Most of us strive for perfection. Some of us do it too hard, and it can affect our well-being.
Then…
and now.
On the other hand, there are people who just don’t know any better, or worse, don’t care.
I don’t watch TV nearly as much as I used to, especially newer shows, shows not on network TV, etc. One day, I’ll be asking you for advice on being a cord-cutter.
(Unless any of you in the Philadelphia area are experts on watching by streaming over the internet. But how do you get the internet without Comcast in a high-rise when Comcast is the only option?)
CBS
Anyway, I was writing a blog when Sheldon and Amy got married on The Big Bang Theory but watched it on demand over the weekend.
“Leonard is getting emotional helping his buddy get ready. Leonard is happy for Sheldon and that he will be officially and legally Amy’s problem. Ahh. Sheldon adds that he will always be Leonard’s problem.”
Then, Mary Cooper comes in and asks for a moment with her son, Sheldon.
After that, Sheldon describes to Amy,
“how her comments about imperfection in his bow tie makes him want to add the imperfections of the real world into his string theory calculations. Amy then calls his work super asymmetry and he likes that.”
Obviously, the importance of perfection depends what you’re doing.
None of us will be perfect in life, or in any particular part of it. That’s what makes us human. We can and should strive to improve in areas we particularly need it.
Which is why regular readers know I get angry when I see fellow journalists messing up or unwilling to fix their mistakes — especially former colleagues who know better.
That said, look at the Publix bakery. Publix is a big Florida supermarket and expanded into other southeastern states, where fed-up Floridians went when they became former Floridians.
The Miami Herald reports Publix decided “to censor a high school student’s graduation cake” when a South Carolina mom “said she ordered a Publix cake online for her son, Jacob, 18, last weekend to celebrate his summa cum laude designation. She intended the frosting to read: ‘Congrats Jacob! Summa Cum Laude class of 2018.’”
Wow! Ordering a cake online!
Come to think of it, The Herald reports that was the problem!
Mom had gone out of her way when ordering the cake to make sure everything would go right and Publix would accomplish just a tiny fraction of what her son did – reading, baking and spelling.
But…
“A computerized Publix algorithm that trolls cake inscription requests for naughty words didn’t like the Latin word ‘cum’ — pronounced coom — which means ‘with.’
“The centuries-old phrase translates to ‘with the highest distinction’ or ‘praise.’ So the cake maker followed the computer’s instruction — despite (proud Mom’s) explanation of the Latin phrase in the ‘special instructions’ column of the order form — and instead decorated the cake with ‘Congrats Jacob! Summa — Laude class of 2018.’
“The Latin preposition for ‘with’ was replaced by dashes.”
Instead, she “went on Facebook to tell everyone how embarrassing it was to have to explain to her son and 70-year-old mom the other meaning of that preposition when used as English slang.”
Brilliant Jacob may not be as brilliant as credited, or it may say a lot about his graduating class, if he looked at the actual word by itself and had no idea it may have an alternative meaning.
Last night, Stephen Colbert went off on Publix on “The Late Show” and was able to present “another graduation treat made for Jacob — cupcakes with the offending (to Publix) word as decorative frosting,” as The Herald put it.
Blame CBS, not me, if you see a commercial.
I’ll bet he didn’t have to travel to Times Square — a few blocks south of the Ed Sullivan Theater — to have them made, either.
According to The Post, Mom called Publix and the assistant manager offered to remake the cake.
“No,” the paper reported she said. “You only graduate once.”
But she may have ended up smiling financially.
Publix refunded $70 for the cake and gave her a store gift card.
Just don’t try it with Publix, yourself.
The Post wrote it “replicated her experience and got the same result.”
The Washington Post
So the tie Sheldon wore at his wedding in The Big Bang Theory may not have been tied perfectly. That’s not a big deal in the scheme of things. Besides, by the time anyone important (besides Mark Hamill) would see him close-up, there would’ve been plenty of time and movement for the perfect tie to become imperfect. So he gets away with it while dressed better than most of the guys on the show, most of the time, anyway. (And it would probably have been corrected for pictures.)
But as Jacob’s mom said, “You only graduate once,” and she said she explained the situation to the Publix assistant manager because she didn’t want this to happen to anyone else in the future.
Unfortunately,
“as The Washington Post test revealed, that particular ‘c’ word remains profane by Publix standards.”
So nothing was learned. Try putting it on your next license plate instead.
P.S. I have another reward for reading all the way!
In an exclusive, unaired clip from The Big Bang Theory Season 11 finale, the happy couple gets one last wedding present from the late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
Hawking died in March. I thought I wrote about him then, but apparently hadn’t. Instead, I’ll give you these two articles on how the scientist was so misguided on at least one topic.
And from the same day:
Stephen Hawking reaffirms support of Israel boycott: Hawking sends letter to President’s Conference organizers saying he faced pressure to withdraw from Palestinian academics (Jerusalem Post, May 8, 2013)
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P.S. Just wanted to make sure no connection between words in Summa Cum Laude and The Big Bang Theory was implied.
There’s never a good time to write a story like this. We know there has been a school shooting in Texas, apparently between Houston and Galveston, and at least eight people have been killed. It’s a tragedy. We can blame security, gun laws, the National Rifle Association, and so on.
WPVI
That’s not my point right now. We will be learning details in the next few hours and days.
A short time ago, I happened to be up and reading, with the TV on, so I heard what happened.
Of course, I hope I’m in the minority. It’s a Friday in mid-May. Most people were probably at work and school, and concentrating on what they were doing.
What do people do for information these days? They usually go to the internet.
Let’s see what people found on a local news website in the Philadelphia area.
As usual, WTXF-Fox 29 did nothing but take a story from their sister-station. Notice how KRIV-Channel 26 wrote their headline for their own audience. Imagine what people here thought. There’s also a Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Fla.
Heck, imagine what people in Santa Fe, N.M., thought, for that matter!
But nothing seems to get through to these people to become a valuable information source.
If the stations don’t respond to viewer complaints, maybe the Federal Communications Commission will. Click here for its Consumer Complaint Center. (The FCC admits its “authority to respond to these complaints is narrow in scope.”)
For the record, 6ABC had an original story. NBC 10 and CBS3 both had stories from their networks. All three of their stories had the word Texas in their headlines to avoid reader misunderstandings. People at those stations did more than simply click a button to accept a shared story. So apparently three stations’ websites care about avoiding reader misunderstandings and one does not.
Pitiful.
But don’t expect anything different from Fox 29. I don’t think they’re going to change. These are my reasons.
Just three days ago, I posted the exact situation with taking a story and using the same, confusing headline online.
Obviously the message didn’t sink in. They have no shame.
By the way, to make matters worse, they miscategorized it in their “Local News” section!
Let’s go to today. The story is exactly the same sidebar the Texas audience is reading. But of course for them, it’s local news that’s much more likely to involve someone they know in some way. They are expected to feel differently, so the story and placement should reflect that.
Do you see the section title, Local News? Very misleading. No students in our area are able to talk about the subject. They weren’t there!
By the way, was the man crossing Roosevelt Boulevard or the car?
And for those of you who feel any sympathy for the folks at 4th and Market — don’t.
You saw me discuss this stuff recently. I also mentioned this type of stuff when I worked there. I was told on several occasions to stop writing because another station was going to be taking care of it, even though I was faster and usually done or close to it. That was usually a national story with information from the Associated Press forced on the Washington DC station, WTTG-Channel 5, simply due to its location.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GUY? I did, a whole lot. In fact, more than a dozen *identical* articles on him that needed major improvement! Let's go behind the scenes… https://t.co/o0pQgnw9Yopic.twitter.com/UFXIezfT1h
Maybe Steve Chung will shake up the irresponsibility in Philadelphia and protect the folks in DC from their extra responsibilities, just because of where they are.
It’s now almost 2pm. I’ve dotted my Is and crossed my Ts. Yet WTXF-Fox 29’s main headline is the same (but the picture is different) and the sidebar is STILL in the Local News section. Does any manager at the station actually look at the website? Isn’t that part of managing? Looks like we’ll leave who does what and who doesn’t to Steve Chung and then perhaps lawyers.
They can’t be equal, much less better, as long as this is true.
Oh, my favorite line of today’s story? The one on the bottom of this Fox 29 article. Look for it in the red box.
— March For Our Lives (@AMarch4OurLives) May 18, 2018
Not a single one of you should know me. Or any of my friends. But you do because we come from one of the hot school shootings of the month. Now we have another. Another community attacked that will only be further attacked by the NRA. Welcome to America, folks. This happens here.
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I don’t know about you but yesterday, I couldn’t stop “hearing” about what the people who listened to a certain audio file heard. Most insisted it was one thing: just not the same thing.
That became the Yanny-Laurel debate. What you think you heard became the side you were on. Sometimes listeners even switched teams. They’ve even been known to switch back.
Many of you compared the whole thing to one of those “Is the dress blue or gold?” things from back in 2015. You may remember, a Tumblr user named “swiked” uploaded an image of a dress, which caused a lot of debate about its color.
Is it blue and black, or white and gold?
swiked.tumblr.com
If you’re like me, you don’t particularly care, although I’d go with blue and black, and wonder about anyone who thought differently.
Part of the reason is that I saw the dress. I hadn’t turned away. I didn’t put in any effort.
As for the sound, I heard the story on TV but wasn’t paying complete attention. I would’ve had to prepare myself to go (slightly) out of my way to listen, and I didn’t. Not even now, while I’m writing against the clock. Maybe later, after this is published. No promises.
If you know me, you wouldn’t be surprised the whole sound thing reminded me of something very different than the dress.
The dress involves seeing. This, like laurel or yanny, is about listening.
Twitter
It’s that great controversy over what Cecily Tynan said when her microphone was supposedly off. (It never is and never assume otherwise.)
For those of you not from the Philadelphia area, WPVI-Channel 6 has been one of the highest rated TV stations in America for about the last 40 years, give or take a few. Their newscasts may still have more of a share of its market than any other station in the country, as well. (But not the number of viewers since the New York market – covering people in the city, halfway up to Albany, half of New Jersey and all of Long Island – is so much bigger.)
But 6ABC, as it’s branded now, earned everything by being stable yet moving ahead with the times, even when I thought it was impossible, like getting rid of the actual weather map on the wall that was written on, rather than computer-generated.
You’d recognize a newscast from 30 years ago and some of the people on it. They make great hires and don’t change like the season, like so many other stations. People have watched for generations and consider the ones they see on-air family. I’ve never seen anything like it.
(And in 1997, I just wish their assistant news director had called me back sooner than someone across the street at the NBC station. By the time she did, she got a recording from the phone company with my new number, and left me a message saying she recognized the area code which meant I had gone to the competition. I don’t think 6ABC ever hires anyone who has worked at the competition.)
Anyway, on Oct. 29, 2012, during coverage of Superstorm Sandy, Cecily was giving a special weather report while “World News Tonight” (or was it just plain “World News” back then?) would’ve normally aired. It was an important story so Action News had team coverage on the weather. Cecily tossed to her colleague, Adam Joseph, probably for details on a specific aspect of the storm. (I wasn’t in town then, but we can watch.)
It seems he hadn’t turned his microphone on. It can happen, especially during special coverage. Maybe there was no rundown to go by and they were flying by the seat of their pants. Sometimes, the audio operator in the control room would err. In this case, it was probably Adam’s fault, although there was apparently no mic check done to make sure it was working, even at a low level – and also remind him to turn it on if necessary.
Then, you’d think the audio operator would’ve shut off Cecily’s mic but probably made the split-second decision not to, instead, because Adam was speaking but not being picked up.
I think, in a tense moment during special coverage, Cecily did call him a name for making a technical mistake. Things slip out. No big deal among family and friends, unless it goes out over the airwaves.
“6ABC meteorologist Cecily Tynan could clearly be heard saying ‘Moron,’ after tossing to fellow meteorologist Adam Joseph who began speaking while his microphone was off.”
After his hit, according to the paper, Adam went on Twitter to deny Cecily used the word “moron” but “moments later” he “tweeted what seemed like a confirmation of the comment.”
It’s in the article, along with a caricature of the two engaged in rough sport (boxing). Great stuff!
And yes, there is now a promo with the two of them competing at things, just as a brother and sister would.
Finally, the paper described how news anchor since the 1970s, Jim Gardner, handled the situation just before 7pm. Jim is usually a hard news guy but not every second of every day, since he “made the matter more bizarre with a somewhat rambling explanation that Tynan had not insulted Joseph.”
“‘Maybe I shouldn’t even acknowledge this but the folks who thought that Cecily called Adam an untoward name when Adam was having trouble with his microphone, that’s not at all true,’ Gardner stated.”
You’ll have to go back and watch, or read it, to do it justice.
Ain’t it great to be able to get away with that stuff?
“One of Gardner’s legendary gags is to wait for longtime weatherman Dave Roberts (retired, father of actor David Boreanaz -Lenny) to begin his report. As Roberts says ‘We’re bracing for strong wind gusts today,’ Gardner passes gas. Loudly. Roberts and the crew start to laugh, then keep laughing until the camera returns to Gardner, red-faced and giddy, practically in tears.”
Can’t beat that!
OK, maybe that same article estimating his paycheck back then “at near $2.5 million” (that was exactly 12 years and 2 days ago) or perhaps more importantly, earning my respect for writing half his newscasts by himself rather than eating, playing, or other things anchors have been known to do.
