Sunday, January 09, 2011

Phoenix | Newsroom merger in rah-rah launch

The Arizona Republic and its sister Gannett business in Phoenix, NBC affiliate KPNX-TV, officially unveiled the merger of their news operations in a Republic story today that reads like a big, wet kiss to Corporate.

I've read the 1,400-word article twice, and couldn't find a single voice representing the substantial and vigorous opposition to these mergers. To wit: Critics fear these arrangements are a dangerous concentration of media power at the expense of competition that historically has produced the strongest, independent journalism.

Since 1975, the Federal Communications Commission has banned ownership of multiple media in a single market by one company. Gannett owns the Republic and KPNX under an FCC waiver of the only because they were grandfathered in before the FCC "cross-ownership" rule was imposed. The FCC, even under the business-friendly Bush Administration, has refused to end the ban -- despite heavy lobbying by the industry.

14 comments:

  1. Oh pleeeeease! The web is eating our lunch and you are worried about a lack of competition because a TV station is moving into a gynormous building with more room than a baseball stadi in January? He'll Phoenix has more TV stations than I can count. There are a lot of things to worry about and I promise you ......this isn't in the top 100 things to worry about. Slow Sunday Jim?

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  2. Your blog is an example of where media power exists in todays world. The merger of the TV station and the newspaper is of no significance. If nothing else the expense savings will keep the two dinosaurs alive a bit longer.

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  3. Just the other day I was looking to a television station for hard hitting investigative journalism. But it wasn't 'sweeps' month, so all I found was SpongeBob.

    Hell, even that bastion of hit and miss joke writing, The Daily Show, doesn't pretend they do anything besides read someone else's work.

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  4. I wonder if the newspaper/TV station will postpone its planned gala on Wednesday, which features live entertainment, street closures, etc., because of the Tucson shootings.
    Also, I wonder how many people are going to lose their jobs with this merger. It just seems logical that there will be duplicative work.

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  5. The FCC ban is a relic of a long-gone era when newspapers and TV stations were the only real outlets for local news and information. Obviously, that's far from the case today. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about this merger -- quality of journalism chief among those concerns -- but the FCC thing is beyond insignificant.

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  6. Jim, I hope you'll pick up on this as I think the people in Indy are in for a ride. The Arizona Republic has been spending a lot of ink on the merger. A concert planned and Al Roker on Wednesday, the official launch. Publisher John Zidich and representatives of Channel 12 were interviewed in an article today about this being a huge opportunity for Phoenix and Gannett, which I honestly think it is. Here's the big question, why was Karen Crotchfelt shipped out of town just before this huge merger. It's probably more than coincidence.

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  7. 4:49 you are simply making this up. She was promoted to Publisher. Call Jessie Ventura with your conspiracy theory. I pray you are not one of our journalists

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  8. Gannett isn't the first to co-locate a TV station with a newspaper. In southwest Ohio, WHIO-TV moved in with the Dayton Daily News late last year. The Fox station for Connecticut now broadcasts from the home of the Hartford Courant.

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  9. The tussle will be how many print journalists get dragged into feeding the evening news shows from Channel 12. The TV journos are, at best, all GA reporters. They would love to tap into the Republic beat reporters for sources and tips. One more blow to the fading newspaper...

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  10. The two newsrooms have been working together well before co-locating in the same building. I don't think they would have both had the outstanding coverage of yesterdays shooting had they not been working together. I think this is what you can expect in the future not a step backward.

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  11. 4:57 Even Gannett has strategies, and her leaving at this very important time is at best curious. Yes, she was promoted and she deserves to be congratulated, but how can someone not look at the coincidence of timing? Her position was extremely important as had been pointed out by the Publisher several times. How does someone so important leave at an important time?

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  12. the Phoenix paper was acquired by Gannett from Central well after the media laws were put in place - they received a waiver in order to operate both. The information is public so please check facts prior to posting.

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  13. The Journal News in Westchester connected to the local TV channel a long time ago in a lengthy relationship gone wrong. Basically the talking heads referred to the JN - "read more about this tomorrow in your Journal News" kind of thing.

    It was a waste of time that did nothing for the paper and certainly didn't draw in more readers.

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  14. "the Phoenix paper was acquired by Gannett from Central well after the media laws were put in place - they received a waiver in order to operate both. The information is public so please check facts prior to posting."

    Jim's wrong again.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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