Howard Kurtz Loses Job at FOX and Charlie Kirk

It is often said not to delve into how the sausage is made lest you find out and that knowledge keeps from eating sausage again. I've always loved knowing how things work so I came to know Howard Kurtz from his CNN show Reliable Sources which I would often check out on Sundays before work. I didn't know about his other previous work with the Washington Post. He had started there with Jack Anderson, a legendary reporter and columnist whose syndicated work appeared in Winnipeg at The Sun.

When I first saw his show, I largely had Sundays off. I'd be watching Meet the Press and Reliable Sources among others. My Sundays are not my own much anymore so watching the Sunday political shows is more rare. Kurtz left the show in 2013 to start a similar program on FOX called Media Buzz which replaced a program FOX already had that examined the media review of the week that was.

I don't get FOX News on cable. This is not because of any bias against it but because buying the news package that included it and MSNBC seemed superfluous. I do get FOX News and MSNBC as part of my satellite radio so I tend to bounce around channels to get a sense of what is happening south of the border. On my cable, I continued to watch Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter until CNN cancelled the show due to partisan pressures. Stelter has worked his way back into the network for media analysis.

One of the only programs I used to listen to on FOX was Media Buzz. It has become increasingly a politics show and less about media in recent years. And too many FOX authorized guests repeat talking points. I find it boring just as find three word sloganeering boring. I found Kurtz pushed back or added addendums to some of the blatant propaganda but it was a fairly conservative friendly show. 

It was probably not friendly enough. In today's Republican world, the expectation is you promote Trump and MAGA or face the consequences. It is very likely that Kurtz's Trump interview that challenges falsehoods in the election had some network people looking at possible changes.

Following the death of Charlie Kirk, Kurtz said that Kirk was no angel. It was the wrong thing to say because many Republicans were very much trying to make him an angel. Criticism of this kind was just not in the cards and FOX cancelled Media Buzz in favour of a Sunday morning political show with reliable conservatives. One FOX news channel personality mocked Kurtz over the loss of his show. Greg Gutfield has often being particularly cruel.

Kurtz will continue with his FOX podcast and will be an analyst for two years but he has been de-platformed essentially. I have no idea what the ratings of the show were. I used to rely on media analysts to tell me what the ratings and profitability was. Now, no show exists of that.

To be fair, Canada hasn't had very much in the way of news and media analysts. I can think of no show that has existed or presently exists. That's true of both public and private broadcasters, We have huge gaps in coverage in terms of media, education, sports and business.

I'll miss the media show on FOX just as I missed CNN's show. I think politics killed them. And now there won't be a show to sometimes point out that media needs to a light shone on them at all times.

MSNBC to Become MS Now

The owner of MSNBC, like a lot of media companies, has been trying to separate their assets into what can bluntly be called legacy media and new media.  The moniker MSNBC which used to stand for MSN and NBC. The portmanteau being MSNBC. The company started as a cable news network in 1996 to replace NBC's America's Talking that lasted from 1994 to 1996. CNN had been around since 1980 by this point. Fox News was founded the same year MSNBC started. For the entire existence of the MSNBC's existence, it has relied on NBC as the backbone. This all ends this year as nearly all the cable assets are spun off from NBCUniversal into its own unit. For MSNBC, it means a new logo ands call sign. It will be MS Now. It stands for My Source for News, Opinion and the World.

Microsoft sold off their shares of the network in 2005 and the website in 2012 leaving NBCUniversal News Group a wholly owned division of NBCUniversal. And all of it, of course, owned by Comcast. In recent years, Comcast has been confronted by cord cutting in cable and has looked to organize the company so that cable would be separate from network and from streaming.

Comcast is one of the largest communications companies in the world. It is still controlled by the Roberts family in Philadelphia that own a chunk of the shares. Comcast has its headquarters in Philadelphia. The company has owned NBCUniversal and all its operations since 2013. In recent years President Trump has taken to attacking Brian Roberts for the viewpoints of MSNBC and for the removal of a controversial Republican from the station. Since 2012 though, Roberts has not donated to any party nor endorsed any of them.

