Michael Calderone, Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110211/ts_yblog_thecutline/social-media-plays-role-in-egypt-some-expected-in-iran Social media plays role in Egypt some expected in Iran
Discovery to Invest $50 Million More in OWN
Buffalo Television Station Owner Guilty in Beheading
“Black Snob” Associate a Figure in Congressman Scandal
Discovery to Invest $50 Million More in OWN
“Discovery Communications on Friday said it will invest an additional $50 million in OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, particularly in programming, and break even on the channel this year on an operating basis,” Georg Szalai reported Friday for the Hollywood Reporter.
President and CEO David Zaslav said on an earnings conference call that Discovery expects to increase funding to help drive the network, a joint venture with Oprah Winfrey, to longer-term profitability and growth with stronger content.
“. . . Zaslav said his firm is “confident that we can generate sustained momentum in ratings and reach [operating income before depreciation and amortization] breakeven in 2011,” adding he still expects that OWN will be “a very big business” over time. . . .
“Zaslav on Friday said 24 new OWN shows are slated to launch this year, which should help boost ratings. While OWN currently features a lot of reruns, over the next six to 12 months, people should start to see the strength of its original programming, Zaslav told analysts. He said ratings should get an additional bump from Winfrey’s move to the network after she ends the run of her syndicated show this fall and Rosie O’Donnell’s new show, which is set for a fall debut on OWN.
Buffalo Television Station Owner Guilty in Beheading
“A former banking executive who helped launch the nation’s first Muslim television station faces 15 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him on Tuesday (Feb. 8) of murdering and decapitating his wife nearly two years ago,” Omar Sacirbey wrote Thursday for Religion News Service.
“Muzzammil ‘Mo’ Hassan, 46, never denied killing Aasiya Zubair Hassan, who he met while visiting his native Pakistan in 2000. They married the same year, and settled in upstate New York.
“Shocked by what she considered to be anti-Muslim hostility in the American media, Hassan’s wife persuaded her husband to start a television station to help improve Muslims’ image and their relationship with other Americans.
“In 2004, they launched Bridges TV in Orchard Park, N.Y., which featured a mix of religious, cultural and news programming from a Muslim perspective, as well as non-Muslim programming. The station, operated by a multi-religious group, continues to broadcast.
“Behind the ambitious project was a turbulent relationship in which, according to trial testimony, Hassan abused his wife. A week before her murder on Feb. 12, 2009, Zubair Hassan, 37, had filed for divorce.
“Many anti-Muslim critics seized on the crime as an example of the inherent evil and misogyny of Islam. Muslims and others have rejected those allegations, condemned Hassan, and charged critics with exploiting a tragedy to demonize a religion that Zubair Hassan deeply cared for.”
“Black Snob” Associate a Figure in Congressman Scandal
“In the midst of an embarrassing scandal broken by the gossip and media blog Gawker, Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY) resigned from his seat in shame. In less than three hours from when the story broke on Wednesday he was suddenly in retreat. Denials of a computer hack turned into needing to spend time with the wife. But who was the woman at the center of the drama? And how did it all really go down?”
Belton said Thursday night “I’ve been interviewed so many times and the site crashed a few times as well. . . . I did ABC7, NBC Washington, the Fox affiliate in DC and I filmed segments for both the Today Show and Good Morning America. . . . I was on the radio. It was just a looooong crazy day.”
On Friday, Belton quoted from a blog posting on the matter from the woman in question, “34-year-old Maryland mother Yesha Callahan,” and disclosed, “Yesha Callahan has freelanced in the past for TheLoop21 and is an associate of TheLoop21 editor Danielle Belton.”
She recapped, “Lee suddenly resigned this week after a picture he sent Callahan through a Craigslist ad she posted became public through the blog Gawker. Callahan and Lee never met, never went on a date and only exchanged a few flirty emails, but those emails grew into a larger story amid rumors of improper behavior by the married Congressman.”
Short Takes
- Three African Americans were elected as regional vice presidents of the Newspaper Guild last weekend in Orlando: Randye Gilliam in Region V (New York region), Kevin Johnson (Great Lakes region) and Sheila Lindsey was elected for the Baltimore Washington region, where she had been previously appointed. “We had 3 VP’s of color on the last board and will now have 4 for certain . . . and perhaps five based on one scheduled election,” Bernie Lunzer, Guild president, told Journal-isms.
- CNN news anchor Don Lemon has written a memoir, “Transparent,” “which candidly details the painful abuse he endured in childhood,” Laura Adibe wrote Thursday for AOL Black Voices. In the course of interviewing young congregants at the Atlanta area megachurch pastored by Bishop Eddie Long in September, Lemon disclosed on a live newscast, “I am a victim of a pedophile.”
- In Pittsburgh, “Weekend morning anchor Danielle Nottingham will be leaving WPXI-TV at the end of the month. Ms. Nottingham, who joined the station in 2008, is a weekday reporter for Channel 11 as well,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on Thursday. ” ‘I don’t think she has anything special lined up yet; she tells me she wants to be closer to family in Washington, D.C.,’ said news director Mike Goldrick.”
- “Al Roker’s forecast is cloudy with a chance of legal trouble,” Michael Starr wrote Thursday for the New York Post. “Two Jersey City men are suing Roker’s Spike TV reality show, ‘DEA,’ for allegedly entering their apartment illegally — twice — then showing the searches and busts on TV.”
- Carla Hall, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times for 17 years, and Sandra Hernandez, formerly of the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, have joined the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, Kevn Roderick reported Friday for LAObserved.
- Molly Secours, an unpaid Nashville-based blogger for the Huffington Post, wrote that she will stop contributing in light of the Huffington Post’s $315 million deal with AOL. “What seems apparent is that we humans often teach and preach the very things we need to learn the most. And usually, it is the very forces we rebel against and denounce that eventually expose our own vulnerabilities. Ms Huffington is no exception to the rule—no matter how many times she uses the words ‘corporate’ and ‘swine’ in the same sentence,” Secours wrote.
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