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KFBK news has given up

michael hagerty said:
Having been the producer or executive producer for the last four years of Amy's tenure, I'll repeat that the newscast was straight down the middle, apart from the inexplicable guarantee in Ed Crane's contact allowing him to do commentary every morning at 7:35. As I outlined in a previous post, that was a major concern of mine from day one, but it took a change in management to end it:

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KFBK news has given up

I only met Tom once in Phoenix, but I got the sense that Leykis really enjoyed the conversations regardless of how they began and ended. I met him during his time in LA and I agree.
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It was straight down the middle until we got to the Cristina/Sam Shane era is what I meant.

I remember Ed Crane's segment every morning, oddly enough that didn't bother me, maybe because the rest of the show was straight news but I do look back and wonder "why was he so special that he had to have a guarantee in his contract to do a commentary segment?"

I do miss the old KFBK.
 
rtruskey2 said:
It was straight down the middle until we got to the Cristina/Sam Shane era is what I meant.

I remember Ed Crane's segment every morning, oddly enough that didn't bother me, maybe because the rest of the show was straight news but I do look back and wonder "why was he so special that he had to have a guarantee in his contract to do a commentary segment?"

I do miss the old KFBK.
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Ed got there five or six years before I did, so I don't know what motivated management to agree to a daily commentary. He was coming from a gig as a CBS Radio network news anchor in New York.
 
TheBigA said:
I've been following this thread all day and this sentence triggered this observation: I've noticed the same thing in other markets.

If you look through the morning news page and stories covered by the host, you see a lot of opinion mixed in with news:

www.iheart.com

KFBK Morning News with Cristina Mendonsa | iHeart

KFBK Morning News with Cristina Mendonsa
www.iheart.com www.iheart.com

The intent is to create content for a podcast and hold listeners longer than the normal news clock cycle.
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Same thing with the Upstate Morning News on WYRD (WORD) 98.9-- hardly news, but plenty of hardline right-wing outrage opinion.
 
bmasters1981 said:
Same thing with the Upstate Morning News on WYRD (WORD) 98.9-- hardly news, but plenty of hardline right-wing outrage opinion.
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When we look at the list of stations that really matter--namely the BIA Kelsey list of the highest-billing stations--the list is dominated by down-the-middle, no-bias All-News stations. WTOP Washington is always #1 by far. WINS is usually at #3 after KIIS-FM LA. We also see WBBM Chicago on the list. WSB Atlanta, which has a no-bias morning news block, is usually in the top ten. WCBS, before the plug was pulled, was usually in the top ten. And we know that KNX Los Angeles is in the second ten. KOA Denver, which once had a true all-news morning show, would sometimes be in that second ten.

But the true, unbiased all-news stations are losing ground. KRLD Dallas stopped doing midday news and now just has all-news in AM and PM drive. As said above, KOA no longer does an all-news morning block. Audacy figured it only needed one all-news station in New York, so WCBS was ended, with Audacy hoping its audience would eventually switch to WINS. KTRH Houston once had a true all-news morning show. It's still called "Houston's Morning News" but its host is really doing a conservative talk show, he just breaks for traffic and weather sometimes. Even the morning news anchor shades all his stories as Trump-and-conservatives-all-good, Democrats-all-bad.

Some talk stations give their 4 or 5 a.m. hour to "This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal" or "America in The Morning with John Trout". They do unbiased syndicated news magazine shows. But they are only heard by folks who are up before dawn.

I guess it's cheaper to do a conservative morning talk show and pretend it's news than to do a true all-news morning show.
 
Gregg. said:
KTRH Houston once had a true all-news morning show. It's still called "Houston's Morning News" but its host is really doing a conservative talk show, he just breaks for traffic and weather sometimes. Even the morning news anchor shades all his stories as Trump-and-conservatives-all-good, Democrats-all-bad.

I guess it's cheaper to do a conservative morning talk show and pretend it's news than to do a true all-news morning show.
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And BTW, that Upstate Morning News I had said to start with, that's no longer the title-- it's now called The Tara Show; had made an error there.
 
finallyescaped said:
Despite always carrying conservative shows, KFBK would put effort into keeping its morning and afternoon news a little more neutral. Over the 2-3 years, they've completely given up on that. It feels like Trump radio 24/7 now. That's even more the case when someone is covering for Kitty in afternoons. I feel she's the last one trying to not go completely one direction in the news.

It's not surprising, but sad that the commercial band in Sac doesn't have anyone really trying more center oriented news. No surprise people continue to have less and less faith in media.
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michael hagerty said:
I overlooked one other thing:

When I came to town in November of 2013, the Morning News anchors were Ed Crane (formerly of CBS News) and Amy Lewis. Ed had been at KFBK since 2008 and did a commentary segment every morning at 7:35 (ish?) called "Crane's Corner".

Ed's slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun and I thought it was a huge disconnect for him to read the news straight for four hours and spend five minutes in the middle of it suggesting that Hillary Clinton was in a bad mood because she got a splinter from that broom she rides (literally a Crane line).

I became producer of the KFBK Morning News in February of 2014 and my first question to then-PD Ken Charles was "what can we do about this?" Ken basically said we just had to live with it. Apparently the commentary was in Ed's contract.

We had a change in General Managers, Ken left later that year and before Bill White could arrive to take his place, the new GM ended Ed's contract ahead of schedule. End of commentaries. We hired Dan Mitchinson to take Ed's place.

And from that moment until just a few years ago, the newscasts were opinion-free. Violating that could get you fired and there's a young woman working in PR now instead of news because I fired her for exactly that...and in that case, it was an unfair attack on a right-wing political figure. We played it straight.
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Was Amy Lewis laid off? I thought she was quite good.
 


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