MSNBC started off, much like CNN, as a straight forwards news channel. Leaning almost completely on NBC, the channel ran rolling news coverage and broadcast quite a bit of programming from the local affiliates of the main channel. Meanwhile FOX had political leanings quite early on and couldn't lean on the FOX channel for news material since there was no national broadcast. Heck, even FOX Sports had only started in 1994 so the network was building everything from the ground up. This largely came from recruiting people from other networks including their exec Roger Ailes who came from the precursor to MSNBC.

CNN has always has had their there own service which theur built from the beginning 1980. Presently, in a more polarized America, CNN has ranked third among news services but internationally, it is the gold standard and runs well. CNN also recruited from U.S. and world networks but they built their own reporting infrastructure. Many times CNN just kept rolling coverage and beat all the competitors with being present and reporting. It wasn't all punditry which has people switching off if it isn't reporting an ongoing event.

The FOX approach to all politics all the time and the flashy, eye-catching graphics changed both CNN and MSNBC to feature the same. MSNBC decides to lean towards the Democrats whereas FOX was all in for Republicans. CNN was more in the middle and as such, bled viewers to the upstart networks. No network mainstream or cable has not seen a plunge in numbers year over year. It remains to be seen whether changes by MSNBC or any anything in television will work to keep news networks functional.

The host-based programming tends to eat their own. It doesn't matter what the networks do. The days of Larry King being around for decades on CNN is unheard of today. In the constant jockeying for position comes burnout and scandal in the the various hosts. Ratings have always been important going back to the radio days. However, the levels of scandal taking down hosts, execs and the like has been rather astounding.

Not many of those hosts of shows around the time of the pandemic are around on many of the news networks today, including MSNBC. Rachel Maddow, one of the stars for years is down to one day a week. However, she is the only one to crack the top 15 shows in the ratings. The rest all belong to FOX. There are no CNN programs in the top 15. Given the decline in overall numbers and the cord-cutting, no network can be happy with their ratings if profitability keeps declining.

The changes of MSNBC to MS Now could give it the leadership and resources needed to help it be less reliant on NBC and more likely able to move to digital more fully. There are some mocking the new call sign and logo. Some of that is political mockery from Trump and his allies on the right in media. There are others legitimately questioning  using MS with it being known as a shorthand for Multiple Sclerosis. Some even thinking using NOW is questionable since so many titles include it already.  Some on the right are calling BS Now.

MSNBC probably thought they couldn't use MS+ or MS Max either with the plus and max being a frequent add on. Personally, I would have opened for The Independent which was Universal Studios original name and in keeping with the present ownership but now independent of NBC. To distinguish from the British online newspaper of same name, they could have just added a tagline such as Citizen or News or whatever.

The important thing for the new enterprise is to make the most of their new start. Subscription and digital remains the future of almost all cable television. And mainstream TV for that matter. It is hard to know what the future will be for news and broadcast in general. I should make clear that I want a variety of news options. When local news closes, it starts to limit the information coming in. I have repeated that Winnipeg is lucky to have to daily newspapers owned by Winnipeggers. We have sports and news podcasts. We have two radio stations that do regular news. We have several ethnic press and radio news. We have a national indigenous broadcaster based in the city.

Nationally, I read Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and National Post. I watch CBC, CTV and local TV news. In the U.S, I read or watch whatever I can from FOX to CNN, I listened on Sirius XM. I read British, Australian and Israeli newspapers fairly often. I listen to news and opinion podcasts. The point is: I like a wide range of material to stay informed across the spectrum. I hope the new MS Now will be part of the conversation.

Journalism Support Manitoba 2025

It seems ironic that the Manitoba government would advertise meetings on journalism in the province by buying advertising on social media owned outside of Canada. Not surprisingly, the first meeting had no one attending because they didn't hear. None of the social media is based in Manitoba nor does the ad money spent there stay in Canada. That isn't to say that all aspects of social media are bad but it is often a dumpster fire.  The artificial intelligence is now allowing for racist and abusive material that even freedom if speech supporters must feel queasy about. The outright propaganda from outside the country is very alarming.