Maybe that’s why I don’t think he’s seen a moment before 6pm, not even for promotions. Besides, Jim Gardner hardly needs promos. The people have been programmed for decades.
So I didn’t listen to laurel or yanny. I listened to Cecily, Adam, and – of course – Jim.
For me, that was the right call.
Speaking of calling and writing: Jim, if you ever need a hand on the job…
And happy birthday!
And for those of you in Miami…
(Disclosure: Ducis and I worked together in Miami so long ago, few if any of today’s interns had even been born back then!)
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First, happy Mother’s Day to everyone to whom that applies. I hope you’re having a great day!
You’ll have to excuse them. Casey and Frisky are still learning their colors.
Second, today is also the celebration of Yom Yerushalayim, or Jerusalem Day. It’s the Hebrew anniversary of when the Israelis recaptured the eastern/holy part of the city in the Six-Day War of 1967. It’s where no Arab country’s leader had visited except Jordan’s King Hussein, who’d “occupied” it 19 years earlier in 1948.
But then it suddenly became so important to them.
There is lots and lots to say about President Trump, but this post isn’t about him. Still, he is making the embassy move from Tel Aviv happen and no other American president has done so, despite being able. So thank you, President Trump.
Shapiro, who is much more liberal, described the situation with a question:
“Why hasn’t the US ever recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Some people date it to the controversy that arose in 1967, when Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the Six-Day War and unified the city, describing it as a US protest against the Israeli ‘occupation’ of East Jerusalem. That’s wrong.
“The truth is that US policy on Jerusalem derives from events 20 years earlier, when the United Nations passed the Partition Plan for Palestine in November 1947.”
The two differ on many things but as my friend Andy, who pointed the article out, published:
“Good to see President Trump’s ambassador positively sharing an article by President Obama’s ambassador. Let’s keep support for Israel bipartisan.”
In the article, Shapiro described a day in the life of a U.S. Ambassador to Israel:
“Jerusalem had always been Israel’s capital, and we have always treated it functionally, if not formally, as such. When I served as the US Ambassador at our embassy in Tel Aviv, nearly every day I would be driven to Jerusalem to conduct affairs of state with the Israeli government at the Prime Minister’s office, the Foreign Ministry, and the Knesset.”
Then, he goes into a brief history of the complicated situation with Jerusalem at the center of it, describes a possible step towards solving an issue that has been delayed too many times over too many decades, and then how the embassy move could help end the century-old conflict. Let’s hope!
Also, Donald Trump’s face is featured on a ceremonial Israeli coin marking the 70th anniversary of the country’s rebirth.
Why does the other side try to claim there’s no Jewish history in Jerusalem? Who are they trying to fool? The answer is gullible haters who don’t want to believe it.
And onto the subject at hand, since I rarely write about myself and even more rarely write about personal subjects rather than professional ones.
Last week, I got a message on Facebook from someone I hadn’t seen in at least 30 years, and probably more like 40.
Technically, I’ve seen him on Facebook. We have several mutual friends, so we’ve seen each other commenting on their posts. (I’m speaking for myself, but can’t imagine the opposite not being true.) We were never really friendly growing up, even though we certainly knew each other.
The message went:
“Hi Lenny, I’m not sure of you remember me, but we grew up together. My memory may be off here, but I feel like I wasn’t always the nicest person to you and I really just want to apologize If I ever did or said anything to make you feel bad. You may not even recall this and maybe it’s more in my head. Anyhow, I just wanted to reach out and say hello. I hope you and your family are doing well. I remember your father very well. … He was always a really nice guy. Again, I know this is very random, but I saw your comment on _____’s post and just to reach out and say hello. Regards, _____”
Wow! Takes guts and a good person to write something like that. Very impressive!
I responded with a quick,
“No worries. I only remember good things. Hope you’re well. Thanks for writing!”
And we connected a few more times.
The truth, as I remember it, is I was not happy growing up in Florida. Early on, I felt most of the people simply couldn’t make it in civilization, like New York.
You know what Frank Sinatra sang:
“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”
It was almost always too hot and humid. I wanted to stay inside and watch TV. I was a loner until high school.
Meanwhile, more people moved in to die. The area got more spread out and there was still traffic everywhere. Just Thursday, a friend posted this picture. It’s not downtown Miami but west of the airport.
The goal was to move to New York, which luckily – thanks to my parents – I didn’t do during college and never took on debt.
And instead of moving to New York, once I had enough career experience, I lived on both sides of it: almost two years in Connecticut and eight years in Philadelphia.
When I visit Florida, which hasn’t happened in more than a year, I feel even more like an outsider because of the language barrier. It’s a right-to-work state. Wages are low. So are taxes, even for people work in much better places and spend just 183 days a year there. On the other hand, insurance rates are sky high because of hurricanes and the water level will soon be, too.
Looking down from the 5th floor of my South Beach condo, at 11th and Alton, after about an hour of rain.
Plus, having the career I had and never letting up, I’ve become more of a homebody in recent years.
The writer, who was nice enough to contact me on Facebook, was not a jerk or bully or anything like that. There were some people like that and always will be, even though the world has changed and adults are supposed to be looking for more signs, these days.
And count on the politically-correct police, out in force, to make sure nobody ever feels bad, ever:
A friend found this article from New Jersey, last week, which you can click here to read and watch parts of the meeting.Chris Christie would’ve never put up with that!
People are going to feel bad. That’s a fact of life. It’s not fair. I suggest you fight for what you believe most and try not to sweat the less important stuff. Forget about it, especially if you’re not sure it actually happened decades ago.
And I thank Facebook for the information above. I would not have had it otherwise.
But if it helps you reconnect with people from your past, parents see pictures of their kids in college, grandparents see pictures of their grandchildren, and lets people celebrate their moms on Mother’s Day, and see the excitement of Israelis thrilled about their capital city being reunited and what’s to come this week, then get on board and sign up.
You don’t have to use every function or app, or even a few – but you’re missing out if you’re too stubborn to say you won’t miss good things if you’re not on Facebook.
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“21st Century Fox today announced a definitive agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media Company to acquire seven television stations for approximately $910 million. The transaction will grow Fox Television Stations’ (FTS) coverage to nearly half of all U.S. households, and its market presence to 19 of the top 20 DMAs, including the addition of key markets that align with Fox’s sports rights.”
You see those same seven TBD stations on the Fox news release.
You also see six of those seven are Fox affiliates, so not much should change for viewers in those cities.
Yet, the Miami/Fort Lauderdale station is a CW affiliate. What will become of it, and also Sunbeam-owned Fox affiliate powerhouse WSVN?
That’s still to be determined.
I’m hearing the possible loss of Fox affiliation is going around the Newsplex (WSVN), but I would hesitate because I don’t think that would be the right decision for anybody: Fox (out to make money) nor the viewers (getting the best public service).
Disclosure: That’s me, circled in red, working at WSVN when the Newsplex debuted in 1994.
The CEO of Fox Television Stations, Jack Abernethy, said,
“This transaction illustrates Fox’s commitment to local broadcasting and we are pleased to add these stations to our existing portfolio. With this acquisition, we will now compete in 19 of the top 20 markets and have a significantly larger presence in the west, which will enhance our already strong platform. This expansion will further enrich our valuable alignments with the NFL, including our new Thursday Night Football rights, MLB and college sports assets. We are also happy to add many talented Tribune employees to our group, some of whom we know well.”
Remember, a much leaner “New Fox” network plans to concentrate more on live events, specifically NFL football.
Several of the stations have NFL football teams in their markets. Others, like San Diego which lost the Chargers, and Sacramento which is near San Francisco, are very close.
The big trophy is Seattle, since the Seahawks are in the NFL, and Fox carries most of its NFC conference away games on Sundays. But now, Fox also has the rights to Thursday Night Football games which feature AFC conference teams just about equally.
Also new today, 21st Century Fox has also entered into new network affiliation agreements with Sinclair and the stations it doesn’t own but still operates.
Plus, Fox will give Sinclair options to acquire two of its stations – Chicago CW-affiliate WPWR for approximately $15 million, since Fox already owns station WFLD – and Austin FOX station KTBC for approximately $160 million, which Fox didn’t sell off years ago when its focus was on the largest markets because KTBC-Channel 7 is the only VHF TV station in Texas’ capital.
Fox actually used to own the Cleveland, Salt Lake City and Denver stations but sold them to a company called Local TV which sold itself to Tribune. So much for Fox actually caring about those communities when it owned those stations, sold them, and now wants them back. I hope the people of Cleveland, Salt Lake City and Denver will challenge Fox’s proposed buy with the FCC.
Of course, where will Fox find that approximately $910 million? I mentioned a much leaner “New Fox” that plans to sell off most of its assets like its studio, cable networks and regional sports networks to Disney – keeping just its network, TV stations, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and FS1/FS2 cable sports channels.
There’s one last new point from the Fox news release:
“Completion of the stations acquisition by 21st Century Fox is anticipated for the second half of this calendar year, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to be coordinated with the closing of Sinclair’s proposed acquisition of Tribune.”
Sinclair had said it expected its merger with Tribune to close in the second quarter of the year.
But companies cannot own stations covering more than 39 percent of U.S. households. Sinclair has used shell corporations with names like Cunningham and Deerfield to control but not technically own more stations than allowed. And the FCC brought back the UHF Discount so the percentage a UHF station (channel 14+) counts towards a company’s ownership cap would only be half for those stations, compared to VHF stations.
That rule started because it used to matter whether a local TV station was VHF or UHF, due to antennas and how old TV sets were not made for the UHF band. But President Trump’s appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai made sure to bring it back weeks before the Sinclair-Tribune merger was announced, and it could not have been possible otherwise, so Pai is under investigation by the FCC’s inspector general.
Ajit Pai (Wikipedia)
Since the merger announcement, there have been many holdups. Most notably is opposition from people who hate Sinclair’s conservative leanings, must-run commentaries on its local stations and its history of forced network preemptions. There are also those who think Sinclair was already too big of a company and adding Tribune to it would make it much larger.
As of now, Sinclair says it owns or operates 193 TV stations, consisting of 614 channels (including digital subchannels) in 89 U.S. markets. Just look at that footprint!
“Pro forma for the Tribune acquisition and related station divestitures, the Company will own, operate and/or provide services to 215 television stations in 102 markets.”
Something tells me that company doesn’t know what to say and brags too much, which makes its opponents angrier.
The Sinclair news release lists all of the stations that will be sold for a merger, and the cities that will have stations as part of the merger.
In fact, I’m not sure Sinclair President/CEO Chris Ripley understands chutzpah, but this is part of his quote:
“After a very robust divestiture process, with strong interest from many parties, we have achieved healthy multiples on the stations being divested. … While we continue to believe that we had a strong and supportable rationale for not having to divest stations, we are happy to announce this significant step forward in our plan to create a leading broadcast platform with local focus and national reach. We expect the combined company to continue to advance industry practices and technology, including the Next Generation Broadcast Platform, and to benefit from significant revenue and expense synergies.”
WSFL was supposed to be spun off and not take part in any Sinclair-Tribune merger, since Fox was supposed to be concentrating on those cities in the NFL’s NFC conference. The Miami Dolphins are in the AFC, and WSFL is a CW affiliate without a news department.
I suggested Fox look at CBS, making money while owning CW affiliates (it owns half of the CW) and also independent stations, while letting outside companies with either stronger reach or good news departments have the CBS affiliations.
I predicted WSFL losing its CW affiliation since CBS owns two stations in the market. There’s the CBS station WFOR-4, and WBFS-33 which became a MyNetworkTV affiliate to please CW partner Tribune, since CBS got the CW in so many other cities back when the WB and UPN combined.
Now, it’ll make perfect sense for CBS to move the CW affiliation to WBFS. Where would that leave WSFL? As a MyNetworkTV affiliate. Is there any problem with that? Absolutely not! Why? Because Fox actually owns MyNetworkTV.
Fox would have a place to air any network programming WSVN preempts, its Fox News would have access to WSVN’s powerful news coverage like it does from any other affiliate, it could say it owns a station in Miami/Fort Lauderdale to give advertisers more scale, and it could program and promote WSFL and its MyNetworkTV shows any way it wants.
That’s how I see the perfect solution.
Of course, nobody is perfect and Fox doesn’t always make the right decisions.
It dropped a good Charlotte affiliate, WCCB-Channel 18, because it wanted to own a station where the NFC Carolina Panthers play. Instead, it bought a nothing station, WJZY-Channel 46, started it from scratch, and took years and a lot of money to build it into anything.
It could do the same thing in Miami and start news at WSFL. That would give viewers another choice for news but be a kick in the face to WSVN and confuse the viewers, since the market is already splintered with popular stations in two languages.
Could Fox buy WSVN? As people in New York’s 6th borough would say, Fugetaboutit! Sunbeam owner Ansin has shown he’ll probably take the station to his grave, with or without any affiliation, so there’s no realistic possibility there.
He lost WSVN’s NBC affiliation in 1989 by refusing to sell that station. It bought WTVJ instead. (Why would Ansin get back into business with NBC in Boston in 1994, rather than Fox, after NBC dropped him in Miami? To make money, of course!)
Just last year, the same think happened with his WHDH in Boston. Ansin refused yet again, saying NBC offered half what WHDH was worth and trying to steal it. So NBC dropped Ansin a second time and started a new station called NBC Boston, now NBC 10, even though it’s not on channel 10 and NBC is really on WJAR-Channel 10 (owned by Sinclair) in nearby Providence, RI!
