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JMW Archives

Still under construction....Pardon our dusty pixels....

March, 2001

I spoke with Lloyd Brown, the editorial page editor, this afternoon about their treatment of letters to the editor. He pointed out that he does have a letters editor, BTW.

He said we ought to check the letters policy on the web site, which I thought was a good idea: 

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/opinion/letters_policy.html

He wasn't sure about the most up-to-date numbers, but he said that last year the paper averaged about 30 letters a day, with room for only six or so. Brown had the following stats for a six-week period in 1998: 925 letters with 418 by mail, 299 by fax and 208 by e-mail. He estimated that they get a lot more by e-mail now.

"We look for letters that actually say something on a timely topic," Brown said, "not something we've discussed 15 times before."

As for editing, he said they always edit for length as needed to get in as many letters as possible, they correct spelling errors all the time, and they clean up the grammar "a little."

They try to pay attention to how many times they have run letters on a certain topic as well.

What they can't do, he said, is take a long, three-page letter and work to edit it down to 5-6 paragraphs. Too difficult, he said, so they just don't run those.

He said they try to run "good" letters, and don't care what position the letter writer may be taking.

"We have no instructions to throw out letters from liberals," he said.

----
This doesn't answer ALL the concerns and questions shared on the list, but at least we have the official word.

Had an interesting chat with Jim LaBranche, news director over at WAWS. 

He did not know of the particular piece re allergies and Allegra that Kelly Donovan
was talking about earlier on the e-mail list, but he did say that a lot of video news 
releases are available nowadays. They are a bit harder to control, too, he 
said. 

Now that most arrive via a satellite feed, rather than on a tape physically 
delivered to the newsroom, it's easier to sneak a press release video 
through with the rest of the news feed, he said. 

LaBranche said that they get health stories from Fox, from CNN, and from 
other sources, and they might have passed on a well-crafted (i.e., good news 
elements -- pay attention PR students) piece as news. He indicated the PR 
folks are much better than they used to be. 

He said they used a lot more of them in the morning than they do at 10 p.m. 
With Paige Kelton, who normally does health news, on vacation, maybe one 
just simply slipped through. 

He also said that he believed that most viewers can tell when it is a video 
press release. When I pressed him on it (I don't believe for a minute that 
most viewers know the difference between a locally done news story and a 
VNR), he admitted that it might be hard for some to separate the two. 

Finally, he said that there is no policy about identifying VNRs as such, but 
that decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

Initially, the WTLV ratings were down a bit and WJXX up, probably because people no longer had to switch stations to see Alan, Jeannie and Donna. By July, WTLV was back, and by November, the growth in ratings were "tremendous," according to Tonning.

WJXT-4 is still the leader at 6 p.m., but FCN leads at 6 a.m. and the all-important 11 p.m. newscast. For instance, on Feb.1, the first day of a sweeps month, the FCN 11 p.m. news had a 13.3 rating and a 24 share, while WJXT had a 10.5 rating and a 19 share. ("Rating" refers to the percentage of all television sets in the market; "share" is the percentage of the sets that are actually on.)

Tonning says that WJXX is now No.3 in the market. Before the station purchase, it was No. 5. Tonning thinks it is the more familiar faces on the newscast, rather than the new faces that WJXX-25 brought in that have made the difference.

December 2000 Seen and Heard

Mike Richey, the T-U managing editor, recently explained the apparent exodus from the newsroom, especially in sports. (Sports editor, two top columnists, and top beat writer: gone.)

"The dot coms have created a wide open market for people who can provide information," he said. "People who do a good job are attractive commodities." Richey said this was especially true in sports. "It's a seller's market, if you are talented," he said.

Richey also explained that because the T-U is in a non-competitive market and in a smaller market as well, salaries are just not as high as in other markets in Florida. 

It's too bad it has to be that way. It would be nice to see the T-U pay more to keep the best and the brightest, instead of training them for a few years to see them move on for more bucks. That way we get a constant flow of young newbies who are unfamiliar with the area and the people. The reporting simply can't be as good as with a veteran seasoned here in town.

Richey said he was happy that people who left the T-U went to respected publications or dot coms. But wouldn't it be nicer if they could stay?

Easy. The attention to the actual news of the day falls even lower (as hard as that is to believe) and more attention than usual is paid to infotainment, or "news" meant to entertain and/or titillate. The main point is to get people stirred up somehow to watch. The "teases" to the newscast become all important.