Governments have legitimate reasons to advertise. For example, the changes to Winnipeg Transit are being advertised on social media. It is unclear whether this is just a general information release or paid advertising. Certainly the Recycle Everywhere ads are paid advertising when they appear on social media. In fairness though, Recycle Everywhere ads appear to spread out among local media.

Ontario has several initiatives in place to support local journalism and media. It is usually redirecting money from social media that is now owned in Canada to media that actually is owned and covers regional content. It is the money the government already spends but now being spent in Canada. It is not a subsidy.

Freedom of speech has never been to allow crying fire in a crowded movie theatre. In recent weeks the content on TikTok on politics has been awful. I long deleted my Twitter account even before Elon Musk bought it. Even then it was becoming a bit repetitive and less reliable. And sometimes fairly reactionary. I'll admit to sometimes getting into it online but I don't recall ever being outright cruel or piling on someone. I continue to blog and generally the response time for people can be months and years later. I'm okay with that.

It used to be newspapers had a lifespan of a day or two, a week tops before they went in the bottom of the birdcage or out with recycling. However, digitally, a story could be read weeks, months and years later. One doesn't have to wait for it to be available at the public library. But what happens when you local newspaper, radio station, TV station, magazine or other media shuts down with nothing to replace it? Even the archived material on websites aside from the waybackmachine disappear. 

Communities, like Brandon, that continue to grow in Manitoba have lost their TV station, weekly newspaper and lack talk radio. They still have a daily newspaper that has Manitoba ownership. Sadly, many Manitoba communities have lost their only local sources of news, weather and sports. And the only archive of it might be in the local museum if it is in print. 

There is a local news initiative funded by the federal government to assist in salaries for specific regional coverage. Both the Winnipeg Sun and Free Press get this funding.  There is also funding coming from social media giants for content they use from local media. The government has had to push for this because these large companies have been using content without paying for it. 

There are some that are opposed to any government involvement but government has posted ads and notifications in media for decades with no editorial interference. Those have dried up as has private advertising. Large foreign social media hoovers up all that revenue. 

There is a lot the Manitoba government can do to help and much of it is what they did before social media and that is advertise in local radio, TV, newspapers and podcasters. Fortunately, for Manitoba there is a lot of Manitoba-owned media to support. This isn't true all over Canada. The national Post Media group which includes newspapers all over the country is American-owned. Our Winnipeg Sun is Manitoba owned but still gets a lot of content from the American-owned National Post. Something to keep in mind when the Sun asks for CBC to be defunded just so private media owned by Americans can be more profitable and send those profits south of the border.

The ties to the Republican party in the ownership group that has majority shares in the Postmedia group pushes for ever more conservative reporting. And this is the group that pushes for the end of the CBC and is generally closing their own newsrooms each year.

Thankfully, Manitoba still has a locally owned media that the province of Manitoba can support.

Here are the main ways it can support local:

1. Set a fixed amount of government and Crown corporation advertising money that is already being spent on Manitoba-based media. Makes that list of approved media available to to municipalities and private interests.

2. Create a tax credit for those approved media for anyone buying advertising on various platforms. Not sure what sort of cap should be on that spending if any.

3. Supports for changing media to a non-profit where the absence of support may result in the closure of that media. In fact, make it possible to create different types of ownership for media.

The failure to do anything could see more closures. Thompson, for example, has lot both its print papers. Any of the above supports might have helped those paper survive.

Politicians might have a love hate relationship with media but if the local media completely disappears, it can result no local coverage of what is important to the area that supports local business, news, weather and sports. The fact that an all party committee is looking for answers shows that this isn't just a business decision anymore. It is a matter of concern when an area just gets abandoned in favour of companies that are not even Canadian. 

