Monthly Archives: March 2013

Television

Sinclair selling WYZZ to shell corporation Cunningham

4 Comments

Sinclair Broadcast Group is selling WYZZ-TV (43) to Cunningham Broadcasting for $22 million, according to an article in TVNewsCheck.com and an official filing with the FCC. The sale was necessary to comply with FCC ownership rules after Sinclair acquired WHOI-TV (19) from Barrington Broadcasting.

Cunningham Broadcasting has several ownership objections pending against it before the FCC. Local watchdog groups in other media markets as well as the Free Press organization accuse Cunningham of being a shell corporation for Sinclair — a company controlled by Sinclair and used solely to circumvent FCC media ownership rules.

Indeed, in their own filing, Sinclair states that “the majority stockholder of CBC [Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation] is the Carolyn C. Smith Cunningham Trust.” Carolyn Smith, along with her husband Julian Sinclair Smith, is a co-founder of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and the trust beneficiaries are her sons, who are also co-founders of Sinclair. Carolyn died in 2012.

Thus, media consolidation will deepen here in Central Illinois. We have five local commercial stations (WHOI 19, WEEK 25, WMBD 31, WYZZ 43, WAOE 59) which heretofore have been owned by five separate companies but operated by only two companies (Granite Broadcasting Corporation, which operates WHOI, WEEK, and WAOE; and Nexstar Broadcasting Group, which operates WMBD and WYZZ). Now two of those stations — WHOI and WYZZ — are going to be controlled, if not outright owned, by the same company.

Media consolidation is bad. As a perfect case in point, I’ll bet you didn’t know any of the information in this post before I just shared it with you. If we had more media diversity, you would have known about it long before now. But because the Journal Star has had its staff decimated by Gatehouse Media, and because there are only two television news organizations in town — and they both have ties to Sinclair now, by the way — you won’t hear about it. (Well, maybe the paper will mention it in a couple weeks buried in one of Steve Tarter’s columns, especially since I’ve published it on my blog. But don’t count on it. Generally speaking, you’ll never hear about it.)

There are many other things you don’t (and won’t) hear about, because when newsrooms shrink and reporters are let go in the name of efficiency, it means there are fewer people around to act as watchdogs for the public. Do you know how the Journal Star gets its news about Peoria Park District board meetings now? The Park District director (Bonnie Noble) writes up a summary and sends it in. Bet you didn’t know that, either. That’s what passes as “reporting” these days in our fair city. Take a look back through the Park District’s minutes and see how many of them indicate “Press Present: None.” The Park District — a municipal organization with a $15+ million property tax levy — and not a single member of the press attends their meetings to see how they’re spending our money or conducting business.

But I digress.

The sale of WYZZ to Cunningham should be opposed by this community. Other communities have filed official and unofficial protests with the FCC, and have started online petition drives. Here in Peoria, we haven’t even heard about it.

The procedures for filing formal and informal objections to the sale (or “assignment” in legalese) of a TV license are available from the FCC website here.

Peoria Journal Star

Journal Star to exclude all non-Facebook users from commenting

35 Comments

Mark Zuckerberg is feeling the love coming from Peoria’s only newspaper of record.

The Journal Star posted on its website today a new policy: to comment on stories, you have to have a Facebook account.

Beginning Friday morning, readers who wish to comment on PJStar.com articles will do so using their Facebook account. Facebook accounts bring context to our commenting platform, linking to the identity of a registered user who might think twice before saying something they might not otherwise say face-to-face. Consider it similar to an Opinion Page letter to the editor, which is verified by our newsroom before being published in our print edition.

It’s our hope that the move to Facebook commenting will raise the level of dialog on PJStar.com and encourage more readers to participate. We will continue to invite debate and contrary opinions – we just encourage that the discussion be respectful.

Oh yes, I’m sure it will raise the level of dialog, because people never say uncivil things under their real names. People using their real names are the epitome of restraint and civility. I’m confident this move will create a comments section for the Journal Star that is full of real people talking about interesting things in civil ways.

There will likely be spontaneous conversations about Pindar and Chekhov breaking out all over the place. Perhaps when the next science story is published, Facebook users will instinctively turn the course of the conversation toward reconciling general relativity with quantum physics.

We’ll undoubtedly see more people saying respectful phases like, “pardon me,” “if you please,” and “with all due respect.” At worst, if someone is really upset, they may lash out with an impudent “great balls of fire!”

I can’t wait to see the comments once this new Facebook policy goes into effect. The reserved and prudent language will be like reading a Jane Austen novel. It may even encourage more readers to participate — just not the 40% who are not on Facebook, like me.

City of Peoria

Three City of Peoria departments consolidated

10 Comments

PEORIA — The City of Peoria has consolidated the Planning & Growth Management, Inspections, and Economic Development departments into the newly-christened Community Development department. City Manager Patrick Urich has appointed Ross Black as director. Black was formerly the interim Planning & Growth Management director. According to a recent Issues Update:

The three [former] departments had a combined total of 51 employees during the 2011 budget year. The 2013 budget authorizes the new department to have a total of 37 employees; a 27% reduction in staff. With new procedures that have already been put in place and with an ongoing program targeted at identifying and implementing efficiencies, the new Community Development Department will be able to provide enhanced service to the community with far fewer employees than in past years.

The new Community Development Department will continue to provide the same suite of services that were provided under the prior three departments. These services include planning, zoning, mapping & analysis, neighborhood development, grants management, code enforcement, building inspections, economic development, and real estate management.

The new department will also have two assistant directors. Joe Dulin, former interim Inspections director, will fill one of the positions. The other position, which will focus on economic development, is expected to be filled by early second quarter.

My Take: So we’ve combined three departments, but we still have three management-level employees, each overseeing one of the three former areas. Sounds like an exercise in semantics. And does anyone really believe that we’re not going to see a drop in service as a result of this supposed 27% reduction in staff? Speaking of this “reduction,” isn’t it interesting that they compared proposed 2013 staffing to 2011 levels instead of 2012 (current) levels? Curious as to what the 2012 levels are? I’ll tell you: 33. So the new 2013 level of 37 employees is actually an increase of four employees, or 11%. (It’s better at budget time to give the impression you’re cutting, even if you’re not really.)

Nevertheless, that’s way down from ten years prior:

Department FY 2002 FY 2012 Change Pct
Planning & Growth 25 12 -13 -52%
Inspections 54 20 -34 -63%
Economic Development 8 1 -7 -88%
Total 87 33 -54 -62%

These decreases in staffing are going so well that the City (in addition to adding staff while pretending they’re cutting it further) is now seriously considering outsourcing code enforcement due to lack of performance. This must be part of that “new and strong foundation upon which we can build for the future of our city” that Mayor Ardis talked about in his State of the City address this past January.