/zh/ replacing /dzh/?

[Herbert Stahlke]

I've noticed for some time that many of my students and a lot of newsreaders and sports announcers, local, cable, and network, are replacing certain cases of /dzh/ with /zh/.  I first noticed it with proper nouns like Beijing and Elijah, which are now regularly pronounced with palato-alveolar fricatives rather than affricates.  This evening a newsreader on MSNBC did the same replacement with "siege".  That's the first case I've noticed in a word that wasn't a name and/or foreign sounding.

Herb Stahlke