New News Directors for CBS O&Os in Dallas, Miami

TVSpy

In a quick succession process, Cesar Aldama, assistant news director for KYW-TV/CBS 3 in Philadelphia has been named as Adrienne Roark's replacement at Miami's WFOR/WBFS. Roark is leaving her post as WFOR/WBFS News Director to head the news team at Dallas's KTVT/KTXA.

Aldama is a familiar face at WFOR, a CBS O&O, having previously served there as a managing editor. His appointment was announced late Wednesday afternoon. "We are thrilled to welcome Cesar back to South Florida," said Shaun McDonald, President and General Manager of WFOR and WBFS.

Right before WFOR made the Aldama announcement on Wednesday, Roark was introduced as KTVT's new News Director. "I am honored to be given the opportunity to be a part of such a distinguished news team," Roark said in a statement. "I have great respect for what KTVT and KTXA mean to the Dallas-Fort Worth community."

Although the transition at WFOR/WBFS is happening quickly, it doesn't come as much of a surprise. The Dallas TV critic Ed Bark reported on February 1 that Roark was a front-runner for the KTVT/KTXA position.

ABC Backtracks as Mistake Revealed in Toyota Coverage

Associated Press

For the want of a better two-second picture of a tachometer, ABC News has called into question its reporting on acceleration problems with Toyota vehicles.

The network's handling of a Feb. 22 "World News" story about potential problems with computer systems in Toyotas has created ethical questions and intensified bitter feelings the besieged automaker already had toward ABC.

ABC has admitted to a misjudgment and swapped out the brief dashboard video in its report, which continues to be available online. Its story illustrated a report by David Gilbert, a Southern Illinois University professor who suggested that a design flaw in Toyotas might leave a short-circuit that could cause sudden acceleration undetected by the car's computer system. More...

Helped by Olympics, 'NBC Nightly News' Has Big February

The New York Times

How many new viewers did the Winter Olympics deliver to NBC's nightly newscast? About a million, Nielsen numbers indicate.

The "NBC Nightly News" is trumpeting a big win against its competitors, ABC's "World News" and the "CBS Evening News," for the month of February, a so-called "sweeps" month. NBC averaged 10.7 million viewers, while ABC averaged 8.4 million and CBS averaged 6.5 million.

That is the the widest gap between the NBC, ABC, and CBS newscasts in at least 20 years, NBC said in a press release Tuesday. The gap was widened substantially by the Olympics, which NBC showed between Feb. 12 and 28. More...

KSTP to Debut Hyper-Local Twin Cities Websites

MinnPost

Riffing off Seattle's KOMO-TV, Hubbard Broadcasting plans to debut 80-90 hyper-local Twin Cities websites in the next few weeks, using KSTP.com as the portal. Hubbard will do the same in Duluth and Rochester, where it owns WDIO and KAAL, respectively.

How micro are the sites? For example, Minneapolis will have eight or nine, and St. Paul "about seven," says KSTP Creative Services Director Paul Gaulke.

And the content on these neighborhood nodes? Gaulke predicts 80-90 percent will initially come from TV folk. "A lot of the news that comes in to a newsroom, like press releases, never gets on the air," he says. More...

With Couric's Support, Smith Broadcasts Colonoscopy

CBS News

Colon cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, is the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. from cancer with more than 50,000 deaths each year.

With that in mind, "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith decided to have a colonoscopy live on the broadcast Wednesday to raise awareness of this deadly disease.

"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric joined Smith at the New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center's Monahan Center for his screening.

But before the live colonoscopy, Couric introduced him to the center, which is named after her late husband Jay Monahan. More...

Disney Considering Spinning-Off ABC

Reuters

Walt Disney Co's Chief Executive Bob Iger said on Wednesday that the top U.S. media company was keeping its options open for dealing with TV network ABC and its struggling news division, including a spin-off.

At Disney's shareholders' meeting, Iger noted that ABC News, which cut 300 to 400 jobs as part of a drive to refocus and recapture viewers lost to the Internet, is in a business undergoing significant challenges because of changes in the way people access and consume news.

Asked by a shareholder if Disney intended to spin off ABC, Iger said he was comfortable with the current mix of assets but added that the company was always reviewing the longer-term options for all its businesses. More...

Moonves Ready to Play Hard Ball with CBS Affiliates

Broadcasting & Cable

CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves said March 9 that he wouldn't hesitate to yank the network signal from an affiliate if it didn't play ball on sharing retransmission consent fee revenue.

Speaking Tuesday at the Credit Suisse Global Media & Communications Convergence Conference in Palm Beach, Fla., Moonves said CBS did just that in Jacksonville, Fla., four or five years ago when the station said they ought to be paid by CBS.

"We ended the affiliate agreement, and they went from the No. 1 to the No. 5 station," he said. "There are alternatives. I worked hard to make CBS the number one network. The affiliates are sharing the $600 million NFL. I need something back for that." More...

CNN's Klein Insists He Fears Facebook More Than Fox

Business Week

CNN's U.S. president, Jonathan Klein, said he worries more about competition from social- networking sites such as Facebook Inc. than from other cable news networks.

"The competition I'm really afraid of are social- networking sites," Klein said today at a media conference in New York. "That threatens to pull people away from us. The people you're friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information. Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news."

CNN, owned by Time Warner Inc., has lost ground in television ratings. More...

