Mixed News for TV Anchors Who Changed Jobs
Leon Harris, Diann Burns, Derek McGinty, Rick Sanchez and Liz Cho — TV anchors who switched jobs in recent months — got mixed news from the Nielsen ratings released late last week:
“WJLA (Channel 7) has plastered the face of its new anchor, Leon Harris, all over town lately, but that failed to translate his CNN fame into increased ratings at his new home,” reports John Maynard in the Washington Post.
“The station even lost a few customers.
Maynard also reported that “Derek McGinty, who returned to the D.C. airwaves this fall after working the graveyard shift for two years at ABC News, saw his new 7 p.m. newscast on WUSA improve that station’s ratings a hair from last year’s offering of the syndicated ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.’ However, McGinty’s audience of 79,000 homes was crushed by Tom Brokaw’s ‘Nightly News’ crowd of 191,000 on WRC.”
But in Chicago, WBBM-Channel 2, “the perennial doormat of local news,” became “the only station to show a year-to-year increase in late-news viewership — up a whopping 24 percent,” reports Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times.
With a reference to WBBM President Joe Ahern, Feder writes that “while Channel 2’s rise mirrors that of its CBS parent network in prime time and many of its major-market siblings, Ahern also points to his own strategic moves, most notably the hiring of star news anchor Diann Burns from Channel 7 and her pairing with Antonio Mora.”
In New York, WABC boasted that “Eyewitness News” with Bill Ritter, Liz Cho, Sam Champion and Scott Clark posted a 7.9 rating/14 share to take first in the 11 p.m. news race. “This ABC/7 newscast is 14% and 17% higher in rating and share, respectively, than it was one year ago,” it said.
Cho, who had been a correspondent for ABC News’ “World News Tonight” and co-anchor of “World News Now,” was added to WABC’s 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts in July.
The Miami Herald reported today that, “It hasn’t been a happy homecoming for Rick Sanchez, at least in terms of viewers. His highly promoted WTVJ-NBC 6 afternoon talk show was hammered in Nielsen ratings released Friday, finishing even behind Japanese monster cartoons.
“The Rick Sanchez Show barely registered at all in the ratings, pulling in just 2 percent of the viewers in its weekday 4 p.m. time slot. It was clobbered not only by rival talk shows like Oprah (on WFOR-CBS 4) and Judge Judy (WSVN-Fox 7), which both outdrew Sanchez by about 7 to 1 margins, but the Japanese cartoon Pokémon (WBZL-WB 39), which had double the audience,” wrote Glenn Garvin. Sanchez spent two years as an anchor at MSNBC before returning to South Florida in October.
On Harris’ showing in D.C., Maynard wrote that:
“Harris, who was hired in September after a 20-year career at CNN, started the WJLA gig on the first day of the sweeps in a move that station executives hoped would goose the ratings.
“WJLA’s late news got no help, again, from parent network ABC, whose poorly performing 10 p.m. programs left the station with a miserable lead-in.”
Added Chris Baker in the Washington Times: “The station didn’t help matters with silly reports on ‘K Street Hookers’ and ‘Hip Hugger Hazards.'”
Atlanta Trailblazer Harmon Perry Dies at 80
Harmon Griggs Perry, who was recruited in 1968 to become the Atlanta Journal’s first African American reporter and won awards both as a reporter and as a photographer, died Nov. 23 of heart failure, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. He was 80.
“Mr. Perry’s first assignment at the Journal was to cover the assassination and funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. in April, 1968. He was part of a six-reporter Journal team that in 1968 wrote an award-winning series of stories that examined racial problems between blacks and whites. He also won four Georgia Press Association awards for his work,” the newspaper reported.
“In 1973, Mr. Perry left the Journal — where he was strictly a writer — to give himself more time for photography, said his daughter, Phyllis Alesia Perry of Atlanta.
