“Biggest Gift of Spectrum” Means You Could Own a Station
John X. Miller, Fired from Nonprofit, Returns to Journalism
ESPN Ombudsman Faults Handling of LeBron’s “Decision”
Haiti Station, Anderson Cooper Honored by Columbia U.
CBS Launching Daytime Talk Show With 6 Women
One of the sponsors at WLCC-AM in Tampa threw a celebration in May, with the station’s “La Ley” logo prominently featured. The station, owned by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, could be a model for transferring more stations to minority ownership. 2nd image: Caption: David Honig
“Biggest Gift of Spectrum” Means You Could Own a Station
Trinity Broadcasting Co., which calls itself the world’s largest religious network, is donating up to 155 television stations to a group devoted to increasing broadcast ownership for people of color, the company announced on Tuesday.
In addition, the radio giant Clear Channel is offering two AM stations, one in Minneapolis and the other in New Jersey.
David Honig accepted the donated stations Tuesday on behalf of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, of which he is president and executive director. He said the stations would be used to train potential owners of color and that his group would then sell them for 50 percent of fair market value.
Honig, speaking at the MMTC’s eighth annual Access to Capital and Telecommunications Policy Conference, held in Washington, called it “the biggest gift of spectrum in history.”
Asked whether readers interested in becoming station owners should contact him, he said yes.
Trinity Broadcasting calls itself the world’s largest religious network and America’s most watched faith channel. It “offers 24 hours of commercial-free inspirational programming that appeal to people in a wide variety of Protestant, Catholic and Messianic Jewish denominations.”
Colby M. May, counsel to the network, said that when the nation last year completed a decade-long, $2 billion effort to convert the nation’s television signals to digital, Trinity found it was not cost-effective to transform all of its stations.
“The number of stations is potentially 155,” May told Journal-isms via e-mail. “MMTC is completing its due diligence and will select some or all of the stations. All of these stations are satellite fed TV Translators,” meaning they do very little local program origination. “When picked-up by MMTC they will become LPTV stations,” referring to low-power television stations.
Clear Channel is donating KFXN-AM in Minneapolis and WTOC-AM in Sussex County, N.J.
“Last year at MMTC’s conference, the company donated a transmitter to the MMTC, as well as four AM stations: WHJA AM (Laurel, MS), KYHN (Fort Smith, AK), KYFX (Wabasha, MN), and WYNF AM (North Augusta, SC),” Clear Channel said in an announcement.
“Also today, Clear Channel and the MMTC announced that two of four AM stations previously donated to MMTC along with other equipment will be re-launched with new minority operators and executives. The rigorous screening process, determined by the MMTC, focused on candidates who could best serve their respective communities,” the announcement said.
Clear Channel was the subject of a $24 billion takeover by two private equity firms, Bain Capital and THL Partners. “Since that leveraged buyout was completed last year, the company has undertaken a restructuring program to cope with the billions of dollars in debt it incurred in the deal,” the New York Times reported in October.
In that financial climate, Steve Davis, senior vice president for engineering and capital management, told Journal-isms,t Clear Channel was “not able to donate as much cash as we have in the past” to MMTC. “Some stations weren’t top performers for us,” he said, and “the goodwill will help Clear Channel more than if we kept the stations.” Moreover, Clear Channel CEO John Hogan has been a supporter of the group.
Honig said MMTC already owns and operates WLCC-AM in Tampa, which would be used as a model for the new stations.
WLCC was donated in 2008 by Mega Communications, which was divesting itself of its broadcast properties. Eran Schrieber, who was part of Megan Communications, was brought in to rent the station from MMTC and to operate it, Schrieber told Journal-isms. It retained its regional Mexican format. The general manager, Maria Navarro, and controller, Angela Cotto, its only employees, are both Hispanic.
“We proved the model works,” Schrieber said.
- David Honig, Minority Media Telecommunications Council. The State of Social Justice in Media, Telecom and Broadband – 2010 (PDF)
- John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable: MMTC Launching Digital Entrepreneurs Organization
John X. Miller, Fired from Nonprofit, Returns to Journalism
John X. Miller, a veteran journalist who left the news business to become CEO of a Detroit nonprofit, has returned to newspapering after, according to published reports, he was fired from the nonprofit in November.