One last thing: The Fox Television Stations Group website — which hadn’t posted a list of its stations (What else is it for?) despite me calling them out for it here, here, here, here (so far in no particular order, although I may have missed a couple), and my favorite, here — never posted today’s news. But it does show press releases from Feb. 8, 2017 and Nov. 3, 2016.
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We all know somebody has to pay the people who gather and publish the news in any media format. That’s a given, and anyone who has been in the business knows most employees are not paid nearly what they’re worth. That’s a shame and forcing good people out of the business, especially at a time we need the Fourth Estate to be as tough as ever — especially when reporting on news happening in American government and the world.
The people researching, making contacts and conducting interviews on the front lines need to make a living.
So what’s the best solution?
I really don’t know.
If you read what I post, you see I often use multiple sites for information and different viewpoints, but I don’t pay those sites. Instead, I credit them link to them, and hope they benefit when I — and then you — click for more information.
But if these trusted sites use paywalls, there’s no way any of us would pay multiple sites. How many of us could afford to? Big newsrooms, even if they say they can’t, but you and I won’t have the information we need to be responsible citizens.
Newspapers (on paper) make money through both subscriptions and advertising. So do most cable networks and your cable/satellite company.
Unfortunately, today, it looks like news on the web is going the same way.
TV news websites aren’t the best. Maybe some major group could invest in the rights to some top publications and names, to drive our traffic to their own sites so we could be made more aware of important events. It’s too bad many of the companies that owned broadcast and newspaper/magazine assets split up.
This graphic and all above are clip art
The first company that can do so and really publicize specific detailed content on a daily basis (not just that “we’re free and the newspaper isn’t” or “here are the top stories on our site at this hour”) during newscasts could get new readers who’d share the site with non-readers.
“No one except the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and now probably the Washington Post has come up with a digital product that really in any significant way will replace the revenue that is being lost as print newspapers lose both circulation and advertising … It is very difficult to see — with a lack of success in terms of important dollars rising from digital — it’s difficult to see how the print product survives over time.”
According to Axios, “Local media executives have beensaying for months that their biggest competition for subscriptions and eyeballs is large national newspapers.”
That’s bad for Buffett, who was speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, and his company owns more than 30 newspapers.
That’s especially bad for the rest of us because too much of what we see on local news deals with murders, crashes and fires. They’re often visual. But it’s the local papers that often investigate and dig, outside of ratings periods. If they go down, who will take their place?
There are also two updates on Facebook, which has been under fire since Cambridge Analytica “harvested personal data on millions of Facebook users, without their knowledge, for marketing and political purposes.”
The Post quoted from a statement on the firm’s website that it
has been the subject of “numerous unfounded accusations” and “vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.”
I’m not so sure, and to hell with the letter of the law! How about ethics? I know many other people feel the same way.
That’s because The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the situation, reported “The decision to close up shop followed rising legal fees and a loss of clients over the investigation into their work and use of Facebook data.”
So there!
And The Huffington Post also reported,
“The firm also suspended its CEO, Alexander Nix, in March after he was recorded bragging about Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories, influencing more than 200 elections around the world with unethical practices.
“This doesn’t change our commitment and determination to understand exactly what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. We are continuing with our investigation in cooperation with the relevant authorities.”
Advertising isn’t just to sell products to make money, but also selling ideas that can win activists money for lobbying and more advertising — and votes.
Eventually, an appeals process will be established and inevitable discrepancies about what’s considered an “issue ad” will be taken up there. That means the list may evolve over time.
Of course, political ads on TV and the radio are heavily regulated since they’re on the public airwaves. That’s especially true for federal offices. This one is not.
That brings me to an article I tweeted earlier today.
Politico reported since the beginning of the year, Fox News has invited central Florida congressman and gubernatorial primary candidate Ron DeSantis on the air “roughly 100 times” while his opponent in the race – Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam – has not been invited even once. That airtime has been compared to $7.1 million in “national publicity value.”
So much for fair and balanced, and anything close to equal time!
Ron DeSantis and Adam Putnam
Remember, this is a Republican primary and what Politico called, “a seemingly endless series of appearances on a news network favored by conservatives.”
Not just conservatives, but supporters of President Trump, who endorsed DeSantis.
Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER!
The race between Adam Putnam and Ron DeSantis will give a strong clue about Trump's hold over the GOP voting base and show whether a large swing state’s governorship can be successfully nationalized via cable news. https://t.co/4gaALKJrlY # via @HuffPostPol
And, “Since announcing his bid in January, DeSantis has been given frequent access to Fox’s best real estate — including Fox & Friends, Laura Ingraham, and the Hannity show.”
Only Ron DeSantis. No Adam Putnam. Not fair. Not equal.
Here is one more comparison.
Putnam is still the GOP frontrunner and has raised more than $20 million.
DeSantis has raised only $7.8 million between his campaign and political committee, but Fox News is probably why “roughly 40 percent of DeSantis’ contributions have come from non-Florida donors,” even though only Floridians will vote in their state’s gubernatorial primary.
Also,
“Of the nearly $4 million spent by Putnam and his political committee on TV ads, hundreds-of-thousands of dollars have been for time on Fox News programs” but “When those ads started to circulate, some of Fox News’ most prominent hosts gave DeSantis cover and tried to tie the ads to Putnam.”
BTW, Sinclair owns or operates Florida stations in West Palm Beach, Pensacola (with Mobile, AL), Tallahassee (with Thomasville, GA) and Gainesville. See map.
SIDEBAR: This isn’t what I planed to write about but Sinclair’s wanna-be merger victim, Tribune, only owns WSFL-39 in Florida. It has been known as “SFL-TV, South Florida’s CW” in recent years, covering the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. Friday, I reported the station will be spun off and not take part in the Sinclair-Tribune merger, even if it happens. Plus, I showed you the lists of Sinclair and Tribune stations submitted to the FCC document that said so. I stand by everything I wrote and showed.
Notice all the TBDs in the Buyer column. They include WSFL. I explained all the other TBD stations are Fox affiliates, and the ones in NFL football cities will probably be sold to the network itself, which is going to be a lot leaner and stressing live events — especially NFL football — which it will be adding on Thursday nights. That’s if Fox ever comes to an agreement with Sinclair.
WSFL is a CW affiliate without a news department and I dwelled on whether Fox would buy it and dump its Sunbeam-owned powerhouse affiliate WSVN. Again, it’s all here.
The deal was supposed to happen in the second quarter of this year (by June). I just did an internet search and found nothing new from any reliable sources, but I did find something new on the FCC’s website. Yesterday, it published a letter from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s response to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) regarding Sinclair Broadcast’s proposal to acquire Tribune Media. Sen. Durbin and others have been especially concerned about Tribune’s WGN-TV9 in Chicago. The letter was written a few weeks ago but again, just published yesterday.
So I believe nothing has changed, despite seeing a website that appears to be WSFL’s. It’s called SFLTV.com. However, it looks like a generic Florida TV blog, does not look professional, does not have a detailed copyright, news I don’t believe from May 1 and today, and some strange graphics (below). I’m just warning you.
BACK TO THE STORY: Politico also reported, “A Fox News spokeswoman did not return a request seeking comment on why DeSantis is a regular guest or why Putnam has not been on the network this year.”
Another similarity: Ron DeSantis almost in Sinclair Broadcast Group style!
I’m reporting Politico put DeSantis’ name in the first line of its story, while Putnam’s didn’t appear until the tenth paragraph!
And no Democrats’ names appear at all!
Also not mentioned: Two-term Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) will be leaving Tallahassee behind to take on U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL).
Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Bill Nelson
By the way, speaking of equal time, the Federal Communications Commission’s Equal-Time Rule specifies that U.S. radio and television broadcast stations must provide an equivalent opportunity to any opposing political candidates who request it, in news or advertising. It was created in §18 of the Radio Act of 1927 because the FCC was concerned broadcasters could easily manipulate the outcome of elections by presenting just one point of view, and excluding other candidates. (Like Fox News is doing? What lets them do it, in a moment.) The rule was later superseded by the Communications Act of 1934.
“Once a cable system allows a legally qualified candidate for public office to use its facilities, it must afford ‘equal opportunities’ to all other candidates for that office to use its facilities. The cable system may not censor the content of a candidate’s material in any way, and may not discriminate between candidates in practices, regulations, facilities or services rendered while making time available to such candidates. Candidate appearances which are exempt from the ‘equal opportunities’ rules include appearances on a bona fide newscast, bona fide news interview, bona fide news documentary, or during on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news event.”
Bona fide newscast? Bona fide news interview? I just report. You can decide.
If I remember correctly, back in the day, Oprah’s talk show was considered news under this policy; not any others.
That’s different from the Fairness Doctrine (1947-1987) “that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance (not candidates) and to do so in a manner that was—in the FCC’s view—honest, equitable, and balanced.”
One very last thing and it’s the last thing you see on posts: the comments. Did you know I’m constantly updating articles in that section?
It’s not easy to find on the regular generic CohenConnect.com homepage you turn to when you want to see the latest articles (if you don’t subscribe with your email address or WordPress account). WordPress makes you go below the sharing and liking, and below all the categories and tags for the post you just read, and you’ll find a place for comments at the very end, just before the previous article begins.
After an article, WordPress makes you go below the sharing and liking, below the related posts (which it chooses, along with the categories beneath them), below all the categories and tags for the post you just read, below a link to the article before (and after, unless it’s the latest), and that’s where you’ll find any comments.
So keep checking the bottom of an article out if you were really interested, even weeks after publishing, and you know what to do in some rare case you don’t think I’m right!
Besides, who do you trust more, WordPress or Facebook?
Also, please, don’t miss out. If you like what you read here, subscribe to CohenConnect.comwith either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish.
I’ve avoided writing much about Sinclair Broadcast Group trying to buy Tribune Media because I’ve been busy and I don’t want to jinx any possibility the merger will fall through.
But there has been some news, and the biggest for a local TV market could be Miami/Fort Lauderdale (of course!).
Of course, I’m referring to Sinclair Broadcast Group doing everything it can to spread its conservative information campaign to most of the U.S. that the company doesn’t already reach.
But the deal announced in May, 2017, still hasn’t happened.
To follow through, it would need government approval: from the Justice Department for antitrust worries and the FCC to approve ownership limits. (And Sinclair may have already gotten “help” from FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who was selected by President Trump. Pai is now under investigation by his own agency’s inspector general. Keep reading.)
Ajit Pai (Wikipedia)
The $3.9 billion deal would still require a number of stations to be sold. The questions partially responsible for holding things up were how many, and in which cities? About six weeks ago, I explained TV ownership limits are very complicated, with four rules in play: 1. national TV ownership, 2. local TV multiple ownership, 3. the number of independently owned “media voices” – 4. and at least one of the stations is not ranked among the top four stations in the DMA (that’s the “designated market area” or city, and ranking based on audience share), and at least eight independently owned TV stations would remain in the market after the proposed combination.
Plus, there have been literally thousands of complaints from activists who know how important this is. Click here to see 4,497 total FCC filings since July 5, 2017, including 891 in the past 30 days. THANK YOU if your name is on the list! Keep reading for directions on how to say no.
Now, click here to see some of the “33 concurrently filed applications on FCC Form 315 that seek the Commission’s consent to a transaction,” back in July, 2017, and what the companies consider “Public interest benefits of the transaction.” You’ll soon know better if you actually believe there are public interest benefits! You’ll also notice the companies fighting for every last station they could, to grow even larger.
These are the stations currently owned by Sinclair that would be divested only if the merger goes through…
and these are the stations currently owned by Tribune.
So now we know who is expected to own the stations a Sinclair-Tribune combination would not be allowed to keep. Unfortunately, it’s not as clear as the charts above that list call letters and cities.
First, the official licensee could have a different name but we know we’re dealing with stations owned by Sinclair and Tribune.
Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is the most controversial. It calls itself “an independent television broadcast company that, together with its subsidiaries, owns and/or operates 20 television stations in 18 markets across the United States.”
“The Smith family, which includes brothers David, Robert, Frederick, J. Duncan and a flurry of family trusts, is worth a combined $1.2 billion, Forbes estimates, based on the family members’ ownership of stock in publicly traded Sinclair Broadcasting, share sales over the past 15 years, dividends and some private assets,” it read.
“Revenues have increased 281% over the last decade to $2.7 billion in 2017, while Sinclair’s share price has increased 367% over the same period, pushing its market capitalization up to a recent $3 billion. All of this growth has occurred under the control and oversight of David Smith, 67, the chairman and former CEO of the company, as well as the son of the company’s founder Julian Sinclair Smith,” it continued.
Forbes quoted Daniel Kurnos, an analyst at Benchmark Capital, as saying, “Sinclair plays some of the hardest ball of anyone,” from acquiring stations to negotiating advertisement pricing and retransmission fees, which are some of the highest in the business.
SIDEBAR: Wednesday, The TV Answer Man Phillip Swann reported PlayStation Vue removed Sinclair-owned local stations affiliated with Big 4 networks from its streaming lineup without an explanation. Just Tuesday, subscribers got an e-mail that live channels would be replaced May 1 (that day) with an On-Demand version.
Sinclair said it pulled the stations and blamed “Sony (for) failing to comply with certain contractual provisions.” It didn’t elaborate but urged Sony subscribers to consider other video distributor options, including Sony competitor YouTube TV.
Sony hasn’t commented.