Recently, a set of First Coast News teases to the 11 p.m. news included besides the weather, two about weight loss stories and another about, well, about nothing important. Might have been about shopping for the holidays.  I can't even remember now. But it had nothing to do with anything one would normally associate with a newscast. It was like Inside Edition. At best. Granted, some might say you don't have to tease to the stuff people already know you have (i.e, news), but somehow what you tease also says what you value.

WJXT-4 is running one now for a highly important story about strip clubs. Why is it that the only time we get stories -- and video -- about topless women is during sweeps month? I think it is because the few last shreds of journalistic dignity are stripped away (couldn't resist) from the newsies by the station ad and marketing types who want those Nielsen overnights to tick up a notch or two so they can more easily make the payments on their new BMWs. So we have "news" about strip joints. Now that there is little dignity left, the poor newsies can tease those stories with a straight face and even read the copy when it comes to the news. Heck they probably have payments to make on their Toyotas. I hope a broadcast news professional can explain this to me.

I'll bet the teases change back to a more normal set once we change the calendar to December. I will report back in a few weeks.  /rb

Seen and Heard from 11/29/00

Jacksonville Media Watch received coverage in the Florida Times-Union on Sunday, 11/19/00, p. G-3. Membership is growing slowly, but maybe this will give our group a big boost. Be sure to check the Articles and Links pages (below) for interesting reads. And feel free to suggest your own.

Transparency.com has a very interesting list of media criticism principles. These are ideas well worth discussing on the discussion list. 

Seen and Heard from 11/19/00

The first of the JMW Thumb Awards goes to T-U reader advocate Mike Clark for getting involved in some criticism of his own editor and of the T-U. Sounds easy for a reader advocate, but I bet it's not as easy on the river in Jax as we might think.

Seen and Heard from 11/07/00

On Wednesday, 11/01/00, WMXQ103 The Mix became WMXQ102.9, The Point.

With the typical masturbatory thinking in radio, someone at the station thought it would be cool to run, unannounced, a robotic voice doing a countdown from 4,000-and-something to zero to "build excitement" for the 5 p.m. zero-hour. As if we are all waiting breathlessly. What the heck was the thinking there? Like we all care. Crappy countdown? -- easy, change stations.

I thought it was a weird glitch and called the station several times. Talked to the typical clueless phone answerers who said it was a "technical problem" (an obvious lie) that would be cleared up soon, a jock (Heather White, who said finally that she was not allowed to talk about it -- great place to work), and finally program director Cat Thomas admitted that something was up, but refused to talk about it. At 4:20 p.m., 40 minutes before the "BIG NEWS" was to happen. Good God! Like it was that important.

Reminded me of the WKRP in Cincinnati Les Nessman promotional gig of shoving turkeys out of a helicopter on Thanksgiving, not realizing they can't fly. Or the ESPN hack sending basball bats raining down on another (fake) promotional gig. Quality thinking in all cases.

Why in the world did the WMXQ radio big thinkers believe it was a great idea? C'mon folks, spend the lost advertising money on the news division instead of paying people to read the T-U on the air. That ain't news.

Seen and Heard from 10/24/00

The teases we get on local TV news seem more designed to force us to watch at 10 or 11 than to get a heads up with a true summary of the news. Heard one this week that basically said if we want to keep our children safe, we better stay up late and watch the news. 

We didn't hear what or why or how. We just got the tease with the scare message.

That's not fair.

Seen and Heard from 10/13/00

It was interesting to note last week that WTLV12, which would simulcast the Jaguars' Sunday night game against ESPN if enough tickets were sold to avoid a local blackout, led its entire newscast with the game blackout for several days running.

The cynical among us might think that they were pumping up blackout fears to push ticket sales to protect the ad sales they had lined up for the broadcast. The other stations played the blackout angle in Sports.

So was the "news" decision based on the power of potential advertising dollars? FirstCoastNews GM and president Ken Tonning says no. "We just thought that a blackout would be bad for the image of the city and of the team nationally," he said.

Who did buy those last 2,000 tix to avoid the blackout? Tonning immediately blurted out that it was not WTLV. Brent Williamson of the Jaguars told JMW that it was ESPN that purchased that last block. 

Now was it because ESPN kindly wanted WTLV to share the broadcast or do you think it was to boost the rating and share for the ESPN broadcast? (Read: more $) Wonder what they did with the tix? JMW is looking into it. Check back.

"Our representation throughout the station is greater than our competition," Tonning said, "and our on-camera crew mirrors the community."

The Jacksonville Business Journal had the orginal coverage.