Fox 11's Jillian Reynolds untouched as layoffs lay waste to the TV station's staff

You might have seen the promo. "So Thrilling. So Explosive. So Brash. So Bold. So Fresh. So Fox."

And now it must be said of the Fox News affiliate in Los Angeles: So diminished. So wretched. So . . . so.

Executives at Channel 11 announced the layoff of roughly one-quarter of the news staff a couple of weeks ago, a "Black Friday" bloodletting that had veteran reporter John Schwada regretting the loss of "a lot of good young people, with energy and dreams."

No local media outlet, including this one, has been immune from a merciless recession and the revolutionary, Internet-driven realignment of advertising revenue. Virtually every L.A. newspaper, radio station and TV outlet has slashed employees.

But the impending losses at Fox 11 (the pink slips don't take effect until September) hit a television sector already reeling from consolidations and earlier cutbacks. Yet, illogically, anorexic local TV operations remain the primary news source for a huge number of Angelenos (and, one survey showed, for roughly one in seven Americans).

KTTV and KCOP Channel 13 General Manager Kevin Hale told me that the station "will continue to do the good job we do right now, but in a different manner." Another Fox rep earlier assured me, "There will be no on-air talent leaving."

So rest easy, Los Angeles, we stand no chance of losing, for example, Jillian (Barberie) Reynolds, Fox 11's "weather and lifestyle anchor," the Medusa-haired, wailing siren who epitomizes the noxious celebrification of what we once called news.

Reynolds, 42, shimmers as Fox 11's star of stars; known as much for her weight loss ads, reality ice-skating turn and pro football sideline commentary as for the frothy patter, fashion insights and viewer advice segments (just Thursday she fielded a query about interracial dating) she dispenses weekday mornings on Fox's "Good Day LA."

It's long since been established that entertainment reporters will grasp at celebrity every bit as fiercely as the stars they cover. One might ask: Is L.A.'s signature tele-diva even capable of amazing us, after 14 years on the air?

Apparently so. At least that was my reaction, when I (belatedly) heard what Reynolds said on Howard Stern's show on Sirius satellite radio. During her extended visit with the shock jock a few weeks back, Reynolds spared no detail professional or, in particular, sexual.