The Baltimore Sun reports, “Sony describes PlayStation Vue as a live streaming TV service for up to five devices at once that offers sports, news and other programs along with premium channels and a cloud DVR.”
BACK TO THE STORY: Under David Smith, who wouldn’t comment for the article, Sinclair went from three cities – Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Columbus – to what it is today.
Sinclair today, without Tribune
“To ‘purely make money’ in a scale-oriented business, David bought up as many broadcast stations as possible. First he concentrated on secondary markets, like Memphis, St. Louis and San Antonio, where operation costs were cheaper than in places like New York or Chicago.
“‘I believed that certain things were going to happen in the television industry, the most important being consolidation,’” David told Forbes in 1996.
So much for public service!
But then came the controversial Cunningham, arguably rigging the system.
“In the 1990s, the company pioneered a technique to circumvent an FCC rule limiting ownership of more than one TV station per metro area. David’s mother, Carolyn Smith, started another business, Cunningham Broadcasting. Following Carolyn’s death in 2012, most of the ownership of Cunningham Broadcasting shifted to a family trust, which is included in the overall Smith family valuation.”
So Cunningham really isn’t independent, as its website claims!
“The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is raising questions at the FCC about whether Sinclair Broadcasting is exercising control over a minority-headed TV group with which it has struck a series of local marketing agreements (LMAs).
“In a July 1 filing at the FCC, Rainbow/PUSH said it plans to study whether the LMA deal between Sinclair’s KABB(TV) San Antonio and Glencairn’s KRRT(TV) Kerrville, Tex., violates the commission’s prohibition against common ownership of two local stations. (The rules were more strict then.)
“‘Rainbow/PUSH has not had an opportunity to fully research this matter, and thus preserves here the question of whether Glencaim is the alter ego of Sinclair,’ the group told the FCC.”
“Sinclair Broadcasting exercised illegal control of business partner Glencairn Ltd., the FCC found Monday after three years of investigating the companies’ relationship.
“Each company was fined $40,000 but escaped tougher sanction sought by civil rights groups-a government rejection of Sinclair’s request to buy 14 stations from Sullivan Broadcasting.
“The commission’s three Republicans judged that the companies were liable for misinterpreting FCC policies, but found they did not intentionally mislead the agency about compliance.
“Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps wanted the FCC to pursue a tougher sanction and voted to designate the station sales for hearing in front of an administrative law judge.
“Sinclair has repeatedly ‘stretched the limits’ of FCC ownership rules, he said.”
So we know Cunningham, set to buy Tribune stations in Dallas and Houston, appears to be a shell company, and we can make bets who will operate and control it if the Sinclair-Tribune deal ever comes to fruition.
“Cunningham Broadcasting owns the FCC broadcast licenses and operates through various management agreements with Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. WNUV-TV in Baltimore, Maryland; WTTE-TV in Columbus, Ohio; WMYA-TV in Anderson, South Carolina; WRGT-TV in Dayton, Ohio; WVAH-TV in Charleston, West Virginia; WDBB-TV in Bessemer, Alabama; WBSF-TV in Flint, Michigan; WGTU-TV in Traverse City, Michigan; KBVU-TV in Eureka, California; KCVU-TV in Chico-Redding, California; WEMT-TV in Greeneville, Tennessee; WPFO-TV in Portland, Maine; WYDO-TV in Greenville, North Carolina; and KRNV-TV & KENV-TV in Reno, Nevada.”
Looking at its list of stations — something the Fox Television Stations Group never posted on its own website despite me calling them out for it here, here, here, here (so far in no particular order, although I may have missed a couple), and my favorite, here — you may realize Sinclair recently bought Bonten Media Group (Disclosure: I used to be Digital Media Manager at the former Bonten’s WCYB but left before the sale.) but Cunningham bought the stations Bonten operated. Notice those stations listed on the website have no websites of their own. And I’ll get back to Fox later. I’ll bet they can’t wait!
Another dead giveaway is that Cunningham is based at 2000 W. 41st Street, Baltimore MD 21211 and coincidentally, Sinclair flagship WBFF-45 (Fox affiliate) has the same address!
Deerfield, with apparently no website of its own (so see Wikipedia’s take), is another of the shell companies, formed in 2012 but not involved in the proposed Tribune transaction.
“For years (before 2012), Fox Television Stations’ WUTB Baltimore gave Fox considerable leverage in its sometime contentious affiliation negotiations with Sinclair Broadcast Group.
“If Sinclair ever got out of line, Fox could threaten to yank its affiliation from Sinclair’s flagship station WBFF Baltimore and move it to WUTB.
“But last May, Fox relinquished that leverage when it extended its affiliation with WBFF and 18 other Sinclair stations for five years starting Jan. 1, 2013, and granted Sinclair an option to buy WUTB.
“Sinclair is now exercising that option by assigning it to a third party, Deerfield LLC.
“According to an FCC filing seeking approval of the deal, Deerfield is buying WUTB and allowing Sinclair to run the MNT affiliate through joint sales and shared services agreements.
“The deal gives Sinclair a virtual triopoly in Baltimore where it also operates CW affiliate WNUV, which is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, Sinclair’s longtime duopoly partner that is controlled by trusts for the children of Sinclair’s controlling shareholders.”
But Sinclair and Deerfield were already in cahoots.
“to buy six television stations from Newport Television LLC for $412.5 million and agreed to buy Bay Television Inc. for $40 million. … Sinclair also agreed to sell the license assets of its San Antonio station KMYS and its WSTR station in Cincinnati to Deerfield Media Inc. Sinclair will also assign Deerfield the right to buy the license assets of WPMI and WJTC in the Mobile/Pensacola market, after which Sinclair will provide sales and other non-programming services to each of these four stations under shared services and joint sales agreements.”
“Sinclair Broadcast is getting six stations in five markets for $412.5 million:
— Cincinnati (DMA 35) — WKRC (CBS)
— San Antonio, Texas (DMA 36) — WOAI (NBC)
— Harrisburg-Lancaster (DMA 41) — WHP (CBS)
— Mobile, Ala.-Pensacola, Fla. (DMA 60) — WPMI (NBC) and WJTC (Ind.)
— Wichita, Kan. (DMA 67) — KSAS (Fox)
“Sinclair is also acquiring Newport’s rights to operate third-party duopoly stations in Harrisburg, Pa. (CW affiliate WLYH), and Wichita, Kan. (MNT affiliate KMTW). Those rights include options to buy the stations. …
“While Sinclair was buying, it was also selling.
“It said it would spin off its CW affiliate in San Antonio (KMYS) and its MNT affiliate in Cincinnati (WSTR) to Deerfield Media Inc., presumably to comply with the FCC ownership limits. In the deal, Deerfield also picks up an option to buy two of the stations it is acquiring from Newport, WPMI-WJTC Mobile, Ala.-Pensacola, Fla.
“Sinclair said it intends to ‘provide sales and other non-programming services to each of these four stations pursuant to shared services and joint sales agreements.’
“In yet another deal, Sinclair said it is buying WTTA Tampa-St. Petersburg from Bay Television Inc. for $40 million. Since 1998, Sinclair has operated WTTA pursuant to a local marketing agreement.”
And that was the start of the Deerfield connection!
Even more telling is that Deerfield’s WUTV moved from Channel 24 (24.1) to 45.2, which is a subchannel of Sinclair’s WBFF! The website doesn’t tell why. It just explains to viewers watching over the air with an antenna how to rescan, but the reason is really the FCC’s recent spectrum auction.
BACK TO OUR STORY: So for those of you in Baltimore, do you need to reach the newsroom, are you looking for a job (Would they hire me for my investigative work?), or interested in inspecting the FCC public file of any of the three stations? All the information is the same, from address to phone numbers, and we already established three stations in one city are not allowed!
“its broadcast ownership rules every four years. …
“This is one of the reasons why my company, Howard Stirk Holdings, LLC (HSH), has sued the FCC. As an African American licensee of two television stations, I believe that by refusing to complete its 2010 quadrennial review, the FCC has unlawfully withheld taking an action required by Congress and the law, and thus is arbitrarily and capriciously retaining burdensome regulations that are no longer in the public interest.”
Williams was angry the FCC “adopted a new rule restricting joint sales agreements (JSAs) between television broadcasters in the same market.”
He claimed, “It effectively slams the door shut on an important gateway to enhancing localism, viewpoint diversity, and opportunities in broadcast television ownership by minorities and underrepresented groups.”
But there’s more.
“Armstrong Williams talked about the impact of a March 31, 2014, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling that television station owners cannot control more than one station in the same local market via the use of joint sales agreements and shared services agreements, often known as “sidecar” deals. Mr. Armstrong, who owns two TV stations through a sidecar agreement with Sinclair Broadcasting, argued that the ruling could cause minority owners, and small station owners more generally, to be forced out of existence.”
“The FCC, backed by the Obama administration Justice Department, argues that broadcasters have used the shared-service, or “sidecar,” arrangements to circumvent long-standing rules against owning multiple television stations in a single market, allowing them to raise ad prices and weaken market competition.”
Williams and his supporters suggest a more partisan motive: his conservative views.
In fact, it seems every article in HSH’s News section mentions Sinclair or those joint sales agreements designed to get by without abiding by the FCC’s ownership rules!
In other words, he was a great partner for Sinclair since he’s a minority (but without the views of most other minorities) and they’re both making money by using each other!
Howard Stirk Holdings’ website’s Content Creation page calls it “a leading broadcast television company” but have you heard of it before starting this article? The page doesn’t say how many TV stations it owns or operates on its own. Even the page to search job openings offers no links (except the top navigation which doesn’t say much), and that includes its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Then I went to Wikipedia and read Williams helped Sinclair buy Barrington Broadcasting in late 2013, so he got stations in Flint, MI, and Myrtle Beach, SC, but they remain operated by Sinclair. They’re actually his only stations run by Sinclair and remember, at the time, his company was accused of “acting as a ‘sidecar’ of Sinclair to skirt FCC ownership rules.”
But that was then.
A year later, he actually, really bought three stations from Sinclair: one in Charleston and two in Alabama.
“Howard Stirk Holdings, run by Armstrong Williams, has agreed to acquire WCIV Charleston for $50,000. Sinclair picked up WCIV, an ABC affiliate, when it acquired Allbritton. While Howard Stirk is acquiring the license, among other assets, it and Sinclair will share some aspects related to the station, and Sinclair will provide services.
“‘We’ll continue some of the wonderful business relationships we have with them,’ said Armstrong Williams, principal at Howard Stirk Holdings.”
WCIV’s services came up because of a tangled web of local marketing agreements. There were ownership conflicts over licenses and other assets of three stations.
Sinclair owned MyNetworkTV affiliate WMMP-36 for years. Then, in 2001, it bought and spun off Fox affiliate WTAT-24 to Glencairn (to become Cunningham) and crafted a local marketing agreement between the two stations. That got Sinclair fined Sinclair $40,000 for illegally controlling a duopoly.
But in 2013, Allbritton sold its entire television group, including ABC affiliate WCIV-4, to Sinclair, which intended to sell WMMP’s license but still control it. Thus, three stations!
Unfortunately for Sinclair, WMMP had that local marketing agreement with WTAT. So Sinclair decided to cut ties from WTAT, keep the more established WCIV and sell WMMP.
But Sinclair told the FCC it couldn’t find a buyer for WMMP, so it would shut down WCIV and keep WMMP because its facilities were better — but move WCIV’s affiliation and all its programming to WMMP. Then, WMMP’s programming including MyNetworkTV would move to a subchannel.
Instead, Sinclair filed to have WCIV’s license sold to HSH to avoid shutting it down. Thus, the low price of $50,000. Then, the two stations swapped licenses, Sinclair let Williams’ WCIV share studio space at WMMP’s facilities and Williams explained he hoped to “continue some of the wonderful business relationships we have with [Sinclair]” through the deal — but operated independently from Sinclair.
“Howard Stirk Holdings has agreed to acquire KVMY, the Las Vegas MyNetworkTV affiliate, for $150,000. Armstrong Williams is the principal at Howard Stirk, which is closely aligned with Sinclair. The price reflects $25,000 for the equity assets, including the FCC license, and $125,000 for the transmission assets.
“According to the following, Howard Stirk ‘acknowledges that it is not buying the Business of KVMY-TV as a going concern.’” (There was a call letter and affiliation change, but Howard Stirk Holdings runs several digital subchannel networks on the signal.)
“In September, Sinclair agreed to acquire NBC affiliate KSNV Las Vegas for $120 million. It also owns CW outlet KVCW.
“Last year, Howard Stirk Holdings acquired the license and other assets to WCIV Charleston from Sinclair for $50,000.”
So they’ve been in business several times, and it may not be over.
Some more about Williams: In 2004, the Bush administration paid him $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law on his nationally syndicated TV show and urge other black journalists to do the same. USA Today reported the campaign was part of an effort to build support among black families and Williams was “to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts” and interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show. Williams said he understood critics could find the arrangement unethical, but “I wanted to do it because it’s something I believe in.”
Two years ago, The Washington Post reported Williams settled a sexual harassment and retaliation suit filed by a former salesman at a DC Jos. A. Bank. Court records reportedly showed the complaint alleged Williams had sought sexual favors after befriending and mentoring the other man. That man did get jobs at the Washington Times and then at a Howard Stirk Holdings TV station, but he lost that job.
It wasn’t Williams’ first such situation.