John Wheeler WDAZ/WDAY Retires - Winnipeg Perspective 2025

I've written how powerful WDAZ/WDAY has been in terms of being watched and recognized by people in Winnipeg. The NBC/ABC affiliate has been seen north of the border since 1967 although in my house we didn't get cable until l970 and colour TV till 1971. WDAZ was the Grand Forks satellite of the larger WDAY of Fargo. The local newscast of WDAZ was seen in Winnipeg and for travellers from Manitoba who went to Grand Forks. 

We became familiar with Terry Dullum as anchor from 1975 and Pat Sweeney at sports from 1983. We also got to see weather personality Dewey Bergquist who gave the weather from Fargo but also the Grand Forks broadcast. Some people who travelled to the States were familiar with Bergquist because they heard or saw him in Fargo doing weather as early as the 1950s.

I remember when Bergquist retired in 1985, there were a few of those old timers who were sad on both sides of the border. Even for myself, he was the face of weather south of us for 15 years of my life. He was replaced in 1985 by the first full time meteorologist in the state John Wheeler. He was based at the WDAY location in Fargo but did the Grand Forks WDAZ broadcast as well.

It would be some time before Winnipeg would get a local meteorologist with John Sauder first with CKY/CTV and CBC Winnipeg. We have had to receive broadcasts from weather specialists most of the broadcast history on Manitoba. Even now, we have do with broadcast meteorologists outside Manitoba. 

Our regional relationship with different areas is fading with digital and satellite radio, cord cutting from cable and the like. Some young people only get information from smart phones so are not exposed to television in the same way. There were just fewer listening and viewing options. This meant many people were exposed to the same entertainment and news. 

For Winnipeg, the 1970s and the 1980s saw most in the city having cable television. There were three Canadian networks and four U.S. networks (including PBS). A weather channel, a French channel and public access pretty much rounded out the dial. While many programs were simulcast, often weather updates broke into the North Dakota signals. It is at those times a meteorologist like John Wheeler would appear with a bad weather report.

In the 1970s, I began to watch U.S. national news. My favourite network was ABC which was on KTHI from Fargo. I was aware of local news from that station but my interest was more in the national ABC World News Tonight broadcast. Still, I knew that the weather guy at least in the early 1980s at KTHI was Rob Thorson. The KTHI station had the tallest tower in the world. It was needed because reception was a problem for all the American station. During bad weather it was possible to lose signal for any and all the stations.

WDAZ was the closest North Dakota cable station to Winnipeg (along with Prairie Public Television and PBS). KCND Pembina, North Dakota was closed and moved to Winnipeg to become CKND in 1974. The WDAZ station was affiliated with NBC which in the 1970s was third place in the ratings in the U.S. whereas KTHI in Fargo carried ABC and that network had moved into number one in ratings.

NBC programming had a few bright spots in 1970s such as Saturday Night Live but had programming that older Americans liked such as Marcus Welby, Ironside, Columbo, McLeod and McMillan and Wife. Other programming later in the decade such as Little House on the Prairie, Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life appealed to families and younger kids but network struggled. Regardless, in North Dakota, WDAZ/WDAY had high ratings which may have had to do with local news which they did very well. And once someone tuned into a network, they were likely to stick with it. No remore controls back then.

In 1983, everything changed in August when ABC went to WDAY/WDAZ and asked them to change affiliations to their number one network. For ABC, it was an attempt to lock in Fargo and Grand Forks but also Bismarck which even in the 1980s did not have much in network affiliates. KTHI was completely taken by surprise with many staff only learning about it after the deal was done. It caught people in Manitoba by surprise too although we had no say in what U.S networks did.

Suddenly, WDAZ with ABC affiliation had the number one station. KTHI with NBC now had the third rated network. The good news for KTHI was that ratings steadily climbed as they focused on comedies and acclaimed dramas and reclaimed the long lost position at the top. It was in 1985 when John Wheeler came aboard the WDAZ broadcast as meteorologist.

