TV Brouhaha in Iowaby Allison Romano, Broadcasting & Cable
Hey, look at this - and just in time for Blog for Iowa's Focus on Media Week! Iowans for Better Local TV is featured in this week's Broadcasting & Cable!
The article is actually accurate, except for the fact that IBLTV is located in Iowa City, NOT Cedar Rapids. And they even mentioned next week's upcoming FCC meeting in Iowa City.
BFIA hats off to our own Trish Nelson and the IBLTV team. Some well-deserved recognition, to be sure - not to mention some great coverage for an important cause. See an excerpt below.
Every few weeks, 15 or so [Iowa City], Iowa, residents huddle at the library to plot another attack on one of the country's biggest TV-station owners. Iowans for Better Local TV is taking aim at the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates 60 stations nationwide, including local CBS affiliate KGAN. Frustrated by what the group says is inadequate local-news and community involvement, they are noisily pressuring Sinclair.
“We want to put Iowa values back into the product,” says Arron Wings, one of the group's founders. “We want [the] local aspect back in their news and more connection to the local community.”
RIGHT-WING AGENDA?
Iowans for Better Local TV (IBLTV) is circulating petitions and explaining their position to the media, and even considering filing a petition with the FCC to deny KGAN's license renewal. And when FCC commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan Adelstein visit Iowa City for a town-hall meeting on the future of media on Oct. 5, IBLTV members plan to further vent their frustrations.
KGAN, like most Sinclair stations, mixes locally-created news with mass-produced fare from its centralized newsroom, NewsCentral. One feature is “The Point,” a nightly editorial by Sinclair PR head Mark Hyman. Critics say Hyman's editorials are a way for the company to push a right-wing agenda over public airwaves. In eastern Iowa, viewers see Hyman on KGAN's 10 p.m. news and also on a Sinclair-produced newscast on the local Fox affiliate KFXA.
(Click here to read the rest of the article.)
