TV Talk: WTAE hires news director; ‘Dish’ returns on WPCB

WTAE found a news director to fill the shoes of Jim Parsons, who will retire later this month.

Baylor Long, currently news director at sister Hearst station WVTM-TV in Birmingham, Ala., joins Channel 4 on March 4.

Long will be a familiar face in the WTAE newsroom: Before his stint at WVTM, he was Channel 4’s assistant news director from March 2017 to August 2021. During that tenure, Long oversaw “Project CommUNITY Town Hall: From Parkland to Pittsburgh,” which brought together survivors of the shootings at the Tree of Life and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Long first worked in TV news at WTAJ-TV in Altoona. He holds a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Penn State.

‘Dashing Dish’

Cornerstone Television’s WPCB-TV, Channel 40, debuts the fifth season of its “Dashing Dish” cooking show at 2 and 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Host Katie Farrell welcomes viewers to her new family home in Nashville with a “clean-eating” menu that includes Southern fried chicken (with a healthy twist), coleslaw, mac and cheese muffins and banana pudding.

Future episodes include meals for company (Feb. 20) and copycat recipes of fast food favorites (Feb. 27).

Kept/canceled

Paramount+ with Showtime renewed “Dreaming Whilst Black” for a second season.

CNN will find new roles for morning anchors Phil Mattingly and Poppy Harlow as it cancels “CNN This Morning.” Kasey Hunt’s “Early Start” will air from 5 to 7 a.m., “CNN News Central” with John Berman, Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidener will air from 7 to 10 a.m. with Jim Acosta anchoring at 10 a.m. and Pamela Brown at 11 a.m.