Miller started June 21 as editor of the Hickory (N.C.) Record, a 22,000-circulation paper with eight newsroom employees owned by Media General.
George Hunter reported in the Detroit News on Nov. 17 that “John X. Miller was released Friday from his position as CEO of THAW (The Heat and Warmth Fund), following an internal investigation into fiscal improprieties, said Dianne Bostic Robinson, president of the agency’s board of directors. ‘He was let go on Friday. As it relates to specifics, I can’t talk about that because those are personnel-related issues,’ Robinson said. ‘I can say it was a unanimous decision by the board.'”
Miller, 54, told Journal-isms he was advised by his lawyer not to comment on his experience at THAW.
However, he said “What happened at THAW has nothing to do with what I’m doing here” and that he was glad to be doing community journalism, which is “what I was trained to do for many years.”
Miller took a buyout from the Detroit Media Partnership, which runs both the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, in 2007. He had been public editor of the Free Press and its director of community affairs and then vice president of Detroit Free Press Charities. He had also been a board member of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Educatlon.
He said he was happy to be back in the state in which he was born and reared, and that the paper had lost staffers as Media General, which also owns the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch and smaller papers in North and South Carolina, consolidated editing functions.
Miller also said he was glad to return to journalism. “we have a higher calling to sustain what we do,” he said. “Our democracy depends on it.”
ESPN Ombudsman Faults Handling of LeBron’s “Decision”
“It was billed without irony as ‘The Decision.’ But for those who thought ESPN could agree to televise live LeBron James’ announcement that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat — ultimately served up with ample hype in the form of an awkward, uncomfortable, staged one-hour network special ‚Äî and still be free from public controversy, it might as well have been called “The Delusion,” Don Ohlmeyer, ombudsman at ESPN, wrote on Wednesday.
“As has been well documented, Team LeBron proposed the exclusive special to ESPN with the following conditions: (1) Veteran broadcaster Jim Gray, who has no current association with ESPN, would host the segment in which James announced his plans; (2) The network would yield the hour of advertising inventory to be sold by James’ team with the proceeds directed to the Boys & Girls Club of America; (3) The network would produce the entire show and pay for all production costs.
“Notwithstanding the noteworthy audience for the July 8 special ‚Äî it peaked at more than 13 million viewers, giving ESPN its second-highest rating of the year -‚Äî I think ESPN made some major mistakes handling the entire affair. In fact, in many ways, the network’s decisions in airing the James’ special ‚Äî and its justification for making them ‚Äî are a metaphor for what ails the media today. . . .”
“Just more than two years ago, ESPN’s then-ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber wrote the following: ‘Clearly, ESPN’s many layers of editors and producers are not all on the same page, not even about some basic principles that define the nature of a journalistic enterprise. Without a formal, written handbook of guidance and policy, there is not much chance they ever will be, and the price for that will be paid in avoidable suspensions, apologies and erosion of credibility.’
“I asked Patrick Stiegman, vice president/executive editor and producer for ESPN.com, about these written policies. ‘We are in the process of codifying many of the standards and practices for our newsgathering organization,’ he said, ‘but one of the tenets of that exercise is that ESPN prohibits payment to a source for a story or news interview. Even while not formalized, that is the guideline under which we have operated.’
An engineer adjusts the sound for journalists on the air at Haiti’s Signal FM 90.5 radio station in January. It was Port-au-Prince’s lone surviving radio station. (Credit: Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post)
Haiti Station, Anderson Cooper Honored by Columbia U.
“The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has announced the 2010 winners of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes for outstanding reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean,” the school announced on Wednesday. “The oldest international award in journalism, now in its 72nd year, the Cabot Prize honors journalists who have covered the Western Hemisphere and, through their reporting and editorial work, have furthered inter-American understanding.
“The 2010 gold medalists are freelance reporter Tyler Bridges; Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of Esta Noche and Confidencial; Norman Gall, founder and editor of Braudel Papers; and Joaquim Ibarz, blogger and correspondent for La Vanguardia. Special Citations are awarded to Haiti‚Äôs Signal FM radio station, and to CNN and the program ‘Anderson Cooper 360¬?’ for coverage of January‚Äôs earthquake in Haiti.
