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Issue # 2,899
Tuesday, March 27, 2012

"Mojo in the Morning," an online broadcast featuring phone scams and celebrity interviews that airs on WKQI (95.5) FM in Detroit and KOHT (98.3) FM in Tucson, had NBC's Chris Hansen on the line last week, when the connection suddenly went dead.

Mojo claimed the "To Catch a Predator" star hung up on them when they asked about his much publicized fling with Kristyn Caddell, the former reporter at Scripps-owned WPTV-5-NBC in Palm Beach (Market #38). Hansen insisted the phone company pulled the plug on the interview after the allotted 10 minutes.

As a "make good," he returned to the show Friday and agreed to answer anything, "no holds barred." (Interview here.) In the world according to Chris Hansen, last summer's National Enquirer scoops were “full of hurtful lies. I understand the perceived irony of the, you know, so-called ‘gotcha guy’ getting gotcha-ed,” said Hanson. “But what the ‘gotcha guy’ got gotcha-ed doing was going out to dinner.”

"Mojo" didn't ask if "going out to dinner" also involved spending the night at Caddell's Palm Beach apartment, where the National Enquirer watched the married NBC correspondent emerge the following morning. 

Nor did "Mojo" ask about The Washington Examiner report that Hansen and Caddell were "all over each other" at a DC restaurant in March 2011.

"Mojo" somehow neglected to ask Hansen about cell phone photos of his crotch he sent to Caddell. Or the picture of him standing in a hotel room in front of a large mirror with white bathrobe open. Or the cheesy picture of him lying on the hotel bed, letting it all hang out.

"Mojo" also failed to ask about Hansen's other extramarital affair with Kathleen Collins, a "sexy Hollywood stripper" and aspiring country singer, who he met at a club in Las Vegas.

Nor did "Mojo" ask Hansen about being passed over by NBC for the anchor seat at "Dateline NBC," when Ann Curry moved to "Today" in May.

"We just don't comment on tabloid nonsense," said Hansen. "You've just gotta consider the source on this." So much for "no holds barred."

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TALENT TANGO

New York Magazine's Gabriel Sherman describes NBC's version of "Dancing with the Stars," a four-step contract tango with morning star Matt Lauer.

Step one: Talent signals he’s considering a change (last year, anonymous press reports said Lauer was ready to leave after Vieira announced her exit).

Step two: Network signals it has other options (in December, The Wall Street Journal reported that NBC News president Steve Capus and Today executive producer Jim Bell took a meeting with Ryan Seacrest).

Step three: Outlandish salary numbers are floated ($25 million a year, in Lauer’s case), and talent considers staying.

Step four: Maneuvering to a new contract. For NBC News, this last part will happen as its competitors start to elbow in.

Lauer, an Ohio University dropout, now earns a paltry $13,500,000 annually...slightly more than he pulled in as a noon show producer at WOWK-13-CBS in Huntington, WV (Market #64), just 32 years ago.

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MAKING THE ROUNDS

Joe Oliver, a well-traveled former TV news anchor and reporter, emerged yesterday as a vocal defender of George Zimmerman, the Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer who killed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and sparked a national uproar.

Oliver, who is a friend of Zimmerman and works as a forensic chart review specialist at Orlando-based Digital Risk, appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" before making the rounds of local and national media outlets.

"This is a guy who thought he was doing the right thing at the time and it's turned out horribly wrong," said Oliver. "He couldn't stop crying for days after the shooting." Oliver worked at CNN, reported and anchored for KRON-4 (then NBC) in San Francisco (Market #6), and was a weekend anchor and reporter for WESH-2-NBC in Orlando (Market #19) before leaving the TV news business.

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With MSNBC's Al Sharpton blurring the line between covering a story as a journalist and advancing the story as a participant, the American Journalism Review somehow avoids the elephant in the room and asks the question: "Should journalism experience be a requirement for hosting a political talk show?"

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"UNITY: Journalists of Color," an alliance of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLJGA), unveiled a new logo yesterday featuring a big yellow "J"....which, we hope, was not meant to depict yellow journalism as the color of choice.

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There's an epic carriage showdown shaping up between Tribune's television stations in 16 markets (including Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, and New Orleans) and DirecTV. Their deal expires Saturday at midnight, and Tribune is already digging in its heels.

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Ken Reeves, the senior meteorologist and VP-GM of AccuWeather Television, who died Sunday afternoon when he fell from the roof of his home while taking down Christmas lights, was home alone when the accident occurred.

According to reports, several neighbors witnessed the fall and reached his side within minutes. Reeves reportedly landed head-first on the concrete driveway and was unconscious but still breathing when paramedics arrived. He died on the way to the emergency room. His wife of six months, Raychel, flew in from Los Angeles overnight.

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DEAL APPROVED

The FCC has approved the sale of LIN Media's WUPW-36-Fox in Toledo (Market #74) to a subsidiary of American Spirit Media for $22 million. WUPW will be operated by Raycom Media's WTOL-11-CBS in Toledo under a shared services agreement.