“He was named photographer of the year in 1978 by Atlanta Women in the Media and in 1983 won the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists’ first-place award for news photography. The Atlanta native sold his photos to such outlets as The Associated Press, the Atlanta Inquirer and Jet magazine, where he was local bureau chief from 1973 to 1981.
“His mission was to document the cultural and political life of African-Americans in Atlanta,” said his daughter, a former reporter for the Journal-Constitution. “He thought Atlanta was the center of the universe and wanted to make sure our stories were told.”
For Columnists, Jackson Is Gift That Keeps Giving
- George Curry, georgecurry.com:
“I had planned to abstain from writing about Michael Jackson?s latest troubles. I wanted to just say no. And I was doing fine until Jermaine Jackson asserted that his brother was being lynched.
“The problem is that when we take cases that have only a tangential relationship to race and characterize them as ‘racism’ or a ‘lynching,’ we cheapen the instances where that is actually the case.
“The media deserves criticism, but for a different reason. . . . “
- Margaret Kimberley, blackcommentator.com:
“In reality, lynching victims were hung, shot, beaten to death, castrated, or burned alive. In some horrific cases they suffered more than one of those fates. They did not have private jets whisk them to their arraignments where high priced lawyers were waiting to pay bail in the amount of $3 million. Falling into the hands of law enforcement was often the beginning of their ordeals.
“It is true that there is legal lynching today. Just ask Delma Banks. Delma Banks is a black Texan convicted of murdering a white co-worker more than twenty years ago. In March of this year Banks was strapped to a gurney and came within ten minutes of being another capital punishment statistic. . . .”
- Norman Lockman, Wilmington (Del.) News Journal:
“Poor Jacko. The weirder he gets, the more we love to hate him. Michael Jackson has become a metaphor for how not to age gracefully.
“Best of all, Jacko is giving us the chance to see just how venal vulture journalism can be. We in the print media are just as guilty, but TV can’t be beat for live coverage and Jacko’s arrest was prime vulturism.”
Celebrity Trials Boost Court TV’s News Division
“Court TV is enjoying its own November sweeps this year,” reports Allison Romano in Broadcasting & Cable. “Viewers are fixated on high profile legal stories, from Michael Jackson’s legal woes?a story Court TV broke?to celebrity defendants like Kobe Bryant, Martha Stewart, Robert Blake and Phil Spector, The cable net’s daytime news coverage is in high gear.
“Court TV is a lean operation, about 77 staffers on daytime. When a big legal story breaks, broadcast and cable news operations may send four or five bookers to the scene. Court TV sends one.
“Court TV’s advantage, though, is that everyone is trained in one thing: legal news.
“. . . Take the Michael Jackson scoop. Anchor Diane Dimond, who got a full-time anchor contract last week, has been following the case since 1993 and knows all the key players. So when she got a tip that something big was about to happen, ‘we were able to put her and a producer in place and send them out the West Coast,’ said Dann, a former CNBC and PBS producer,” referring to Marlene Dann, senior vice president of daytime.
“The Jackson story has boosted Court’s ratings. . . . In prime time, magazine show Hollywood at Large posted its best-ever rating.”
BET Plans World AIDS Day Programming
BET today plans to televise HIV-related programs and public service announcements throughout the day to coincide with World AIDS Day, the cable network announces.
At 4 p.m. ET/PT, “Rap City: Tha Bassment” kicks off the programming with a special two-hour episode hosted by Big Tigger, who discusses important HIV testing information with musical guests G-Unit. The network’s top-rated music countdown show, “106 & Park: BET’S Top 10 Live” follows at 6 p.m. with a live telecast hosted by AJ & Free. This show features celebrity guests Alicia Keys and Wyclef Jean, and health experts discussing the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people.
“BET Nightly News” plans a look at HIV/AIDS and the African American community in a special segment hosted by news anchor Jacque Reid at 11 p.m. ET/PT. “The Naked Truth 2” concludes the series at 11:30 p.m. “with an up-close look at HIV/AIDS and African-American women. Produced and directed by Michael Joyner, this NAACP Image Award-winning documentary explores the issues of HIV/AIDS, morality and sexuality through the personal and emotional journey of six African-American women who are either affected by or infected with the deadly disease.”