In 1997, Williams’ former personal trainer-turned-producer sued him, contending he “repeatedly kissed and fondled him for almost two years,” before being fired. Williams claimed he was fired for incompetence. That case was also settled.
Bottom line: As of now, Howard Stirk Holdings owns seven stations. Two are in the same Anniston-Tuscaloosa-Birmingham, Ala., market, and Williams’ first two are still run by Sinclair. Now, after other purchases, he’s expecting to buy three more if the Sinclair-Tribune merger happens.
Then there’s Standard Media Group.I hadn’t heard of them either. Its website says Standard General was founded in 2007 and is pretty much an investment advisor, but getting into the broadcasting business. We’ll see how long that lasts. Investment firms are more likely to sell than others with broadcasting in their blood, especially ones who invest in their communities.
Now, if the deal goes through, it’ll fulfill its “goal of swiftly building a substantial broadcast television group with a strong and diverse voice” that includes four state capitals.
The stations are Fox affiliates except where noted: Oklahoma City, Grand Rapids, York PA, Greensboro NC (ABC), Richmond, Sinclair’s role in a Wilkes Barre Fox-CW-MyNetworkTV triopoly, and Des Moines.
You may have noticed Meredith Corp. on the list of buyers. TVSpy noted Meredith “has signed a deal to acquire KPLR (CW) from Tribune for $65 million, pairing it with KMOV (CBS) which Meredith has owned since 2013. … Sinclair already owns KDNL (ABC) and will also own KTVI (FOX) in the market.” Great for owners’ synergies. Bad for the number of independent voices in such a big city. Which do you care more about?
Of the other big city stations, Tribune’s legendary WGN-TV9 is supposed to go to WGN TV LLC but that’s really code for Steven Fader, a Maryland auto dealer and business associate to Sinclair chairman David Smith, for a mere $60 million. Sinclair would also have an option to buy WGN-TV outright within eight years and you know it’s counting on the FCC to relax its ownership rules even more within that time frame!
Sinclair Broadcast Group, which for months has denied any interest in challenging Fox News while awaiting approval of a merger with Tribune Co., is gearing up to do just that https://t.co/HF2hpT7j05pic.twitter.com/kCE7iUCa4J
“Sinclair Broadcast Group, which for months has denied any interest in challenging Fox News while awaiting approval of a merger with Tribune Co., is gearing up to do just that.”
“Even though Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley has said a 24-hour national news network is not in the works, his boss (David) Smith seems to like the idea of a few hours of prime time opinion programming to challenge Fox News.”
Fox News is carried in more than 90 million homes, compared to 80 million for WGN America which Sinclair would own if regulators approve, and 55 million for the Tennis Channel which Sinclair already owns.
If your cable or satellite company doesn’t offer either of those last two, then expect it to get a call when any deal with Sinclair is about to expire.
Politico quotes “a person familiar” saying “Smith has been holding meetings with potential future employees, including former Fox News staff members, and laying out a vision for an evening block of opinion and news programming that would compete with Fox’s top-rated lineup.”
So, the discussions are over “a block of at least three hours, but also potentially up to six. Smith is settled, though, on basing his new operation in Washington, D.C.” That’s because the company already owns local station WJLA-7, where it produces some of its national content.
Wikipedia
One apparent Sinclair target is former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, who left the network in Sept., 2016, and then had a short stint at MSNBC before signing on with Voice of America. Van Susteren wrote in an email she has spoken with Smith.
“If the Sinclair deal happens, I might talk to him further. … but it would have to be something that would not take me from VOA,” Van Susteren said.
“Other potential hires are former Fox anchor Eric Bolling and reporter James Rosen,” who both left Fox under sexual harassment allegations. Neither admitted whether they met with Smith or other Sinclair executives.
Eric Bolling, via Twitter
James Rosen, via Twitter
Bill O’Reilly, via FoxNews.com
Talks with former Fox host Bill O’Reilly reportedly fell apart.
The slant of a national news block hasn’t been decided. We know where Sinclair stands, politically, but TVNewser notes, “There are already national challengers from the right, including Newsmax TV and OAN.”
And in the nation’s largest market, Tribune’s WPIX-11 is now off the market. It was supposed to go to Cunningham for a mere $15 million. That’s pennies on the dollar, and it would’ve been run by Sinclair. Now, it’ll just go to Sinclair so it’s not on the list.
But what about those TBDs (to be determined)? They are all owned by Tribune: the Fox affiliates in San Diego, Seattle/Tacoma, Cleveland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Denver, and the CW affiliate in Miami/Fort Lauderdale.
And you may have noticed Rupert Murdoch’s Fox conglomerate was not listed as one of the buyers, but that’s sure to change.
Jessell of TVNewsCheck was more direct, saying all Sinclair
“has to do now is wrap up its negotiations with Fox. I don’t know what’s delaying that deal, except that neither Fox nor Sinclair is famous for making concessions. Once Sinclair does that, it can finalize its application and the FCC can complete it long-stalled review.”
Those greedy bastards are going to end up screwing everything up for themselves (which I’d love to see happen), and you’ve only read about half of the plans, so far!
First, Fox actually used to own the Cleveland, Salt Lake City and Denver stations but sold them to a company called Local TV which sold itself to Tribune. So much for Fox — selling stations and then buying them back later — caring about communities. IMHO, that company can’t make a case for a second chance at ownership.
But now, 21st Century Fox plans to sell off most of its assets like its studio, cable networks and regional sports networks to Disney – keeping just its Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, its FS1/FS2 cable sports channels, adding to its TV stations, and its network, which will focus on live events, especially NFL Football. The new, smaller company is being referred to as New Fox.
That’s the reason Fox has tried to own stations in cities that have NFC conference football teams since it got the rights to most of their away games in 1994 – and even trade or sell other stations for them – despite the fact a regular season of 16 games could mean the home audience would see its team play about 12 games a year on its local Fox station, unless the team makes the playoffs.
Fox even got its hands on Cox’s KTVU in San Francisco (with an NFC team, the 49ers, and the AFC Oakland Raiders across the bay will now be moving to Las Vegas in 2020) and give Cox its own stations in Boston (the New England Patriots are AFC) and Memphis (no NFL team).
What has changed is Fox bought the rights to Thursday Night Football, which should split games between NFC and AFC teams. That means Fox has become more interested in AFC team cities, even though there’s no pattern as to which teams play on Thursdays.
Football teams have moved, but the cities Fox wants are Seattle (especially because it’s NFC), and Cleveland, Denver and Miami (because they have AFC teams). San Diego and St. Louis no longer have teams, so Fox isn’t interested in Tribune’s Fox affiliates in those cities.
Seattle, Cleveland and Denver should be easy. The stations are already Fox affiliates so prime-time programming and the amount of news shouldn’t change. And Fox has leverage because it can threaten to take away its affiliation from those stations, lowering their value, if they’re sold to another company.
Remember what Fox did in Charlotte? It dropped a good affiliate, WCCB-Channel 18, because it wanted to own a station where the NFC Carolina Panthers play. Instead, it bought a nothing station, WJZY-Channel 46, and started it from scratch. And it had to do that a second time when it tried to be too different and less traditional the first time! (And, for disclosure: It got a great new news director who is a former colleague.) Remember, Charlotte pretty much sits on the North Carolina-South Carolina line. Old timers are pretty traditional. Was the move worth it for Fox?
Miami is a different story. Fox has a very good affiliate, WSVN-7, owned by Ed Ansin’s Sunbeam Television. (Disclosure: I got my start in journalism there.) It gives Fox great coverage of breaking news in South Florida. Several people at Fox News Channel used to work there. The ratings are great. So what’s the problem?
The Miami Dolphins play there, and as an AFC team, they show up on Fox on a few Sundays and may now also be seen on Fox on Thursdays.
But the station that’s available is Tribune’s WSFL-39, a CW affiliate without a news department despite a few morning attempts. WSVN owner Ansin has shown he’ll probably take the station to his grave, with or without any affiliation, so there’s no realistic possibility there.
Should Fox dump WSVN and start from scratch with WSFL? Would it be worth the effort?
Unlike Charlotte, WSVN is a #1 station. And Miami is a very different place. There’s big news regularly and the two main Spanish stations do better than most of the English! People who aren’t bilingual can’t watch all the available stations, which really limits its size, making it actually smaller than the 16th largest market. We’ll have to see who wants WSFL, since a Sinclair-Tribune merger can’t include it due to FCC ownership rules.
One thing I’d say for sure is that WSFL loses its CW affiliation because CBS and Warner Brothers (Time Warner) own the network, and CBS doesn’t only own WFOR-4 (CBS station) and but also WBFS-33 (MyNetworkTV affiliate) and the CW does better.
Staying with this possibility, WSFL could become the new MyNetworkTV affiliate, and MyNetworkTV is owned by Fox.
It’s not so unusual for a network to own stations but not air the network on them.
Let’s take CBS, for example. It owns independents in New York (WLNY-55) and Los Angeles (KCAL-9). In Dallas, WTXA-21 is also independent.
In Miami, WBFS ended up with MyNetworkTV to please Tribune since CBS got the CW in so many other cities when the WB and UPN combined. It’s similar in Boston where WSBK-38 airs MyNetworkTV, but that’s expected to change since Sunbeam’s WLVI-56, which used to be owned by Tribune, airs the CW.
Single CBS-owned stations in Atlanta, Seattle and Tampa air the CW while affiliates owned by other companies air CBS programming.
And in Indianapolis, CBS’ WBXI-47 airs Decades, while the actual CBS affiliation changed from one outside company to another. CBS dumped a strong WISH-8 and went to half of Tribune’s duopoly, independent WTTV-4, over a disagreement with the former Media General.
A last possibility if Fox is determined to buy a Miami station is ABC affiliate WPLG-10. That station, stable under Post-Newsweek (now Graham Media) for decades, was sold to Berkshire Hathaway as its only broadcast property. We’ve talked about synergies (BH, as an “only child,” has none) and know Warren Buffett wants to turn a profit, so we can imagine Fox dumping WSVN for WPLG, but can’t assume ABC will take its affiliation to WSVN. Remember how CBS didn’t do that in 1989? But that’s highly unlikely.
Deadline noted, “For decades, the maximum reach by one single owner has been 39 percent, but the Federal Communications Commission has been re-evaluating the cap.”
More specifically, rather than gutting rules like a good conservative would ordinarily do, the FCC under Pai brought the UHF discount is back. That rule started because it used to matter whether a local TV station was VHF or UHF, due to antennas and how old TV sets were not made for the UHF band. So the FCC decided the amount towards a company’s ownership cap should only be half for those stations, compared to VHF stations. It was ended because today’s technology means it doesn’t matter anymore.
Regarding the UHF discount’s revival, The New York Times wrote, “A few weeks later, Sinclair Broadcasting announced a blockbuster $3.9 billion deal to buy Tribune Media — a deal those new rules made possible.” (Oh, and led to Pai’s investigation. But luckily, Harry Jessell of TVNewsCheckwrote critics of station consolidation say it “now serves only to allow groups to circumvent the intent of Congress, which was to limit groups to 39%” and they’ve “challenged the perpetuation of the UHF discount in court (D.C. Appeals Court), and seem to have made some headway in their oral arguments.”)
“Sinclair’s top lobbyist, a former F.C.C. official, also communicated frequently with former agency colleagues and pushed for the relaxation of media ownership rules. And language the lobbyist used about loosening rules has tracked closely to analysis and language used by Mr. Pai in speeches favoring such changes.”
An FCC spokesman representing Mr. Pai countered the allegations of favoritism were “baseless,” and
“For many years, Chairman Pai has called on the F.C.C. to update its media ownership regulations. … The chairman is sticking to his long-held views, and given the strong case for modernizing these rules, it’s not surprising that those who disagree with him would prefer to do whatever they can to distract from the merits of his proposals.”
However, “Pai said he would factor the potential court decision into the FCC’s decisionmaking.”
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) told Pai the spin-off of WGN-TV Chicago to the owner of a car dealership owned by Sinclair’s executive chair, “stretches the definition of divestiture under the plan to something unrecognizable” and the planned divestitures make a mockery of FCC rules.
Pai denied Rep. Quigley’s request to hold off on a decision on Sinclair until the UHF discount court decision, saying that was a case of clashing hypotheticals — both what the court would do with the discount and what the FCC would do with the proposed merger.
“Sinclair is telling the FCC that its coverage after spinoffs from its merger with Tribune will be just 58.7%. But that’s for regulatory purposes. (In other words, with the revived UHF discount that only counts channels 14 and up as half the audience of the market.) In the real world, where it matters, Sinclair’s national reach will be 66.3% — a full two-thirds of TV homes.”
But he said Sinclair is telling the FCC
“the coverage of the group will be just 58.7% and, with the UHF discount, below the statutory 39% cap. But those percentages are for regulatory consumption, not the real world.”
So there’s a 7.6-point disparity, the difference between 58.7% and 66.3%. How’d that happen? And don’t forget about the part, “with the UHF discount, below the statutory 39% cap.”
Jessell explained Sinclair
“is claiming 58% because it is not counting stations in three big markets — WGN Chicago, KDAF Dallas, KIAH Houston — that it is spinning off to closely affiliated companies. Without those markets and the discount in effect, Sinclair’s reach will be just 37.39%, safely below the 39% cap.”
Plus, with Dallas and Houston (but not Chicago), “Sinclair has put additional distance between itself and Cunningham” but will “have an option to buy the stations should the FCC ever ease the rules to allow it.”