LIN expects to lay off [fire] 63 employees. American Spirit Media is based in Charlotte and has similar duopoly agreements with Raycom in three other markets. The contract between WTOL and WUPW is for at least eight years, and American Spirit Media will pay WTOL more than $1.3 million the first year of the agreement. That amount would be adjusted for inflation in subsequent years.

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One year ago, LIN Media bought a pair of failing stations, WBDT-26-CW in Dayton (Market #63) and WIWB (now WCWF-14-CW) in Green Bay (Market #69), from ACME Communications and combined them with existing LIN stations as duopolies in those markets. 

Yesterday, ACME stockholders reaped the benefits of the sale in a special cash distribution of $.22 per share of stock and a special distribution of 300,000 shares of LIN TV Corp. stock.

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Fusion Communications-owned WBKI-34-CW in Louisville (Market #48), which has operated under a local marketing agreement with Belo's WHAS-11-ABC, has defaulted on loans and "other financial accommodations" provided by Iowa-based Valley Bank.

The bank, which holds secured liens on basically all of the station's assets, will sell everything at a public auction April 6 in Chicago. The station's former owner, Cascade Broadcasting, went bankrupt in 2008.

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On Jan. 18, Robert Feder revealed online that Alex Perez, a reporter and fill-in anchor at NBC-owned WMAQ-5 in Chicago (Market #3), appeared to be headed to ABC News.

Yesterday, 69 days after Feder's scoop, ABC made it "official." Perez will spend a "few weeks" in New York, learning the network ropes, before returning to Chicago as a correspondent.

He’s the third WMAQ-5-NBC staffer lured to ABC lately, following sports anchor Paula Faris, who became co-anchor of "World News Now," and meteorologist Ginger Zee, who became weather anchor for the weekend edition of "Good Morning America."

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Barbara Walters will be the "roastmaster" for the Friars Club sendup of comedy icon Betty White May 16.

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New York Knicks star Amare Stoudemire is suffering from a bulging disc in his back. Or, as announcer Al Trautwig of the MSG Network described it, a "bulging dick." Hours later, ESPN2's Jonathan Coachman referred to Amare's "bulging dicks."

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Jeff Butera, a general assignment reporter at Scripps's WFTS-28-ABC in Tampa (Market #14) for the past 2½ years, heads south next week to become the new primary anchor at Waterman's WZVN-7-ABC in Ft. Myers (Market #65). 

According to his Facebook page, Butera will front the 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, and 11:00 p.m. newscasts. He'll replace Len Jennings. who left last week for KMBC-9-ABC in Kansas City.

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Hena Daniels, a former reporter and weekend news anchor at Meredith's WFSB-3-CBS in Hartford (Market #30) who spent two years as a general assignment reporter at Meredith's WGCL-46-CBS in Atlanta (Market #9), has returned to Hartford's WFSB-3-CBS as a full-time anchor.

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Chris Pisano, who got the boot as morning news anchor at Meredith's KCTV-5-CBS in Kansas City (Market #31) two years ago and landed at "Good Morning Indiana" at McGraw-Hill's WRTV-6-ABC in Indianapolis (Market #25), has resigned "for family reasons" after just 18 months in Naptown. He left after February sweeps.

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The Ohio State University student newspaper, The Lantern, interviews Kristyn Hartman (right), the blondiful former morning news anchor-turned-reporter at CBS-owned WBBM-2 in Chicago (Market #3) who will replace Andrea Cambern as primary news anchor at Dispatch Broadcasting's top-rated WBNS-10-CBS in Columbus, OH (Market #32), beginning in June.

Cambern says she has not yet met Hartman, but they have been exchanging emails. “Everybody who’s met her just has great things to say about her,” Cambern said. “So I'm anxious to meet her and introduce her to Central Ohio.” And maybe sell her my house, she did not add. 

Cambern is out the door on the last day of May sweeps (May 23) and already has a home in Santa Barbara.

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MRS. BLUEZETTE'S GRAMMAR YAMMER
"A PBS mind in an MTV world."

Mrs. B has more soundalikes for you.

Allusion means an indirect mention of something, as in:

~In her novel, the author made an allusion to her own childhood. OR The author alluded to her own childhood.

Illusion means false perception. For example:

~The magician created the illusion that the rabbit disappeared right before our eyes.


Elicit means to draw forth, to entice or lure, as in:

The best way to elicit disgust: Display totally gross images. (abcnews.go.com, 3-4-12)

Hustler Magazine's Sunday ad offers up to $1 million for documented evidence of illicit relations with a member of Congress, senator or other prominent office holder. (wtop.com, 3-6-12)

Joe Biden: It's Santorum Versus All Of America On Issue Of Higher Education(3-1-12)

Tebow spent about 45 minutes talking with Kevin Odor, senior pastor of Canyon Ridge Christian Church, in an interview that tied in to several Bible verses. (3-3-12)