lacey Crisp, you're no Kelsey Soby

While all the world has decided that an Eden Prairie lion hunter is more despicable than Jeffrey Dahmer, I confirmed something much more important in the local news business.

Lacey Crisp is no Kelsey Soby.

Soby was the KMSP-TV (Fox 9) morning traffic reporter for about four years. She inherited the job when her predecessor had difficulty keeping her own vehicle on the road, apparently as a result of uncorking her bottle.

Soby had that certain greenness about her when she started. Sure, she worked in small town television somewhere, but her on-air presence didn't command the airwaves like the best of the best do here in the Twin Cities.

Occasionally Soby did some sort of fluff piece for the morning news show, or she'd pinch hit in some small capacity. If they needed somebody to sit on the couch and chat about infotainment at 9 a.m., she'd be there.

Her big score was when she was hired as the sidekick for the one-hour "On the Fly" gab fest that started about two years ago on KMSP's sister station. After about 18 months of that gig Soby left the show, citing an increased focus upon her duties to the intrepid news team at the Fox 9 morning show. A few months later she hastily announced her exit from the airwaves, with no word on where she was going.

Within days the brain trust at Fox 9 had a new traffic reporter to read the morning maps for us. Her name was Lacey Crisp. She had done the small town news bit, and had reported in Milwaukee, evidently. The job seemed like a step down for somebody who had been a news reporter in a major market, but que sera sera.

I swear it wasn't more than two weeks when Crisp disappeared. A random day off didn't seem like a big deal, but that random day off didn't feature a replacement traffic reporter. Perhaps Crisp's absence was due to emergency circumstances and prevented the station from wrangling its usual pinch hitter, Meisha Johnson.

But then another day went by without Crisp. And another. And another. And with each passing day, the traffic reports were left to Alix Kendall and Tom Butler, both of whom stumble through a brief rundown of traffic conditions. It's painful, yet amusing, to watch.

After bugging the fine folks at Fox 9 via Twitter for a few days, with no response, the mystery is partially solved. Morning reporter Dawn Stevens was eager to welcome Crisp, via Twitter, to the Fox 9 family a month ago, and when questioned recently about Crisp's absence from the airwaves, Stevens did confirm that Crisp is toast. Stevens tweeted in reply to the inquiry that management decided to move in a different direction.

So let me get this straight. Soby quickly disappears from a job that she was going to be more focused upon after her departure from "On the Fly," within a few days a new traffic reporter is welcomed into the Fox 9 morning show family, two weeks later that new family member is given the boot, and two weeks later the anchors are left to flail in the wind every time there's a traffic map to post.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but something smells rotten in Eden Prairie.

Morning traffic reporters are overrated, as far as I'm concerned, especially in this day and age. But it seems that the devaluing of Fox 9 traffic reports is less about my belief and more the result of a three-ring circus they're hosting at the KMSP-TV studios.

Exactly how dysfunctional the Fox 9 morning program is these day, we'll probably never know.