Burn baby burn!
Posted on 01/23/2004 7:10:30 PM PST by Pikamax
CNN shakes up news administration By Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 5:40 PM ET Jan. 23, 2004
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - CNN, a unit of Time Warner, is shaking up its U.S. news organization and announcing a new Washington bureau chief.
TRADING CENTER
Princell Hair, executive vice president and general manager of CNN's U.S. operations who joined CNN last year, said Friday in an internal statement, a copy of which was obtained by CBSMarketWatch.com, that he is making sweeping changes.
In Washington, Hair appointed David Bohrman, the executive producer of Aaron Brown's show "NewsNight," to be the new bureau chief.
Hair's memo said CNN is "working with" the previous bureau chief, Kathryn Kross, "on a new role with the network." He didn't offer any details.
Kross didn't return a phone call placed to her in the Washington bureau.
In Atlanta, where is CNN has its headquarters, some staffers were concerned that Hair's changes underscore the management's desire to centralize what it had often been a de-centralized news-gathering operation, and a consolidation of the general news production.
Hair said to his troops: "As good as this news organization is -- and make no mistake, it is the best in the world -- it can be even better."
CNN is facing considerable pressure to re-establish itself. This is an opportune time for CNN to assert itself, in the early stages of the presidential campaigns as well as a news-rich year that will also include the rebuilding of Iraq, a continuation of the war on terrorism and the Athens Olympics.
In the past few years, CNN has fallen behind Fox News (FOX: news, chart, profile) in the widely followed TV ratings. CNN long held an advantage over its competitors when big stories broke. But even during the Iraqi war last spring, Fox led in the ratings, underscoring CNN's decline in popularity among American TV viewers.
Hair said the company was making changes because it wanted to "increase the degree to which newsgathering and programming are fully integrated. Nowhere is this integration more important than in our DC bureau."
Hair cited Bohrman's "passion for the news and skill as a producer."
CNN's Washington bureau is one of the network's ornaments. Its reporters, led by the White House correspondents John King, Dana Bash and Suzanne Malveaux and the national security reporter David Ensor and Justice Dept. correspondent Kelli Arena, are widely respected.
But CNN has been hurt by defections of some of its on-air correspondents.
In addition, CNN is changing its chiefs' responsibilities in its 11 domestic bureaus, saying the current system of having bureau chiefs in some cases double as reporters "does not fully make sense."
In most cases, "reporters will no longer be domestic bureau chiefs," he said. He will assign full time administrators to be the bureau managers.
In addition, the U.S. will be divided into four regions, Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, West as well as Washington, DC. Each segment will be managed by a regional bureau chief and a supervising producer will manage daily activities in the outlying bureaus, Hair said.
Boston and New York will make up the Northeast region and will be managed by Karen Curry in New York, Hair said.
Atlanta and Miami will encompass the Southeast and be supervised by MaryLynn Ryan in Atlanta. CNN has expanded the Chicago and Dallas bureaus and added Denver to comprise the Midwest region, which will be led by Edith Chapin in Chicago. Los Angeles bureau chief Pete Janos will direct the Western region, including Seattle and San Francisco.
Jon Friedman is media editor for CBS.MarketWatch.com in New York.
Roger Ailes had a problem They had no audience yet and most cable systems would not put them on. CNN is paid by every cable system they are on, 25 cents for every subsriber. It matters not if they actually view CNN. CNN gets paid 25 cents a month for every cable subscriber that that can get their channel.
To get on the systems Fox had to agree to be paid nothing for 10 years. So the parent companys had to pay the entire costs until they had enough audience to generate advertising revenues.
Female newscasters are plentyful and they don't get paid as much as men. So Ailes hired females to deliver the news. He hired pretty ones over ugly ones, hoping channel hopping males would stay to watch his news babes.
Babes are cheap and attract the attention of channel flippers.. that is the story. Now everone does it.
Sure wish this mush would make up his mind whether he's male or female.
I remember Don Imus talking about some sort of technology that has been around for a long time that is built into the studio setup that smudges skin tones, which Imus said, "...makes wrinkled old bastards look younger". Bernie and I believe MSNBC turns it off during his program. LOL
With a name like that, I bet he got his ass kicked on the playground alot.
You should see how much time the "professionals" spend on the various news industry web sites, lavishing embarrassing amounts of praise on Keith Olbermann's show. They absolutely worship it, yet it's the lowest-rated prime time show on all three news channels. And your numbers have to really SUCK to earn bottom place.
You mean soft focus? That's been around forever. It's literally just a slight blurring of the image to take the edge off. (Unfortunately, it tends to make everything else in the picture look like some gauzy fabric has been draped over the camera lens. Of course, contemporary digital technology helps make it less noticeable.) If you want to see it in action, watch ANYTHING anchored by Barbara Walters.
Thanks for jarring my memory, thats what I was thinking of. It's been a decade since I been in television. Mostly doing radio these days.
Liberals despise success and want to tear it down.
I remember it used back when Hugh Downs and Barbara hosted 20/20, and it's very noticeable on her "private and intimate" interview shows.
AND Larry King who introduces Aaron as if he was the second coming. They must be related as there's no plausible reason for Larry's nightly gushing.
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