On October 9 we reported that the Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Division has sent Letters of Inquiry to all 77 stations mentioned in the Center for Media and Democracy’s study, Fake TV News, concerning TV stations whose newscasts have used video news releases without identifying them as, well, press releases…
Dunno if you’ve heard the story about Watauga Department of Public Safety officer Jason Reddick: He was fired in May “for having racial innuendos and sexual content on his MySpace Web page,” says the Fort Worth-Star Telegram, and reinstated on Tuesday due to a procedural error in his dismissal letter…
Maybe it’s like a family feud; after all, Mark Cuban is part of the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. Seems, though, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks was a little peeved with the magazine’s trying to compare the sale of his Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in…
Belo Corp. chairman, president and chief executive officer Robert W. Decherd sent the troops a “Dear Fellow Employees” letter today in which he said, more or less, Hey, baby, everything’s gonna be fine–trust me, baby. More or less. Not really in those terms. You get the idea. Decherd, who was…
People are not happy with The Dallas Morning News this morning; don’t look at me, mine’s just a little soggy. Let’s start close to home, with Sharon Boyd’s Dallas Arena, where it’s The Dallas Managed News getting Boyd worked up this a.m. Turns out she’s discovered that Ronda Gibbons, the…
Yeah, so maybe that’s the fake Owen Wilson below; I’m too high right now to care, anyway. But this is most definitely the fake Terrell Owens. Still, you can kinda imagine T.O. saying what “he” “tells” The Onion in the piece headlined “Terrell Owens Blames Poor Game On Drew Bledsoe,…
Look, anyone can say they’re Owen Wilson. I’m Owen Wilson. See, it’s that easy. So there’s no way of verifying that the poster to The New York Times’ comments section concerning a story about states letting felons vote is, ya know, Owen Wilson. Or that Owen Wilson. But let’s say…
Los Angeles CityBeat, which is staffed and edited by a few old colleagues of mine from New Times Los Angeles during my very brief stay in L.A., has an interview with Mark Cuban concerning, among other things, his controversial investigative Web site Sharesleuth. Chiefly, Joe Piasecki wants to know why…
According to Dallas’ Only Daily, Andrea Yates, pictured here, and Dena Schlosser are BFF! Like, OMG. No, really. They killed their kids because God needed them to. What they said, anyway. Yesterday, The Dallas Morning News offered the front-page story about how Andrea Yates and Dena Schlosser, who’re killin’ time…
In May, our former colleague Rick Kennedy wrote about the Center for Media and Democracy’s report Fake TV News, in which the group blasted television networks and their affiliates for passing off paid-for news as The Real Thing–including, in one instance in February, our very own WFAA-Channel 8. Wrote Rick…
On September 28, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said “anyone who buys [YouTube] is a moron.” Yo, Google and your $1.6 billion, looks like he was talking about you? Speaking of Cuban, he has some thoughts about The Dallas Morning News’ recent buyouts and the state of local sports media…
This week it was revealed that eight reporters and 29 freelancers for The Miami Herald’s Spanish-language spinoff, El Nuevo Herald, got money for appearing on the U.S. government-owned Radio and TV Marti networks, which broadcasts out of Miami and into Cuba. That the Herald let some of its reporters get…
Bob Mong was on The Ticket this morning. Maybe he had something to do with Buck Showalter’s buyout? The Dallas Morning News editor Bob Mong was on, of all places, KTCK-AM (1310, The Ticket) this morning talking about the future of his newspaper. He didn’t say terribly much; surprisingly, morning-show…
On his recently launched blog, former Dallas Morning News TV critic Ed Bark takes “an up-close look at a largely unreported ratings phenomenon in D/FW,” which is how, on an almost daily basis, KDFW-Channel 4’s Good Day “whips” in the ratings the national networks’ morning shows. So, take that Today,…
Rick Perry’s folks brokered a deal that would give Belo exclusive access to Friday night’s gubernatorial debate. On Friday, the four major gubernatorial candidates will participate in the sole debate before the November 7 election. The date of the debate has already been a substantial point of contention: It’ll air…
It’s late. Damned near 6, when the front desk shuts down. But if you can make it here by then, and yer the first to e-mail me, then you’ve got a decision to make: two tix to Al Gore doing his gloom-and-doom seminar at the Nokia Theatre at Grand Prairie…
Once, the mayor told us we had broad shoulders, beautiful eyes, a strong handshake and soft skin. We thought nothing of it. If you’ve read this or this, you’re well aware that local TV reporters claim KTVT-Channel 11’s Sarah Dodd’s too chummy with Mayor Laura Miller. It’s a charge that…
One of our colleagues here just received an e-mail from the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association that contains the sad news that Dennis Vercher, the longtime editor of the Dallas Voice, died yesterday from an HIV/AIDS-related illness. Vercher had been editor of the Voice, the self-described “community newspaper for…
We now know why The Ticket pulled the confrontation between Norm Hitzges, pictured here, and Gordon Keith. Apparently, it wasn’t funny. Yeah? Who says. Apologize for the seven-second delay in getting back to this. But last week I was invaded by e-mail aliens, and then yesterday Terrell Owens almost up…
This week, the paper version of Unfair Park has a detailed story on the fledgling romance between Dallas police chief David Kunkle and television reporter Sarah Dodd. Turns out the chief cares enough about Dodd to call us and defend her journalistic integrity. Other reporters, however, including some of Dodd’s…
Guess whose fault yesterday’s T.O. extravaganza was. Wait for it, wait for it… No fair. You peeked. Yup, it was all because of the media. Says who? The media, duh. Or at least Jay Hart in The Morning Call, a Pennsylvania paper. He writes about “the suicide attempt that wasn’t”…
Brad Hawkins: Why isn’t he the biggest star in local TV news? Seriously. He’s a genius. Sad to say I was watching local TV news at 11:30 p.m. Saturday night; used to be I didn’t remember Saturday nights. (Actually, not so much.) Anyway, after USC beat Arizona 20-3, or whatever,…
