Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.
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Q: How is the daughter of KDKA-TV reporter Pam Surano doing after that scary trampoline accident? And how did Surano feel being on the other side of a news story?
— Barbara via email
Rob: Surano, a freelance reporter for KDKA since 2018, said her 13-year-old daughter Mary was paralyzed from the mid-chest down to her toes but Mary is seeing improvement daily.
Initially Mary had muscle spasms but now she’s making voluntary movements.
“It seems to follow this track where she feels a tingling and then a little bit of movement starts to come back before (something like) her knee starts to lift up,” Surano said. “Certainly there are people that are less optimistic that she’ll get movement back but there are just as many people who are optimistic that she’ll get movement back. We’re gonna keep on praying and believing.”
Surano is with Mary at a rehabilitation hospital in Philadelphia, where they’ve been since Oct. 22 and expect to stay until just before Thanksgiving. After that they hope insurance will pay for outpatient therapy through mid-January. (A GoFundMe page is close to raising its $100,000 goal to help Mary and Pam.)
Surano is on family medical leave from KDKA until at least Nov. 20.
“KDKA, they’ve been amazing. They’ve been like a family,” Surano said. “There’s nothing I want more than to get back to my KD family very badly and I have no reason to think they won’t continue to work with me if it’s not until January.”
As far as being in the news, Surano said it’s “overwhelming” in good and bad ways.
“It’s devastating, you’re emotionally just torn apart, you’re scared, you’re fearful and the more people that reach out sometimes the more fearful you become because it underscores the fact that what has happened is so life-altering,” she said. “But in the best way, your heart is so overcome with love and emotion and gratitude so every emotion is heightened and overwhelming.”
Surano said her background working in social services before her current stint at KDKA helped teach her to be compassionate and sensitive in her approach to reporting.
“I think that will be heightened to the nth degree now,” she said. “We’re thrust into peoples’ lives in times of tragedy, so it can always be used for a greater good and stories are never meant to be told and not revisited because peoples’ stories never stop evolving. I would love to be able to do more human interest stories. More medical interest stories are needed and more follow-up on stories is needed because the true, enriching part of their actual story is the follow-up. This is just me putting on my journalist hat, but think about how many shootings we report on as a whole — not as KDKA, but all media — that we never follow-up on and the true meat of the story hasn’t even been told yet.”
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Q: I was watching the “American Housewife” season premiere and noticed this:
Do they now have a different child actress for the Anna-Kat character? Or the same one? If it’s the same one, she went from about age 8 to 11 real quick.
And she looks way older than 11, too. Plus it looks like most of the show was filmed pre-covid-19.
So that would have been a real fast quick growth spurt.
— John via email
Rob: New “American Housewife” episodes were filmed this fall with safety protocols for cast and crew in place.
And yes, a new actress has taken over the role of Anna-Kat Otto. The original Anna-Kat actress, Julia Butters, opted to leave the series to pursue other career opportunities after her breakout role in the Quentin Tarantino film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Anna-Kat is now played by actress Giselle Eisenberg.
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Q: With WGN America’s “NewsNation” doing so poorly in the ratings compared to the line-up they had on previously (re-runs of “Last Man Standing,” “Married…With Children,” etc.), do you think WGN will cut their losses and drop NewsNation in the near future?
— Lucas via email
Rob: It’s certainly possible. Ultimately it will come down to a question of economics and what makes the most financial sense.
You can reach TV writer Rob Owen at rowen@triblive.com or 412-380-8559. Follow @RobOwenTV on Threads, X, Bluesky and Facebook. Ask TV questions by email or phone. Please include your first name and location.