Native Journalist Writes Novel About Slavery
“John Christian Hopkins, a former tribal Council member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe, has recently published his first novel, a work of historical fiction entitled ‘Carlomagno,” reports the Coventry Courier in Wakefield, R.I.
“A veteran journalist, Hopkins — who won four writing awards at the 2003 Native American Journalists Association annual convention — currently is a staff writer for The Pequot Times, the tribal newspaper of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut, and a Sunday columnist for The Westerly [R.I.] Sun.”
“‘Carlomagno’ — available currently through www.iUniverse.com — is the story of an Indian youth who is sold as a slave in the West Indies, but is determined to become free and one day return to his beloved New England.
“Hopkins has worked from Massachusetts to Florida, with a stint at USA Today and spent several years writing a nationally syndicated column on Native American issues for Gannett News Service,” the newspaper reports.
Native Media Have Successful Counterpart in Norway
“For centuries, the Samis of Norway were seen as reindeer herders nomadically wandering the frozen northern lands of Finnmark, surviving in their tepees during winter?s polar nights and summer?s midnight suns,” writes Samantha Santa Maria, Washington correspondent of the Medill News Service.
“But Norway?s largest ethnic group is no longer a people stuck in time. About 90 percent of the 40,000-strong population lives in the cities. Many of those still in the north have given up the nomadic life and are locked in a decades-old struggle to decide how they can put their land to use,” her story continues.
“What has made Norway wake up to these new realities is the Sami media that many in the community and country credit for the recent resurgence in Sami culture and language.
“However, the initial use of this media was to coerce a persecuted ethnic group to shun its heritage and history and to become more Norwegian.
“As a result, Sami children were taken away from their parents and sent to Norwegian-language schools; a law directed toward the Samis was passed prohibiting the sale of land to anyone who couldn?t speak Norwegian. In 1946, Sami radio was inaugurated but used mainly as a propaganda device.
“. . . Sami media, particularly the three biweekly newspapers, face the same problem seen by the Native American media here: funding. And the complaints about how mainstream media cover their issues are many,” Santa Maria continues.
“But if the Native American experience is anything to go by, mainstream media hasn?t proved to be the better alternative.”
“Cross Connie Chung off the list of candidates for a new prime time show on MSNBC,” wrote Stephen Battaglio Thursday in the New York Daily News.
“Chung’s agent said yesterday that she was approached by the cable news channel about her interest in the hosting job, but passed.
“Chung is still under contract to CNN, even though the network scrapped her 8 p.m. show last spring.
“MSNBC is searching for a female anchor for a new 9 p.m. tabloid style show that will replace ‘The Abrams Report,’ which will move to 6 p.m. ‘Inside Edition’ anchor Deborah Norville and ‘National Geographic Explorer’ host Lisa Ling have also had discussions with MSNBC executives about the job.”
Carter G. Woodson’s D.C. Home to Become Museum
Although Black History Month has been institutionalized with official proclamations and efforts by many news media outlets to redress the gaps in America’s cultural literacy, many people — including some African Americans — have no clue how the month came to be.
That might change soon. Sewell Chan reports in The Washington Post today that, “The stately but dilapidated home of Carter G. Woodson, who pioneered the study of African American history, will be restored and opened as a museum and tourist attraction under new federal legislation, fulfilling a longtime goal of preservationists and scholars of the black experience.
“Before recessing for Thanksgiving last week, the Senate passed a bill establishing a National Historic Site in the Victorian rowhouse at 1538 Ninth St. NW, where Woodson worked from 1922 until his death in 1950. The bill, which the House of Representatives passed in May, goes to President Bush for signing.”