So this is Jessell’s bottom line:
“So, again, for regulatory purposes, Sinclair’s reach will be 58.7% without the discount and 37.39% with it.
“But I don’t think that is reality. Those are not the numbers that Sinclair will be showing national advertisers, MVPDs, vendors and others with which it does business.
“In the real world, Sinclair will have a lot of control over Chicago and some control over Dallas and Houston, and its effective national reach will be 66.3%. (For the record, its reach with the UHF discount will be 41.1%, two points over the cap, but that will not matter because regulators will not be counting the three markets.)”
Then Jessell questioned Fox’s counting, assuming it’ll buy Miami, Cleveland, Sacramento as well as Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City and possibly San Diego.
He calculated Fox reaches 36.8% of homes, but just 24.3% with the UHF discount. If it buys up all seven stations, its reach will grow to 45.9% but, well below the cap at just 30.4% with the discount.
But where will Fox find the money to buy the stations it wants? That’s another story!
Last year, Disney made a $52.4 billion offer to buy most of Fox, including its stake in the European pay TV company Sky.
But The Hollywood Reporter said on Wednesday, “Back in 2004, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts bid $54 billion to acquire The Walt Disney Co.” At the time, Comcast hadn’t bought NBCUniversal but Disney did own ABC. It was a 22 percent more than Disney was worth then, but former CEO Michael Eisner said no anyway.
Now, even though NBCUniversal has performed well, some say Roberts wants revenge by offering the same $52.4 billion as Disney for most of 21st Century Fox.
There could also be a bidding war overseas. Sky had agreed to let Fox, a 39 percent shareholder, buy the portion it doesn’t already own – and that Disney agreed to buy from Fox in December. Comcast could ruin those companies’ plans.
Then, in January, a UK regulator advised the government to block Fox’s bid to buy the remaining 61 percent of Sky because it would give one family – the Murdochs – too much control over media in Britain.
So Murdoch had preferred Disney as the buyer, afraid the Comcast offer came with more regulatory risks. Then, Disney offered to buy Sky News just to help Murdoch buy full control of Sky News’ parent company, the broadcaster Sky. But CNN reported Fox made a new pitch to win approval for Sky by selling Sky News to Disney, and another proposal that would’ve legally separated Sky News from the rest of Sky to ensure its editorial independence.
Then, last month, The Hollywood Reporter reported, “The U.K. Takeover Panel … ruled that Walt Disney must make a mandatory offer to buy full 100 percent control of Sky if and when it completes its planned acquisition of large parts of 21st Century Fox, including Fox’s stake in Sky.”
Then, according to Deadline, “Disney will have 28 days from the completion of its $66 billion acquisition of Fox to make a $15 offer for all the shares of Sky if Fox’s own $15.7 billion takeover of Sky is not complete by then, or if Comcast’s rival offer has not been accepted. It also (decided) this would not be required if another third party has acquired 50 percent of Sky by then.”
But last week Comcast made its $31 billion bid for Sky official and that’s 16 percent higher. Deadline reported that caused Sky directors to withdraw their recommendation of a Fox takeover bid.
This all comes along with many mergers and acquisitions across the industry.
In fact, a decision on this may not come until a judge determines whether to let AT&T buy Time Warner. The Justice Department has been fighting against it with an antitrust case. Closing arguments just finished and a decision is expected June 12.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, last week Fox said it’s “considering its options” on Sky and is believed to be prepping a sweetened bid. But Comcast is known for (usually) getting what it wants.
But back to Sinclair, which hasn’t been doing itself any favors.
So much for localism at a company that already owns or operates an astounding 193 TV stations, in 89 cities, covering a huge part of the American population. (You’ve read the different takes on the numbers.)
This is criticism from The New York Times…
from the PBS NewsHour…
from USA Today…
and even Russia Today…
and Al Jazeera English.
But Sinclair fought back against CNN’s criticism (and banned comments from YouTube!):
FTVLive’s Scott Jones showed a memo from Portland, OR – I’m sure one of many around the country – ordering employees not to complain.
Notice KyAnn’s name. KyAnn Lewis was the news director until Scott reported today she was fired. No details why, especially in the middle of the May ratings period.
“many TV local news stations are focusing more on national politics and have taken a rightward slant over the past year. And that move is stemming from ownership of the stations, not the demands of a local audience.”
Poynter noted, “The study comes just as many are raising concerns about a coordinated effort by one major owner of TV stations that forces its anchors to record a segment about ‘the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country.’” And you know who that is.
The researchers examined 7.5 million transcript segments from 743 local news stations and saw huge differences between other stations, and outlets owned by the nation’s largest local broadcasting chain, Sinclair Broadcast Group.
“The authors found Sinclair stations, on average, carried about a third less local politics coverage and a quarter more national politics … (including) commentaries the stations are forced to run by former Trump official Boris Epshteyn.”
Researchers warned,
“The ‘slant scores,’ based on repetition of ideologically linked phrases, increased by about one standard deviation after acquisition by Sinclair as compared to other stations in the same markets. … And this programming could spur nationalistic and polarizing movements, ‘be expected to reduce viewers’ knowledge of the activities of local officials’ — and hurt accountability, especially “given the decline of local print media.”
So while everything plays out, from fighting the UHF discount in court, to negotiating spinning off stations, to Fox getting money to buy stations (while keeping its Sinclair affiliates), to counting how long the deal has taken (since May, 2017), to counting how long the steps still to be taken will last, the two companies’ bosses have no public complaints or worries.
Sinclair president and CEO Chris Ripley:
“After a very robust divestiture process, with strong interest from many parties, we have achieved healthy multiples on the stations we are divesting. …While we continue to believe that we had a strong and supportable rationale for not having to divest stations, we are happy to announce this significant step forward in our plan to create a leading broadcast platform with local focus and national reach. The combined company will continue to advance industry technology, including the Next Generation Broadcast Platform, and to benefit from significant revenue and expense synergies.”
Tribune CEO Peter Kern to employees:
“There is no reason to assume that this change won’t be for the better. … So try to focus, as you have always done, on the business at hand—delivering outstanding local journalism and great content for our audiences and communities, collaborating with your colleagues, and driving results for our customers.”
Enough of big media controlling everything from corporate headquarters! This is what happens when it does. Locals should be in charge of local programming, following the rules of the FCC for using OUR public airwaves!
OK, since you read everything, I’ll give you John Oliver here!
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In late March, USA Today reported Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King drew criticism when someone from his campaign team mocked González’s ‘look’ in a meme published to King’s official Facebook page.
According to the paper, “It’s part of a wave of recent attempts to discredit González and other survivors as they call for legislation to address gun violence.”
It described
“an image of Gonzalez with tears streaming down her face at (the) March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., as she recalled the 17 lives lost at her school. … The accompanying text criticizes Gonzalez’ Cuban heritage, seeming to reference the Cuban flag patch seen on her sleeve.”
It was posted on March 25 and was STILL UP moments ago.
You can see, the post says, “This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense.”
“King’s page later denied that it was bullying the teen, who has been the victim of right-wing vitriol over speeches remembering her classmates and calling for stricter gun laws, and said that it was strictly focused on communism in Cuba, whose flag Gonzalez was wearing on her arm.”
Maybe except the part about, “after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense.”
Just so you know where many Americans stand, Facebook reported the post got a lot of attention: about 3,400 likes, 2,200 angers, 459 laughs, 154 loves, 114 sad faces, and 110 wow/shocks.
According to a Univision profile, González’s father escaped from Fidel Castro’s Cuban regime and moved to New York in 1968.
You know criticism of the congressman’s post came quickly.
But “Team King” and his supporters stood by the meme.
(Pretty classy! Does this change your opinion of politicians?)
King even angered Cuban-Americans who wrote in an article, “The Cuban flag has nothing to do with communism.”
Even fellow survivor and activist David Hogg tweeted his senator, Florida Republican Marco Rubio, to address King.
Hey @marcorubio@Emma4Change s family fled Cuba to escape totalitarianism and live in freedom just like your family could you please respond to @SteveKingIA
As far as I’ve seen, Hogg got the same response as a third survivor and activist, Cameron Kasky, when he asked Rubio during a CNN town hall to refuse contributions from the National Rifle Association: no answer.
But he did better when calling for somebody to challenge Leslie Gibson, who was running unopposed as a Republican for the Maine House of Representatives. Gibson had described González as a “skinhead lesbian.”
Hey freinds in Maine! Who wants to run against this hate loving politician he's is running UNOPPOSED RUN AGAINST HIM I don't care what party JUST DO IT. https://t.co/vRR7p1ZHKf
“As soon as she walked on the March for Our Lives stage clad in an olive green jacket, a Cuban flag patch on her right arm — the words of another student ‘Welcome to the Revolution’ still ringing in our ears — I knew that the optics wouldn’t favor Emma González.
“Ugh, good thing she didn’t go for the Che Guevara beret, too.
“I’m a gun control advocate, but I am also a Cuban-American marked and wounded by a revolution turned into one of the world’s longest-lasting dictatorships. The men who seized power and repressed — who burst into homes to search without warrants and confiscated businesses, homes, lands, and guns – wore olive green fatigues.”
González did get a complete thumbs-up from Gloria Estefan, who certainly understands the situation in Cuba more than her.
North Miami City Councilman Scott Galvin – who taught middle school U.S. History for a decade, and spoke when I had to organize Career Day at a nearby elementary school outside city limits – wrote about meeting Emma, “and she was polite and warm.”
But later, he recognized a teachable moment and escorted about 70 students from the city’s North Miami High and Alonzo Mourning High for a bus ride to Washington for the March of Our Lives.
Councilman Galvin emailed,
“As she strode on stage, however, she was all tiger. Wow. She emotionally swung into her speech. Then, suddenly, tears streamed down her face and she went silent. It seemed to me that she had frozen. I thought that the pressure of the last six weeks had caught up with her. But I was glad no adult rushed on stage to bail her out. There hadn’t been an adult on stage the whole day, outside of performers. I didn’t want them to start now.
“But her silence continued. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes.
“At this stage, I was now hoping for someone, anyone to wrap their arms around Emma and save her from this emotional shock. But no one did. I was getting increasingly uncomfortable.
“Suddenly, after four minutes of silence, I heard her watch alarm go off. NOW I understood. Emma allowed her speech to last exactly six minutes and twenty seconds, the exact amount of time that elapsed as a gunman cut down her friends back at Douglas.
“She then told the audience that they needed to stand up for their own lives before someone else had to do it in their absence.
“Wow. What a speech!”
The National Education Association quoted González saying “This was not the end. This is just the beginning” in an email urging members to make their voices heard until Congress passes legislation to stop gun violence.
“A doctored animation of González tearing the U.S. Constitution in half circulated on social media during the rally, after it was lifted from a Teen Vogue story about teenage activists. In the real image, González is ripping apart a gun-range target.”
This tweet from Teen Vogue’s chief content officer, Phillip Picardi, shows the absolute difference but he apparently doesn’t know exactly who’s responsible.
He charged at the man with the rifle. They fought. Finally, Shaw said he managed to wrestle the barrel of the rifle from the gunman and tossed it behind the counter. The suspected shooter got away for a day, and Shaw got a trip to the hospital.
BREAKING: 5 more warrants have now been issued against Travis Reinking charging 4 counts of attempted murder and 1 count of unlawful gun possession in the commission of a violent felony. 1 of the attempted murder victims is hero James Shaw. Reinking's court date is now May 7. pic.twitter.com/YI1NT4qWcf
So VP Pence called disgraced (and Trump pardoned) AZ sheriff Arpaio a "champion" of the "rule of law"?!!? That's sort of like calling Kanye West a "scholar" of "antebellum history."
Speaking of Second Amendment defenders, click here for details on why USA Today said Congressman “King made a name for himself criticizing immigrants.” (Oh, and a bit about a Confederate flag on his desk, despite King being a native Iowan and Iowa being a Union state.)
You can have your say in a more private way. King’s phone number is 712-664-5097 and click here for his campaign website. He’s up for reelection in November.
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This is my 90th blog post and like most journalists, I identify mistakes all over and somehow — often through publicity — try to get them fixed. But not on this milestone. There’s too much good to write about.
I also want to point out the page CohenConnect Headlines Sitemap has a list of all the blog posts I’ve written and published over the past 3+ years, in chronological order. Nobody — early readers nor myself — can remember everything I’ve done and there hadn’t been a place to look. The right side of what you’re reading (or bottom on mobile) just show the past 10 and the most popular. A regular “sitemap” of category words is well below, on the bottom of the right side (or the bottom on mobile). But the “search” box also works very well, contains both categories and tags, and maybe more.
So staying positive, let’s honor some heroes with this post. These days, there are too few and far between. I remember years ago, while working at WCAU in Philadelphia, Larry Mendte saying on the air with such certainty, “Heroes never admit they are,” or something to that effect.
I’ll start by setting something straight. Two survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Florida posed for a picture with the caption Prom 2018, but they won’t be going together.
That’s despite what Pink News in the UK reported Tuesday, to the disappointment of Cameron Kasky and David Hogg’s many fans.
The publication describes Kasky “lovingly hugging Hogg, who contrasts Kasky’s sloppy smile with a stair which pierces your soul.”
Monday, Kasky posted the picture on Twitter. Click here for that original article, which may not be true, but contained a lot of positive reaction from hopeful supporters.
“Rebecca Boldrick, Hogg’s mother, told TMZ.com that Hogg has another date for the prom.