CBS Launching Daytime Talk Show With 6 Women
CBS will take a new view of daytime after the end of “As the World Turns,” Lynn Elber reported Wednesday for the Huffington Post.
“When the soap opera concludes its 54-year run in September, it will be replaced by an hour-long daily talk show with six celebrity co-hosts ‚Äî all women, an echo of ABC’s popular ‘The View’ series.
“CBS announced Wednesday that the hosts of the as-yet untitled daytime show include Sharon Osbourne; Sara Gilbert of TV’s ‘Roseanne’ fame; Holly Robinson Peete from ‘Celebrity Apprentice;’ Broadway actress Marissa Jaret Winokur; Leah Remini of ‘The King of Queens;’ and Julie Chen, who hosts CBS’ ‘Big Brother’ and ‘The Early Show.’
“Gilbert developed the program, which will be the network’s only daytime talk show, and is its executive producer. It’s set for a fall debut, but a specific date was not announced.
“The show will take a moms’ view of entertainment and news stories. The hosts all have children, ranging in age from infants to adults.
“Chen will give up her ‘Early Show’ co-anchor role but will continue to appear on the morning program, CBS News said. Chen, who is married to CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves, will remain as ‘Big Brother’ host.”
Short Takes
“Dan Ponce, who cut short a promising Chicago television news career last year to fulfill his dream of singing professionally, is returning home to join WGN-Channel 9 as a general assignment reporter,” Chicago television write Robert Feder reported on Wednesday. “The Tribune Co.-owned station is expected to announce his hiring in the next few days, sources said. Ponce, 33, previously spent three years as a reporter at ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7. His return to the market would restore the Ponces‚Äô on-air family dynasty here to full strength, with his father, Phil Ponce, continuing as host of ‘Chicago Tonight’ at public television WTTW-Channel 11, and his younger brother, Anthony Ponce, continuing as a reporter at NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5.” - “Next year, we will be taking fewer interns ‚Äî about 15,” down from about 30 this year, Deborah Brewster, deputy managing editor at the Wall Street Journal, wrote for the College Business Journalism Consortium. “We had an unusually large number of interns in 2008-09, hence the lower number next year.”
- Three women who lead journalist associations of color are celebrating birthdays within days of each other: Sharon Chan, president of the Asian American Journalists Association on July 24; Michele Salcedo of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists on July 27 and Barbara Ciara of Unity: Journalists of Color also on July 27.
- Nightly remembrances of Pius Njawe, the Cameroon journalist and free-press advocate who died last week in a Virginia car crash, began Wednesday in Washington and continue in the Washington area until July 31, according to the Pius Njawe Memorial Organizing Committee.
- “Discovery en Espa?±ol has started production on ‘Norte a Sur: Una Ruta, 5 Experiencias,’ a reality show that will follow 5 young American Latinos traveling from Alaska to Argentina along the Pan-American highway,” Veronica Villafane reported Wednesday for her Media Moves site. “The series seeks to highlight a journey of self-discovery as the adventurers engage in projects and ‘real work’ in each community they stop at along their 10 city route through North and South America.”
- In El Paso, “City Council members on Tuesday presented longtime journalist Joe Olvera with the Conquistador Award, the city’s highest honor,” Cesar Marquez reported for the El Paso Times. “Olvera received the award a day before his 66th birthday. He was the first Hispanic journalist so honored.” Olvera was formerly a reporter for the El Paso Herald-Post and El Paso Times.
- “The Committee to Protect Journalists joins with our colleagues in India to express our support and condolences to the family of Vijay Pratap Singh, the 36-year-old senior correspondent of the daily Indian Express, who died Tuesday from injuries he received in a bombing on July 12,” the committee said. “News reports in India said Singh had been injured in an explosion while interviewing Minister for Institutional Finance, Stamp, and Judicial Tax Nand Gopal Gupta in Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh. Explosives were reportedly concealed in a moped parked outside Gupta‚Äôs house. The blast initially killed one person and injured seven others,”
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