Posted on 09/15/2004 8:54:45 PM PDT by John Jorsett
The reactions of affiliate stations of CBS's refusal to back down from their increasingly discredited Bush National Guard story range from patient to angry.
Ken Charles, the program director of KPRC radio in Houston, told the Kerry Spot Wednesday evening that he has notified CBS Radio news that he will be switching to Fox News feed for their Friday evening news, instead of using the Dan Rather-anchored CBS feed.
"Dan has been doing the Friday 4 P.M. slot for about three or four years, and this is the first time Dan Rather has been the story," Charles said. "I have a problem with my news people being the story."
Charles said that his station is under contract with CBS, and that the move is unlikely to have a financial impact for CBS. The public-relations damage, however, could be significant.
"We're the number-seven market in the nation, and I would hope it would send a message to them about how serious this is," Charles said. "I announced at 5:10, and since then (about an hour and a half) we've gotten 150 e-mails from listeners, all supportive.
Charles said he had communicated his concerns to a CBS News official, who had told the concerned program director to wait until the network's Wednesday announcement. That announcement was expected at noon, and was delayed until after 5 P.M. EST. When the terse statement released by CBS News President Andrew Heyward did not address any of the question about the story, Charles made his decision.
Several CBS television affiliates haven't returned phone calls to the Kerry Spot yet, but others have shared e-mails from viewers who are complaining about Rather's now widely discredited report. Some affiliates aren't much happier than the viewers.
One affiliate-station official wrote, "this issue raises more questions about CBS' newsgathering ability than it does answers about President Bush.... On a local level, everything we do must be factually correct, fair and balanced. Unfortunately, we can't control the network news. The report should never have seen the light of day given their inability to justify that it's factually correct."
Another official at a different affiliate station wrote to a concerned viewer that his station is covering the matter locally, and talking to its own experts. He called the CBS report, "not acceptable at all."
A third West Coast affiliate is telling viewers: "CBS News is responsible for all content aired during their news programs. Feel free to call CBS in New York at 212-975-3247 between the hours of 7a-8:30a & 11a-12:30p Pacific time Monday-Friday."
Derek McGinty, who hosts a show on Washington's local CBS television affiliate, said on his program Wednesday night that he contacted CBS network headquarters in an attempt to line up an interview with Dan Rather. Rather and the network agreed, but "time for that interview simply ran out," McGinty said.
That is really damning. I'm impressed with this station manager.
I emailed and called my CBS affiliates, DID U?
AMEN...............AND a BIGTIME thank you to Mr. Charles for taking a stand!!
Dan Rather is an egomaniac whose blind and idiotic pursuit of partisan dirt has resulted in major difficulties nationwide for many others, as well.
Dan Rather owes a MULTITUDE of apologies and CBS would be wise to boot him just for the simple fact that he has proven himself to be a selfish and self centered a$$hole!!!!
I like this solution best, I think. How many affiliates are there? Gotta be over 500 . . .
I have to say that since this story broke last week, I've been amazed at the number of people that I know who dislike Dan Rather. It's no wonder that CBS's ratings are so low.
If CBS boots Rather now, it will be an admission that the memos were forged. They will no longer have even their threadbare "protection of source" excuse. At that point, they must give him up and they are truly doomed. That's why they won't fire Rather. He may, however, surprise us all with an early retirement (and nobody will let on that he was told in person by Redstone to do that).
I wonder if any TV stations will drop CBS and go the Fox News Channel. Is their any law against a 24 hour TV news channel?
Ken Charles is great. Not only does he do good "station manager stuff", but he often speaks on the air while hanging out with his on-air talent, including talk radio host Chris Baker (who is also stellar). Ken Charles could easily do his own talk radio show and be successful.
Plus, he's deadly on any Seinfeld or Simpsons related trivia questions... KPRC 950 has "reverse trivia" every Friday afternoon -- instead of the radio hosts trying to stump callers, the callers try to stump the hosts in order to win, and I quote, "cheesy crap". Ken Charles is the resident Simpsons/Seinfeld expert, and he rarely misses. He's got a near photographic memory, and when asked about some obscure piece of dialog, he'll actually mumble through a re-enactment of the scene in order to recall the line in question, like someone humming a tune in order to "play" to the part of the lyrics they're trying to remember.
If anyone wants to send him email to give him a pat on the back about this move, he can be reached at http://www.950kprc.com/email-kencharles.html.
"I announced at 5:10, and since then (about an hour and a half) we've gotten 150 e-mails from listeners, all supportive."
We should take some time to email support to those stations that are standing up to CBS. Positive re-enforcement can be as effective as negative scorn.
bump
Nice to see someone willing and able to fight back against the garbage of Dan Rather's Big Old Media Empire.
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