“Jeff Kasky, Cameron’s dad, told TMZ, ‘Cameron and David love each other very much, as do the 20 or so other kids that are part of their group, but not in a romantic type of way.’”
Then, Cameron’s mother, who has been a friend for about 40 years, posted a picture of the two of them titled “My date” Tuesday night. I’m not naming her because she has not put her name out in the public.
You watched Kasky dress down Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in a CNN town hall for refusing to refuse contributions from the National Rifle Association. In fact, what it took for Cameron to try to get a simple “yes” or “no” answer to his question from a sitting U.S. senator and former presidential candidate from his own state was amazing!
Fellow survivor Hogg also became a gun control advocate and activist against gun violence, but he has been more controversial. New to Florida — his family moved from L.A. at the start of high school — he chose to attend Stoneman Douglas because of its TV production classes.
Hogg may be most famous for what The Washington Post called his “dust-up with Fox News host Laura Ingraham,” who used this tweet to “make fun of the teen’s public lament about being rejected by colleges to which he had applied.”
David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.) https://t.co/wflA4hWHXY
(It really won’t matter because he plans to take next year off after high school to campaign in the midterm elections.)
The next day, Ingraham apologized to Hogg but not anybody else she’d put down over the years, including LeBron James, and by then it was too late.
Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David…(1/2)
… immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how "poised" he was given the tragedy. As always, he’s welcome to return to the show anytime for a productive discussion. WATCH: https://t.co/5wcd00wWpd (2/2)
So, knowing how TV and news are businesses that revolve around money (Where have you heard that multiple times before?), he urged his 700,000+ Twitter followers to boycott Ingraham’s advertisers.
Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #
The Washington Post noted, Hogg called the apology an insincere “effort just to save your advertisers.”
Then, “In a matter of days, Ingraham lost more than a dozen advertisers, including Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Hulu, Jenny Craig, Ruby Tuesday and Miracle-Ear.”
The following message was issued earlier today to employees of Liberty Mutual Insurance by David Long, Chairman and CEO: pic.twitter.com/FVyIBZrnC0
“It’s disturbing to know that somebody can bully so many people and just get away with it, especially to the level that she did. … No matter who somebody is, no matter how big or powerful they may seem, a bully is a bully, and it’s important that you stand up to them.”
He even went as far as to compare the tweet and Ingraham’s criticism of him, saying they “were in line with bullying statements she had made about others: a conflict with gays while she was at Dartmouth in 1984 and, recently, responding to LeBron James’s political statements by saying that the NBA star should ‘shut up and dribble.’”
“I’m glad to see corporate America standing with me and the other students of Parkland and everybody else. Because when we work together, we can accomplish anything.”
Then Ingraham took a week off. Fox claimed the vacation had been planned.
Hogg, now 18, has already made political change.
When Leslie Gibson, who was running unopposed for the Maine House of Representatives, described fellow Parkland student Emma González as a “skinhead lesbian,” Hogg called for somebody to challenge the Republican. He got not one but two other candidates, and Gibson dropped out of the race in response to public reaction critical of his comments.
“The Zionist Organization of America is calling on Parkland survivor and activist David Hogg to change the name of his forthcoming book, as it believes that the title shows ‘shocking insensitivity to Holocaust survivors.’
“Random House publishers announced Thursday that David and his sister Lauren had penned a deal with the publishing house to release a book, #NEVERAGAIN: A New Generation Draws the Line, June 5.”
Lauren is a freshman survivor.
Today @lauren_hoggs and I are announcing our book #NeverAgain that tells the story of the foundation of this movement for those we lost. Lauren and I will be using the money made from the book to help heal the community. #NeverAgain out June 5th https://t.co/Vh2gWVWNGq
The Blaze also reports the book is being described as
“a statement of generational purpose, and a moving portrait of the birth of a new movement.”
“In times of struggle and tragedy, we can come together in love and compassion for each other,” David told Entertainment Weekly. “We can see each other not as political symbols, but as human beings. And then, of course, there will be times when we simply must fight for what is right.”
Sister Lauren added, “It’s amazing to see that so much love can come from so much loss. But from our loss, our generation will create positive change.”
But I’ve had an issue with using the phrase “never again” since it has always referred to one event: the murders of 6 million Jews and millions of others in the Nazis’ organized extermination campaign during World War II. Personally, I think the book title should be changed, and don’t think the phrase should be used in any other matter, but don’t doubt Hogg’s sincerity about the gun issue.
The ZOA said in part,
“By co-opting ‘Never Again’ title for his book opposing guns, David Hogg trivializes the holocaust” and the Hoggs’ book title “offends Holocaust survivors, Jews, and all human rights-loving people.”
Those are sections the Glenn Beck-founded network chose to highlight, due to its own agenda.
“This statement should not be construed as in any way lessening our shock, outrage and pain regarding the Parkland school shooting. ZOA completely sympathizes with the loving, bereft families and all the infinitely precious victims of the Parkland shooting, all other school shootings, and all other shootings. All affected by these tragedies are in our hearts and prayers. …
“It is an expression that should never be politicized or co-opted by anyone, regardless of political affiliation. …
“The Holocaust was unique and unprecedented, in that: it involved a ‘final solution’ designed to murder every single Jewish man, woman and child; Jews were the only people killed for the ‘crime’ of existing; the murder of Jews was an ‘end in itself’ rather than a means to some other goal; and the people who carried out the ‘Final Solution’ were primarily average citizens ‘just doing a job.’ None of the other terrible slaughters and genocides this world has witnessed share all these characteristics.”
We’ll see what happens.
A third of the 20 founding members of the group Never Again MSD is activist Emma González, who has also had to deal with criticism of her bisexual orientation, hairstyle and more, including this.
The Washington Post reported,
“A doctored animation of González tearing the U.S. Constitution in half circulated on social media during the rally, after it was lifted from a Teen Vogue story about teenage activists. In the real image, González is ripping apart a gun-range target.”
I guess you could say desperate liars were targeting her because they had nothing better.
Kasky, Hogg and González — along with fellow students Jacqueline Cohen and Alex Wind — even made Time magazine‘s list of the 100 most influential people in the world for becoming prominent activists, organizing protests, and speaking out publicly to demand stricter laws on gun control.
Time wrote in an article, How we chose the 2018 TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential people: “Barack Obama, who has said that his greatest frustration as President was the failure of commonsense gun-safety laws, draws inspiration from the Parkland, Fla., teenagers who organized the March for Our Lives: ‘They have the power … to reject the old constraints, outdated conventions and cowardice too often dressed up as wisdom.’” Click here for the Time article about the Parkland 5.
Mashable went back further, writing the former president…
Young people have helped lead all our great movements. How inspiring to see it again in so many smart, fearless students standing up for their right to be safe; marching and organizing to remake the world as it should be. We've been waiting for you. And we've got your backs.
I’m in total awe of the extraordinary students in Florida. Like every movement for progress in our history, gun reform will take unyielding courage and endurance. But @barackobama and I believe in you, we’re proud of you, and we’re behind you every step of the way.
“both tweeted support for the Parkland teens following the deadly shooting, and wrote them a handwritten letter in praise of their ‘resilience, resolve and solidarity.’”
Notice the dates on everything. The attack took place on Feb. 14.
Mashable included a typed version of the letter, for those of you having trouble with Mr. Obama’s handwriting, and also a look at celebrities joining in at the March for Our Lives.
Even former NFL placekicker Jay Feely needs a lesson on seriousness, after The Sporting News showed a tweet he posted. It showed a “photo of him holding a gun while standing between his daughter and her prom date” that was intended to be a joke.
Feely should know better. He’s from Florida, grew up there and spent a year with the Miami Dolphins. The next day, he clarified what had happened.
The prom picture I posted was obviously intended to be a joke. My Daughter has dated her boyfriend for over a year and they knew I was joking. I take gun safety seriously (the gun was not loaded and had no clip in) and I did not intend to be insensitive to that important issue
On a more positive note, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports the prom will be an “over-the-top” party with a touching tribute, and students promising the best prom ever, after 17 people were shot to death at their school on Valentine’s Day. Four seniors were killed. So were seven freshman (that will be some prom in three years), plus three other students and two adults.
Eventually, the prom committee wanted to recognize the tragedy that’ll mark their high school memories. There will be a memorial near the entrance to the ballroom. It’ll also include two members of their class who died in 2016 of cystic fibrosis and suicide. The memorial will be surrounded by couches and designated as a quiet place to sit and think.
Inside, the prom will be stopped by 17 seconds of silence.
It also won’t be expensive. The cost: Just $30 per ticket, and $50 for non-seniors. The hotel, DJ, florist, decorator, and other vendors are donating their services for free or at cost, and the hotel is giving families of the senior victims a free weekend of their choice.
Good for all of them!
Marjory Stoneman Douglas survivors, along with high school students from around the country, were not even born 19 years ago during the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo.
(I remember it like yesterday. I had returned from vacation, was working at WCAU, and our news anchor Renee Chenault happened to be from Littleton. She ended up going there to report from her hometown, but being local news, did not get the publicity of Katie Couric for touching the hand of a victim’s father on the Today show.)
There were an estimated 150,000 students protesting on Friday’s anniversary at more than 2,700 walkouts, according to organizers.
The Chicago Tribune, in an Associated Press article published Friday afternoon, said,
“In a new wave of school walkouts, they raised their voices against gun violence. But this time, they were looking to turn outrage into action.”
The students, “turned their attention to upcoming elections as they pressed for tougher gun laws and politicians who will enact them. Scores of rallies turned into voter registration drives. Students took the stage to issue an ultimatum to their lawmakers.”
Activists behind a March 14 protest, a month after Stoneman Douglas, estimated it drew nearly 1 million students.
(I find it interesting The Chicago Tribune used an Associated Press article, while I learned Chicago’s Fox TV station asked the other Fox stations for a story they could post on their website, because they were apparently unable to write one of their own. Were there no rallies anywhere near Chicago? Probably plenty, considering the numbers above! At minimum, I would’ve shown the big one around town and then another in a zip code they wanted to target for ratings. Even chopper video would’ve done the job except for hearing the students tell their reasons for walking out, firsthand. But we know how Fox stations operate with sharing web articles. It seems at this point, they’ve become dependent on their sister-stations rather than even try to do the work. I love how so many of today’s young people are the opposite of this kind of corporate laziness!)
The Washington Post noted, “Critics have questioned whether … the high school students demanding that the nation’s gun laws be strengthened are mature enough to understand the complex policy positions they have staked out.”
Isn’t this exactly what we want from our young people? To think, investigate and reconsider if necessary? And don’t these particular students who experienced what they did have unique insight on the issue? Yet some people feel the need to criticize them. Maybe it’s because they need to be heard. Maybe because these grown-ups really have not grown up and are jealous. Or maybe because “the kids are alright” and and it simply bothers them because they have issues of their own.
How much are they bothered?
Click here for “Ted Nugent says Parkland students ‘have no soul,’ calls them ‘mushy-brained children’” (The Washington Post, March 31, 2018).
Nugent, perhaps the NRA’s most outspoken board member, told a San Antonio radio station, “These poor children, I’m afraid to say, but the evidence is irrefutable. They have no soul,” after discussing with the host their belief the teenagers have been manipulated by left-wing ideologues.
“The lies from these poor, mushy-brained children who have been fed lies and parrot lies,” Nugent said. “I really feel sorry for them. It’s not only ignorant, dangerous and stupid — it’s soulless. To attack the good, law-abiding families of America when well-known, predictable murderers commit these horrors is deep in the category of soulless.”
Click here for “How the Parkland teens became villains on the right-wing Internet” (The Washington Post, March 26, 2018).
If ardent NRA supporters don’t lose now, or in this year’s midterms, or even the 2020 presidential election, they should absolutely know the demographics of this country are changing. Eventually, they will lose to people who have felt real pain and others of that generation. It’s going to happen, whether they’ll consider themselves martyrs, or if they’re even alive to feel any suffering from their defeat.
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Also a hero: Last week, the pilot of Southwest Airlines flight 1380, Captain Tammie Jo Shults, landed her plane calmly and successfully, on just one engine, here in Philadelphia. She saved 148 lives.
According to The Guardian, “Those present recalled that after the plane had landed, Shults walked through the aisle to talk to them, to see how they were doing.”
Talk about responsibility AND customer service!
Turns out, The Guardian continued,
“Shults was one of the first female fighter pilots in the US Navy and was elite enough to fly an F/A-18 Hornet. She flew training missions as an ‘enemy pilot’ during Operation Desert Storm, as women were then still excluded from combat missions.”
Also not to be forgotten is the heroism of Waffle House diner James Shaw Jr. Early Sunday morning, outside Nashville, he was sitting with a friend at the restaurant counter when police said a gunman wearing nothing but a green jacket opened fire outside.
As CNN reported, “Glass shattered, dust swirled and Shaw said he saw a man lying on the ground.”
Four people were killed.
BREAKING: 3 persons fatally shot & 4 others wounded at the Waffle House, 3571 Murfreesboro Pike. Gunman opened fire @ 3:25 a.m. A patron wrestled away the gunman's rifle. He was nude & fled on foot. He is a white man with short hair. pic.twitter.com/d1qxRxsGNx
“bolted from his seat and slid along the ground to the restroom, he said. But he kept an eye and an ear out for the gunman. And the moment the shooter paused, Shaw decided to ambush him … before more lives were lost.”