While Grand Forks was smaller than Fargo, they offered a very good news broadcast than won awards for their coverage of the 1997 flood. Wheeler became a recognizable face for his cut-ins during bad weather south of the border. By 1986, the only two North Dakota stations left on cable were WDAZ and Prairie Public when KTHI and KXJB were dropped because of signal quality. This meant that John Wheeler was the only weather guy we saw from North Dakota in our homes in Winnipeg.

In the years following we received our NBC, CBC and later Fox signals from Detroit, Toldeo, Rochester, New York and lastly Minneapolis. Or connection to WDAZ remained strong even as the Grand Forks station closed their news department in 2018. Winnipeg still got their signal from Grand Forks but the news came from WDAY in Fargo. All through this John Wheeler was the meteorologist. That is, until this week when he retired. 

His weather department grew to six people. It is an example of what local news can be. WDAY has a large weather, sports and news department and lots of local broadcasting. It is worth comparing to our own local news which is pathetically tiny when covering local sports or have meteorologists employed. John Wheeler's retirement is the end of another era of broadcasters and he'll be missed even from those in Canada.

All over, there have been retirements. In the last two years, we have seen Janet Stewart and John Sauder leave local TV broadcasts. Some have been let go in cost cutting. Given how local TV has seen audiences drift away to so many other platforms, perhaps we never get to know someone as well as a John Wheeler. The audience has grown so fragmented. Here's to John Wheeler in retirement!

Media Changes in North Dakota and Minnesota

Media shake-ups abound on both sides of the border. in 2024, Winnipeg Sun was spun off from National Post media group to locally owned Kevin Klein Group. It marks the first time that both major newspapers in the city have been owned locally in their history. For the Sun, it has led to more local news columnists. It also led to breaking more stories.

The Winnipeg Free Press has also added more local columnists over the years even if some have been controversial such as Charles Adler. Local is what newspapers and TV/Radio news need to stand out and yes, make money. Large conglomerates cut and cut again and then often just close and add the tax loss to write off debts. They are rarely builders. Free Press ownership is shared by Winnipegger Bob Silver and former Winnipegger Ronald N. Stern.

Two local owners of major newspapers in Canada is so unusual that is you can count on three fingers the cities they are in. For the west, it is only one city: Winnipeg. And so far they are fighting a battle against what many in Europe call the six gatekeepers: Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft. Even those who receive no government money, companies such as these can control access to their platforms. The breakdown of Microsoft update shutting down the Internet is one 2024 example of how bad things can get. And digital ad money gets swooped up and AI from these giants creates content mined from creators all over. In other words, an independent journalist who breaks a story can see it used by the biggies and not get paid for it.

The gatekeepers can do this to even larger companies too. Artificial Intelligence is being used to create new stories. But where does that information come from? It is often mined from companies such as the New York Times. If the largest newspapers, media companies and the like are vulnerable from the super giants, how do the rest of us even cope. Those saying that the government tinkering in business ignore the fact anti-trust moves are to keep things competitive in a capitalist market. For example, the modern Internet became possible when AT&T was broken up. It triggered some of the biggest investments in telecom ever seen which was essential to a widespread, faster Internet.

The questions of what to do about the supranational giants will remain the question of the day. In recent weeks, Google's search engine has been declared a monopoly by the U.S. government. It remains to be seen see what the federal agencies will decide to do. In the meantime, news and media companies are coming up with new strategies to stay relevant and profitable. North Dakota and Minnesota have seen some of their largest media companies make moves in 2024.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has dropped the Minneapolis part and it is now Minnesota Star Tribune. This would be in keeping with their sports teams that have always been wise to using Minnesota for their NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB teams without fail. Minneapolis and St. Paul are truly Twin Cities and there are communities of some size all through the metropolitan area. Changing the name makes sense.

