Tribune Co. Chief Innovation Officer Develops Newscast Sans Anchors or Reporters

NewsBusters ^ | August 5, 2010 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Remember Lee Abrams, the eccentric (some would say nutty) Chief Innovation Officer of the Tribune Company best known for writing bizarre stream of conciousness memos that sound like the author is on an acid trip? Well, he and his memos are back to promote the launch of a new newscast at KIAH Channel 39 in Houston which will be notable for its lack of anchors or reporters. This development comes on the heels of the utter failure of another Abrams project launched with much enthusiasm last year at WSFL-TV in South Florida, The Morning Show. The sad fate of that show was described in a memo yesterday sent out to the staff by publisher Howard Greenberg of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel which runs that station:

Earlier this morning, WSFL-TV announced the cancellation of The Morning Show, with today being the last broadcast. Launched on April 13, 2009, the program was designed to provide the competitive South Florida market with a fresh take on morning news. We had high hopes for the program, and significant effort from throughout the company went into developing the show. While we're proud of what we accomplished in a short period of time, the audience didn't build the way we had anticipated, and we had to make the difficult decision to end production. Every effort is being made to help affected employees with this transition, including assisting them in exploring placement within our organization and at other Tribune properties. We're also helping facilitate the production of resume tapes and other material for departing staff members.

[PJ-Comix]

The Chief Innovation Officer and his nuttiness strike again. Obviously the Tribune Company REWARDS failure.

Begin your Ron Jeremy jokes here...

[Erasmus]

Then it would be best to refrain from pinging him.

[SanFranDan]

Ah, I think I now understand their remarkable, long term strategy? Soon they’ll have a newscast, without having a newscast. As in they’ll all be out of a job! Brilliant! I like it.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

As I recall, Channel 39 was not one of the favorites anyway so what is to lose. Are they cutting costs like most newspapers who fired reporters and got everything from AP, Reuters, and UPI? Are they just showing tape shot by others?

Their only salvation is to go to Naked News.

[Red Badger]

[CIB-173RDABN]

I quit watching local “news” years ago when I realized it was not news anymore.

Back in the days I did a lot of travel on my job I noticed something. The same non-news news story would appear, and the way it was edited it appears it was local news production. Their reporter would ask question and the person being interviewed would answer and then there would be some footage also narrated by the local guy. The problem was, it was the same story only different markets had their own reporter doing it. There was no disclaimer that the actual story being present was from some outside source, usually a special interest group trying to get their version of the truth out.

I understand the need to save money and use outside sources, what I don't understand, and object to, is not putting some notice in the story as to who provided it.

The broadcast news stop reporting news, and like their brothers and sisters in the print medium became advocates.