He charged at the man with the rifle. They fought. Finally, Shaw said he managed to wrestle the barrel of the rifle from the gunman, tossed it behind the counter and the shooter escaped.
Investigation on going at the Waffle House. Scene being processed by MNPD experts. This is the rifle used by the gunman. pic.twitter.com/lihhRImHQN
“The gun was hot and he was naked but none of that mattered,” Shaw said, with a burn on his hand a wound on his elbow where a bullet grazed it.
He told reporters,
“I figured if I was going to die, he was going to have to work for it. … I was just trying to live.”
This laptop bag, empty except for a handwritten ID card bearing the name Travis Reinking, was found by a citizen near the I-24 Old Hickory Blvd interchange. Unknown whether it was discarded before or after the shooting. Reinking is believed to have been in that area Sat. night. pic.twitter.com/yduQlXvAFE
Travis Jeffrey Reinking, 29, was arrested Monday, after a 34-hour manhunt.
BREAKING: 5 more warrants have now been issued against Travis Reinking charging 4 counts of attempted murder and 1 count of unlawful gun possession in the commission of a violent felony. 1 of the attempted murder victims is hero James Shaw. Reinking's court date is now May 7. pic.twitter.com/YI1NT4qWcf
NBC News pointed out he went from wearing only a green jacket to a green “suicide smock — a padded gown made from heavy-duty polyester that is held together with Velcro strips.”
If you are of a certain age, you remember Schoolhouse Rock! from ABC on Saturday mornings. The jazz musician who was instrumental in that cartoon series died Monday in Mount Bethel, Pa., 92 miles and an hour-and-a-half drive from Philadelphia.
Bob Dorough was 94.
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Simple Wikipedia
Schoolhouse Rock! ran from 1973 to 1985. The cartoons, including “My Hero, Zero” and “Three is a Magic Number,” (the first in the series) were written and performed by Dorough.
His biography says he “entertained and instructed unsuspecting children.”
Schoolhouse Rock! came back for another five years in the 1990s and its 40th anniversary was marked with a DVD edition of the entire five subject series.
Has a Schoolhouse Rock! tune ever helped you on a test? Do you have a favorite? I especially liked how a bill became a law (“I’m Just a Bill”) and “Conjunction Junction.”
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Finally, there’s the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, site of last night’s Sixers playoff game where they eliminated the Miami Heat. Actually, the topic is replacement names, and Wells Fargo is not a very good corporate citizen.
I have always been against companies buying names for stadiums and liked it when NBC Sports, before losing the NFL in 1998, made it a point of not referring to the names of stadiums but just the city, unless there was confusion between different stadiums.
The stadium, where the Flyers played hockey until their season ended earlier this week, is named for Wells Fargo which is a big bank in Philadelphia and many other cities. Before that, it was named Wachovia. Before that, First Union. FU Center had something special to it. And before that, CoreStates. Just shows you how banks take each other over and waste money having to change the names on every branch and piece of real estate, including the ones they sponsor or use to advertise.
Just two years ago, Wells Fargo’s employees recused of secretly opening more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts to meet their sales targets and receive bonuses. The bank had to pay $185 million to settle those allegations. It also fired about 5,300 employees for doing what may have been their jobs. In that case as well, Wells Fargo did not admit or deny allegations.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has been the nation’s third largest bank by assets.
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FYI, the late Wilt Chamberlain played for the San Francisco/Philadelphia Warriors and the Philadelphia 76ers, and is widely considered one of the greatest and most dominant players in NBA history. He still holds the single-game scoring record, having scored 100 in one game. It happened March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pa. against the New York Knicks. The Philadelphia Warriers moved west to San Francisco after that season.
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I’m not writing to take an opinion on the issues of sanctuary cities or illegal immigration, but have to say I’m pleased a gang of Republican-appointed federal judges were willing to rule against a president from their own party.
“A federal appeals court in Chicago has ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration cannot withhold public safety grants from cities that don’t cooperate with its immigration enforcement policies, agreeing with a temporary injunction imposed earlier this year by a lower court judge.”
The decision by three judges on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the administration tried to exceed its authority by establishing a new condition for cities to qualify for public safety money. Instead, Congress earmarked the money without that condition.
“The Attorney General in this case used the sword of federal funding to conscript state and local authorities to aid in federal civil immigration enforcement. … But the power of the purse rests with Congress, which authorized the federal funds at issue and did not impose any immigration enforcement condition on the receipt of such funds.”
Wikimedia Commons
According to Politico, judges here in Philadelphia and also Los Angeles “blocked attempts to add the immigration-related conditions to new federal grants.”
“Sanctuary cities” are those that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agents by letting them know when immigrants in the country illegally are about to be released from police detention.
Last July, the Trump team decided cities receiving public safety grants — that can be used to buy public-safety equipment, including police cars — must agree to inform federal agents.
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Then, Chicago and several cities sued, and a lower court judge imposed a temporary injunction on the administration’s requirement.
This afternoon, all three judges agreed, so that nationwide injunction will stay in force. But one judge said the ruling should apply to Chicago only. That detail won’t matter.
“Other jurisdictions that do not want to comply with the Notice and Access conditions were not parties to this suit, and there is no need to protect them in order to protect Chicago. … A nationwide preliminary injunction … should only be issued where it is absolutely necessary, and it is far from absolutely necessary here.”
Wikipedia
A pleased Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel praised the judge who wrote the decision.
“Judge Rovner says in her opinion that Chicago does not interfere with the federal government’s lawful enforcement of immigration laws and pursuit of its civil immigration activities, and presence in such localities will not immunize anyone to the reach of the federal government,” Emanuel said.
But he did mention the fight isn’t over, since the money hasn’t yet come.
Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley disagreed, writing in a statement,
“We will continue to fight to carry out the Department’s commitment to the rule of law, protecting public safety, and keeping criminal aliens off the streets to further perpetrate crimes.”
Several cities established policies to protect immigrants since Trump won the 2016 election.
Thank you San Diego County for defending the rule of law and supporting our lawsuit against California's illegal and unconstitutional 'Sanctuary' policies. California's dangerous policies release violent criminals back into our communities, putting all Americans at risk.
Governor Jerry Brown announced he will deploy “up to 400 National Guard Troops” to do nothing. The crime rate in California is high enough, and the Federal Government will not be paying for Governor Brown’s charade. We need border security and action, not words!
Sanctuary Cities released at least 142 Gang Members across the United States, making it easy for them to commit all forms of violent crimes where none would have existed. We are doing a great job of law enforcement, but things such as this make safety in America difficult!
Politico noted, “Rovner was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, Bauer by President Gerald Ford and Manion by President Ronald Reagan, all Republicans.”
Three cheers to all three, since the judiciary should be separate from politics, just like they ruled the Executive branch should be separate from the Legislative.
These folks did the right thing, at least this time, since I’m not familiar with their other rulings.
ShareRocket numbers came out on Monday. They’re the equivalent of Nielsen ratings for TV shows, but for social media instead. Take them for what they’re worth, along with the thought of companies trying to use social media to make money. The Fox Television Stations Group (which still doesn’t bother to list its stations, as I’ve mentioned here and several other places) is very big on it. Too big. Other things lose out. (See Murdoch, Rupert. Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg knows much better.)
According to ShareRocket, in the first quarter of this year, Philadelphia’s “WTXF (Fox 29) generated more than 7.3 million total Engagements,” meaning the number of times people responded to the station’s, or their employees’ posts — on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — by liking, commenting, etc., during the first quarter.
“The station also benefited from having the No. 1 individual in the market, anchor Alex Holley. Holley generated more than 960,000 Engagements in the quarter across all platforms.”
Doing simple math — 960,000 divided by 7.3 million — Good Day Philadelphia anchor Holley is completely responsible for 13.15 percent of Fox 29’s performance in the quarter, all on her own. This doesn’t count anything the station wrote about her or her stories. These are posts she wrote and published by herself, on her own accounts. Good for her!
On the other hand, that means everybody else at Fox 29, including the group of people paid to write news and social media (way too much social media, if you ask me), only did 86.85 percent of the station’s first quarter performance. As I’ve written before, web producers
“try to find articles from out of the area that will get clicked. What usually happens is that one station — whether it happened in their area or not — writes it and offers to share it with the other stations, which may choose to accept it or not. If they accept it, then they can tease it on social media or not.”
So there’s lots of help Alex doesn’t get.
By the way, ShareRocket reports,
“The market saw a very large increase in Engagement in general from quarter to quarter, likely driven by the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl win. All six stations Share Rocket tracks in the market saw significant bumps in total Engagement, and four of those stations saw increases of +40% or more.”
But Fox 29 wasn’t one of the four stations out of six that saw increases of 40 percent or more. Fox 29 was in the bottom half. It only went up 22 percent from quarter to quarter! In other words, it lagged and underperformed, and its share of the market dropped from 33.48 percent, down to 30.77 percent.
“I’m doing it because I hope we can negotiate an end to this for the good of the country and because I have high regard for the president and for Bob Mueller.”
Along with the longtime Trump ally, the president will also be defended by a couple who run a Florida-based law firm, Jane Serene Raskin and Marty Raskin. Plus everyone else on his legal team. The new three are all former federal prosecutors.
Speaking of former federal prosecutors, Chris Christie hasn’t been New Jersey governor since January but his official portrait is making news because it’s going to “cost a stunning $85,000,” according to the New York Post. (Get your jokes out of the way now. The Post did. Its article’s headline is “Artist gets big, fat paycheck for Chris Christie’s official portrait.”)
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NorthJersey.com reports the $85,000 will be “more than what his three predecessors … paid to have their images hang in commemoration of their political service” — combined!
It priced the portrait “the highest for a governor since Democrat Jim Florio paid $58,000 for his. Christie’s three immediate predecessors — Jon Corzine, Richard Codey and Jim McGreevey, all Democrats — paid a combined $74,500.”
That makes the Christie image cost $10,500 more than Corzine, Codey and McGreevey’s altogether.
There is one difference: Christie did take up two terms. The last New Jersey governor to do that was Christine Whitman ($48,000), who served from 1994 to 2001. Even Florio was a one-termer, serving 1990 to 1994. FYI, his two predecessors were both two-termers, Tom Kean and Brendan Byrne.
The website showed the governors’ official portraits:
“Since he took office, Christie has spoken about the official picture that likely will long outlive him and the many internet memes he’s touched off. And in his public life, Christie had earned a reputation for having a taste for luxury when others paid the bill.”
Then the paper went on to describe those luxuries.
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Who will pay? “A taxpayer-funded transition account of $250,000 that is granted to former governors to pay for staff and office space, as well as services such as the painting,”NorthJersey.com says.
The artist is Australian Paul Newton. The portrait will be oil-on-canvas.
Too bad it won’t hang in the Statehouse when it’s finished by the fall. That’s under a multi-year renovation.
It won’t cost us anything to remember what NorthJersey.com described as
“the picture of him on that beach closed to everyone else, in that chair with his family and friends while the public was shut out of state parks on a holiday weekend during a government shutdown.”
Let’s hope Phil Murphy has a more compact ego!
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Fox would have a place to air any network programming WSVN preempts, its Fox News would have access to WSVN’s powerful news coverage like it does from any other affiliate, it could say it owns a station in Miami/Fort Lauderdale to give advertisers more scale, and it could program and promote WSFL and its MyNetworkTV shows any way it wants.
This morning, 
That’s a shame and forcing good people out of the business, especially at a time we need the Fourth Estate to be as tough as ever — especially when reporting on news happening in American government and the world.
The people researching, making contacts and conducting interviews on the front lines need to make a living.
Unfortunately, today, it looks like news on the web is going the same way.
According to Axios, “Local media executives have been 
That’s because 
They’re what Axios reports Facebook has defined as 
Advertising isn’t just to sell products to make money, but also selling ideas that can win activists money for lobbying and more advertising — and votes.
BTW, Sinclair owns or operates Florida stations in West Palm Beach, Pensacola (with Mobile, AL), Tallahassee (with Thomasville, GA) and Gainesville. See map.
Plus, there have been literally thousands of complaints from activists who know how important this is. 
Another dead giveaway is that Cunningham is based at 2000 W. 41st Street, Baltimore MD 21211 and coincidentally, Sinclair flagship 
So is 
There’s still 
HSH stands for 
Williams and his supporters suggest a more partisan motive: his conservative views.
Sinclair owned MyNetworkTV affiliate WMMP-36 for years. Then, in 2001, it bought and spun off Fox affiliate WTAT-24 to Glencairn (to become Cunningham) and crafted a local marketing agreement between the two stations. That got Sinclair fined Sinclair $40,000 for illegally controlling a duopoly.
Some more about Williams: In 2004, 
A last possibility if Fox is determined to buy a Miami station is ABC affiliate WPLG-10. That station, stable under Post-Newsweek (now Graham Media) for decades, was sold to Berkshire Hathaway as its only broadcast property. We’ve talked about synergies (BH, as an “only child,” has none) and know Warren Buffett wants to turn a profit, so we can imagine Fox dumping WSVN for WPLG, but can’t assume ABC will take its affiliation to WSVN. 
Kasky, Hogg and González — along with fellow students Jacqueline Cohen and Alex Wind — even made 
Also not to be forgotten is the heroism of Waffle House diner James Shaw Jr. Early Sunday morning, outside Nashville, he was sitting with a friend at the restaurant counter when police said a gunman wearing nothing but a green jacket opened fire outside.