Former Philadelphia Anchor Yet to Rule Out Congress Run

Philadelphia Daily News

If Dawn Stensland wants to run for Congress in Delaware County, she'll have to do it as a third-party or independent candidate.

The former Fox 29 anchor didn't file nominating petitions in Harrisburg by yesterday's deadline to get on the Republican primary ballot. But Stensland, wife of former CBS 3 anchor Larry Mendte, isn't ruling out running in November, according to sources close to the former Fox anchor.

Stensland, 45, who lives in Chestnut Hill, in U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah's district, would be considered a long shot for the open seat in the 7th District, which covers most of Delaware County and parts of Montgomery and Chester counties. More...

While Hunting Pythons, TV Crew Attacked by Killer Bees

KPIX

A news crew with the CBS station WFOR-TV in Miami was reporting on an invasion of non-native species of snakes when it got into trouble with another non-native species: a swarm of African killer bees.

Working with a snake hunter, a WFOR-TV reporter and photographer ran into a hive before being chased about a half-mile down the road. If that wasn't bad enough, the reporter lost his wedding ring in the commotion that surrounded the bee attack.

The team was hunting a half-dozen invasive snake species that have established a foothold in South Florida and devastated the populations of some of its native wildlife, WFOR-TV reports. More...

Jacksonville Anchor Goes Into Labor After Newscast

First Coast News

"Good Morning Jacksonville" anchor Joy Purdy is a mom.

Alexandra Isabelle, or Baby Alex as Joy called her in a note to the GMJ staff, arrived Tuesday at 5:12 p.m.

Alexandra weighed in at 4 lbs., 12 oz., and is 16 1/2 inches long.

Joy said she finally got some sleep around 4 a.m. when Alex took a nap. Joy's husband took advantage of the quiet time too, getting some sleep on the couch. More...

Comcast Absent From Retransmission Campaign

The New York Times

Many of the country's biggest television providers have signed on to a petition asking the government to revamp station retransmission rules. Cablevision, Charter, DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and Verizon all joined the coalition of providers and nonprofit groups in signing the petition on Tuesday.

But the nation's biggest cable company, Comcast, was missing. Comcast finds itself in a peculiar position because it is buying a majority stake in NBC Universal, which owns the NBC broadcast network. "Comcast is conspicuously absent" from the calls for changes "because it expects to be a big beneficiary of retransmission consent before long," Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the Media Access Project said in an e-mail message. More...

Cop Fired for Not Reporting Journalist's Drunk Driving

The Aspen Times

Valerie McFarlane's employment as an Aspen police officer ended last month after she failed to file charges against an Aspen newspaper editor for allegedly drinking and driving, officials said.

Instead, McFarlane, who was on work-related probation at the time, gave Aspen Daily News Editor Troy Hooper a ride to a residence on the outskirts of downtown during the early morning hours of Feb. 19.

Prior to the encounter with McFarlane, Hooper, who covers cops and courts for the Daily News, had written two articles related to McFarlane's September suspension. More...

What News People Can Learn From Movies

One of the movies nominated for numerous Academy Awards last week was George Clooney's "Up in the Air." It was a huge success at the box office for adult audiences. Critics say one of the reasons for it's success was that it dealt with current reality; a down economy with thousands of people fired, laid off, out of work. People could relate to the topic because they "felt it." Most everyone is affected somehow by the country's current economic condition.

Throughout the movie, audiences hear from real people who have lost their jobs. "Up In the Air" Writer-Director Jason Reitman says he sought out these people because they added realism in today's workplace to the film. Reitman says, "The greatest way to achieve authenticity is to use the real people who are everywhere right now."

Finding real people is what we talk about daily in story meetings in every newsroom across the country. Find someone to center the story around. Viewers enjoy watching stories about people. Viewers can identify with ordinary people and their experiences.

Many movies are about interesting people
The HBO series "Band of Brothers" was about WWII, but the storyline focused around Major Dick Winters and the soldiers he commanded and how they had to rely on each other to stay alive.

The movie "Pearl Harbor" was about the Japanese attack on Hawaii, but the story line was focused around the love triangle of characters played by Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsdale.

Want to get a female to watch the movie "Titanic"? Don't tell her it's a movie about a ship sinking, tell her it's a movie that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and his love affair with Kate Winslet.

Was "The Sopranos" about the mob, or was it a story about Tony Soprano and his family?

People like watching stories about other people. The movie makers figured this out a long time ago. Same thing in news. It's all about people. It's essential that you find interesting people upon which to focus your stories. This must be discussed each day in your editorial meetings.

Real people in new stories
Want your viewers to be interested in your story about education budget cuts? Find a family whose child loves to play the trumpet, but the school is cutting out band classes.

Want viewers to watch your story about efforts to raise the minimum wage? Find someone who cleans hotel rooms in the morning and works at a fast food restaurant in the evenings to make ends meet.

How about a story on the mayor's decision to cut the street repair budget which means fewer potholes will get filled? Find someone who has to drive on them all day long (taxi driver, delivery person, police officer, etc.) or someone who spends all day repairing the potholes.

Make the extra effort
It's much easier not to find "common people." It's easy to interview officials, do a standup, shoot some cover, and come back to the station.

Finding real people takes more time, but it's worth the effort.

Doug Drew is a morning news specialist with 602 Communications. He can be reached at ddrew@602communications.com

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