Perhaps we’ll no longer hear the canard that Black History Month, whose genesis dates to 1926, when Woodson created Negro History Week, is something “they gave us” grudgingly, choosing “the shortest month of the year.” Woodson selected the week containing the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12) and Frederick Douglass (believed to be Feb. 14).
Chuck Stone Recalls Getting JFK’s Attention
“For months I was jumping up, and Kennedy wouldn?t call on me,” recalls Chuck Stone in the Wilmington (N.C.) Journal, of his White House assignment for the Washington Afro-American, where he worked as editor and White House correspondent from 1960 to 1963. President Kennedy “just knew that this one black face was going to ask him a civil rights question.
“So finally one day after four or five months of this, I walked down by the front of the State Department auditorium where he held a press conference, and Barbara Gamerician, who was secretary to Pierre Salinger, who was Kennedy?s press secretary, said, ?Well Chuck, the president ignored you again today. Don?t you feel bad to keep jumping up and he keeps ignoring you???
?’Not at all Barbara,’ Stone replied. ‘It doesn?t bother me one bit,'” the story recounts.
“‘If my president can stand before 20 million Americans during a televised press conference and ignore this one little black face all the time, if it doesn?t bother him, it doesn?t bother me.’
“It was a message to Kennedy that one way or another, the president may need that black face he keeps ignoring every week.
“As expected, Kennedy got the message, and at the very next press conference, called on Stone, who immediately asked him a question not about civil rights, but foreign policy related to Latin America,” continued the story by Cash Michaels.
Stone went on to wear many other hats, including founding president of the National Association of Black Journalists, Philadelphia Daily News columnist and his current Walter Spearman professorship in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Truth in Packaging from New Music Magazine
Of the stories about Tracks, a new music magazine for people over 30, few have been as blunt as this one by Sean Daly in the Washington Post:
“The only thing the first issue of Tracks is conspicuously lacking is, well, many stories about people who aren’t white,” Daly writes. “Sure, there’s the[Cassandra] Wilson piece, and reviews of a Miles Davis reissue and the new CD by hip-hoppers OutKast, but the magazine is basically a white sale.”
Daly quotes Tracks’ 40-year-old publisher and CEO, John Rollins, speaking of himself and his editor-in-chief, Alan Light:
“‘You can’t find two people who care about black music more than the two of us,’ Rollins says of his and Light’s days at Vibe. ‘We do have a hip-hop and R&B section.’
“But Rollins is also realistic about who his target audience is: ‘The bulk of our audience is going to be not black or Latino. This is an older white audience.'”
Liberal Radio Network Nears Presence in 5 Cities
“A Democratic investment group planning to start a liberal radio network to counterbalance conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh says it is close to buying radio stations in five major cities”: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston, reports Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times.
“The group is planning to present a daily schedule filled with liberal personalities as hosts of a range of programs, including news analysis segments, talk shows and entertainment programs in the spirit of ‘The Daily Show,’ the spoof news program on cable television’s Comedy Central that skewers Washington.”
Phil Landeros an Exec. News Producer in Milwaukee
Phil Landeros has been named executive news producer at WISN-TV, the Hearst-Argyle Television ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, the station announces.
Landeros, a Mexican-American who is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, comes to WISN-TV from NBC Affiliate WFLA-TV, the dominant local news operation in Tampa, Fla., where he was a news producer. He also held news producing and reporting roles at WKEF-TV in Dayton, Ohio, WTOC-TV in Savannah, Ga., and WSIL-TV in Carterville, Ill., the station said.
Gay-Oriented Media Firm Expands to Fla.
“Unite Media, one of the nation’s largest gay-oriented media companies, is buying South Florida’s Express Gay News,” according to Steve Rothaus in the Miami Herald.
“Express Publisher Norm Kent wouldn’t divulge terms of the deal, which is scheduled to close today.
”’I’m going to be very well off for a very long time,’ said Kent, 54, a lawyer and radio talk host who launched The Express in January 2000 — as he recuperated from cancer. `I went from the hospital to millionaire in four years.”’
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