As long time CL readers will know well, John Sugg used to be the editor of this publication, and was then a senior editor with CL Newspapers.
After reading our report on the FCC hearings on cross-ownership that were held in Tampa on Tuesday, in which John Schueler from Media General, the corporate parent of the Tampa Tribune/News Channel 8/TBO.Com was at times under fire, Sugg wrote to us today, and we thought readers might be interested as well. So listed below are his thoughts on the matter:
Mitch, the report on the FCC hearing says a lot — but not enough. Media General's properties were one of about two dozen such cross-ownership media situations that were exempted from the ban on cross ownership more than 30 years ago. Part of the deal was that companies who were exempted vowed not to have unitary news and opinion decision making, not to cross-promote, etc. The Trib and WFLA simply disregarded the very portions of the agreement that enabled the cross ownership. Moreover, there has been a very, very serious deterioration in the quality of news and opinion in the Media General properties since they began "convergence" (read: breaking their agreement with the FCC) in the late 1990s. Holding a monopolistic position in H'boro County, there is no need to compete by producing quality journalism, the very reason people pick up the paper. Thus, the reason that the Trib and most other newspapers are failing isn't, as Schueler dissembled, falling classified revenues (or the internet or whatever is the excuse du jour). It is at its heart the crappy product that stems from many monopolistic practices.
Since the ill-fated (and possibly illegal) "convergence" began with Media General, it also has had a serious negative impact on public policy in Tampa and H'boro. For example, the Trib and WFLA turned news into lobbying for the Ice Palace and the Bucs' stadium. I was at the Trib when the managing editor decreed there would be no negative reporting on the stadium — and without competition in the county (and with the St. Pete Times eager to make its own deals with teams), there was no major media to report the truth about the Palace and stadium. Incredibly, the Trib allowed Tom McEwen, then sports editor, to dictate the boosterism for the sports facilities while pocketing tens of thousands of dollars from the team via a travel agency he owned. Again, with no competitive media (other than the then Weekly Planet) to report otherwise, the Trib and WFLA covered up the fact that the Lightning were owned by a Japanese outfit that had lied about its assets (it had none), was a deadbeat and was referred to in federal litigation as a bunch of "gangsters." (Disclosing the awful truth about the Lightning’s owners won the Weekly Planet a prestigious Investigative Reporters and Editors award.)
Similarly on many other subjects. On building commuter rail, for example — the Turanchik proposal of the late 1990s — the Trib and WFLA knew but didn't report that T'chik's "$300 million" train would actually cost more than $2 billion — nor, of course, did the Trib report that it had substantial real estate whose value would have soared if the rail had passed.
What's needed in Tampa and many other cities are citizen protests over the FCC's proposed ending of cross-ownership bans and other rule changes. It's worth noting that the Trib's report on the hearing hardly dealt with the issues — it's the sort of reporting where, by intent, readers are convinced of the irrelevancy of the subject. Eric Deggans at the Times had an excellent piece that said what any responsible newspaper should have reported (thereby excluding the Trib), although the Times has never reported many of its own media conflicts (as in its highly unethical pushing of Rick Baker for mayor eight years ago while never acknowledging that Baker was an attorney for the Times dealing with a very sensitive environmental issue involving the Poynter Institute, which the Times has never reported on, either).
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2010.
