Posted on 05/22/2007 12:48:55 PM PDT by Clemenza
NEW YORK - NBC News is dropping "Dateline NBC" anchor Stone Phillips in a cost-cutting move when his contract expires at the end of June.
Phillips won't formally be replaced. His co-anchor, Ann Curry, will continue and other "Dateline NBC" reporters will serve as on-air hosts when the newsmagazine presents stories they're working on, the network said Tuesday.
"It's been a wonderful 15 years," Phillips said in a statement issued by NBC. "I'm profoundly appreciative of the many friends and colleagues, past and present, who have been a part of the `Dateline' family. This is a great news division with a bright future. I wish the people of NBC News all the best."
He didn't immediately return a call for further comment.
Phillips was teamed with Jane Pauley, who left NBC is 2003, for much of his time at "Dateline NBC." At its peak, the newsmagazine churned out as many as five episodes a week.
The newsmagazine is probably best known now for reporter Chris Hansen's "To Catch a Predator" series nabbing suspected pedophiles. On NBC's fall schedule, the newsmagazine has only one permanent time slot — on little-watched Saturday night. It will be on three times a week in June.
NBC News has been restructuring to cut costs. Earlier this spring, it didn't renew the contract of "Nightly News" weekend anchor John Seigenthaler.
The Phillips move was similar in that the network is concentrating money on reporting and more versatile personalities. Seigenthaler, for example, was replaced by Lester Holt — who's also host of "Weekend Today." Curry is a newsreader on "Today" and reporter for "Dateline."
She would but the CBS brass changed the number last week.
Yep, and one of my other favorites was when he referred to Ben Franklin as a former president. I thought to myself, not only are you a dishonest fraud, but stupid too!
And sadly, he’s one of the *better* ones on “news” shows.
Tribune to cut 250 jobs
(http://www.suntimes.com/business/354215,042307trib.article)
April 23, 2007
The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times disclosed plans Monday to reduce their staffs by as many as a combined 250 jobs, the latest cutbacks in a newspaper industry reeling from a falloff in advertising and circulation.
The actions by Tribune Co.’s two largest dailies, which had been expected for months, come on top of earlier cutbacks by both papers.
The Times said it hoped to cut its staff of 2,625 by up to 150 employees, or around 5 percent. The Chicago Tribune said it intends to trim its staff by as many as 100, or 3 percent.
The cuts are to be achieved by a mix of closing vacant positions, attrition, buyouts and layoffs.
‘’The actions being undertaken at our newspapers reflect fundamental changes going on across the media industry,’’ Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman said. ‘’We cannot stand still; as revenues have slowed, our newspapers are scaling expenses accordingly.’’
Tribune said it will redeploy its resources to areas that can best generate growth, as it is now doing with Internet-focused ventures.
The Times said up to 70 jobs could be cut from the newspaper’s news operations, which would reduce the newsroom staff to about 850 people. The Times news operation employed about 1,200 at the time of its purchase by Tribune in 2000.
Times Publisher David Hiller, who took over last October when Jeffrey Johnson resigned after protesting Tribune’s proposed cuts, said the newspaper must continue to change its business model in the face of industrywide challenges.
‘’It is also crucial we reduce resources, including some of our people, in areas of our core print business where revenue is declining,’’ Hiller said in a statement.
Tribune, the nation’s second-largest newspaper publisher, last week reported a first-quarter loss of $15.6 million because of continued declines in classified advertising.
The struggling company, which owns 11 daily newspapers, 23 TV stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, accepted an $8.2 billion buyout offer by real estate tycoon Sam Zell earlier this month to take it private later this year.
Tribune shares rose 24 cents to close at $32.49 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 5.6 percent in 2007.
I’m no legal guy, but doesnt entrapment involve getting a person to do something they would not normally do?
Stone Phillips should consider himself the Keanu Reeves of the MSM:
an average guy who had a good run, earning plenty of $$$ for uttering a
few shallow-breathing monologues for a news-magazine.
Great work, if you are blessed with it for over a decade!
And now, he can TEACH at a large J-School and get paid a “celebrity professor’s” salary (six figures) a la Stephanopolus and Cornell West. Not a bad life.
There is no such thing as a “least overtly liberal” news anchor. Either they are liberal, or they are normal. No in-between allowed.
Stone Phillips is from the same small Texas city town I grew up in. Always thought he was a very good looking man.
But - I have not watched him on TV in years!
I’d never seen Phillips present some sort of political slant in his work.
I hope he gets a GMC pickup as a lovely parting gift.
Unfortunately they pick them for made up faces and cultivated voices for TV
The viewers get the media version of Paris Hilton
Because they're not arrested by NBC. They get arrested when they leave the house.
He was good looking to begin with devolve, makeup only emphasizes it.
Remember Linda-Bird Johnson’s before and after pictures when she attended the Oscars with George Hambleton?
Now, THAT was a case of makeup turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse, lol.
Sorry -
I meant they are rarely chosen for outstanding unbiased news journalistic talent, integrity, and intelligence.
When 99.9% are radical liberal democrat voters and use the media to push that agenda there is no “there” there
Oh yes they are.
I've watched late night episodes of this show on MSNBC, and 'entrapment' is accurate.
Sorry, I missed this earlier, got inundated with pings tonight!
They are usually chosen for looks and speaking voice I believe.
When I was pretty young I liked the news from those on the radio and TV who had the experience and especiallt those who were war correspondents in WWII
Until Uncle Wally in Viet Nam
I never listened to the radio for news way back and pretty much listened to the ‘big name’ newsmen on ABC,NBC, CBS, etc.
Little did I know they were of a liberal bent back then.
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