A competing broadsheet in St. Paul, Minnesota also dropped their city name in favour of just Pioneer Press. It is not owned locally and have experienced massive cuts over the years. In 2006 they had over 200 unionized writers. By 2023, that number was down to 23. The MediaNews Group that owns the paper and has a reputation of cuttings. Still, like the Star Tribune, it is trying to extend its readership and their website to include all of Minnesota. Their website is twincities.com which doesn't even mention Pioneer Press.

The Twin Cities also has MinnPost.com which is a non-profit digital news for the region. TV and radio stations have substantial news and sports content in Minnesota as well as North Dakota. PBS has extensive coverage of the regions. While there is less local ownership of TV and radio stations in big markets likes Minneapolis, there remains some. In this way, they are not much different than Winnipeg where nearly all local TV and radio has ownership outside Manitoba.

It is the digital audience that everyone in media is trying to capture. Just as landlines are being cut, people are cutting their print newspapers and cable. The problem is that digital ads don't pay as much as print or TV ones. Plus, the gatekeepers scoop up all the money that is there as well as use the content for their own ends. It is the definition of antitrust. 

What the big digital companies don't do as well is news that people might want or need locally. Reddit has discussions on local stuff but it isn't curated in news, weather and sports categories in the way other media is. To that end, local news and TV/radio in North Dakota and Minnesota are offering much more local appeal. Having a local meteorologist reporting is standard for TV stations in the U.S. where some of the wildest weather keeps them on our toes. Winnipeg does not make this a priority. Also, the new digital sub-channels that a station like WDAY Fargo as makes local sports a priority. Al the high school football games in the Fargo region is on the WDAY sub-channels. We don't have digital sub-channels on TV or radio in Manitoba yet and none seem to be happening in Canada. It would appear media empires and the CRTC just don't see the need. If it is Canadian content guidelines that are required, there would seem to be enough library material of older shows to put in place.

In terms of Minnesota, the 157 years old Star Tribune is hiring more writers, not less. The are focusing on placing more reporters outside Minneapolis-St. Paul and covering areas such as business, downtown, regional state issues and investigations. Cannabis stores are new in Minnesota so they will cover that. This is a familiar area for Free Press who covered cannabis with a dedicated journalist for a while. Overall, the state-wide focus means that the Star Tribune will be reaching large audiences but still remain hyper-local. Large media networks just don't cover those areas except in general terms of news, weather and sports.

There will be a lot of eyes on the Star Tribune's investment in expanded coverage. Glen Taylor, the billionaire local owner, is spending new money on top of the $100 million that he paid for the paper in 2014 has turned the paper around. It makes money and has maintained around 225 writing staff and a total of 1,000 or so altogether. The Free Press, by contrast, has 50 reporter and 580 total staff. The Free Press also have community newspapers, Brandon and Steinbach journalists which adds to total writers in Manitoba.  

The Winnipeg Free Press, like Star Tribune, have rich owners. The Free Press is owned by Bob Silver from Winnipeg and Ronald N. Stern, formerly from Winnipeg but now based in Vancouver. Bob Silver is the director in charge. Stern owns companies valued just under $2 billion including many based in Winnipeg. Some wags have suggested that only papers with deep pocketed owners, preferably local, will ever invest in local media. Examples abound in Canada and the U.S. of this.

Digital subscriptions, as the New York Times has shown, is the way for the newspapers to find success. However, the big six grow ever more powerful so that that they can simply use artificial intelligence to create news stories largely harvested from what others report. All the money flowing to the big six even threatens the major industrial nations. It is the inherent danger if antitrust is not pursued. Total monopolies bullying nations.

The Star Tribune is probably not finished evolving. Both the Star Tribune and Free Press are doing newsletters and podcasts. Those are likely a lot of better for a newspaper than X/Twitter or Facebook. As the fifth largest newspaper in America and the addition of hiring six more Minnesota reporters, it will be creating considerably content.

In Canada, TV and radio conglomerates such as Corus, Rogers and Bell use their news teams across platforms. However, they have all made cuts and likely overpaying for show rights in the U.S. This makes them routinely ask to cut Canadian content. Rarely do they use Canadian-made content such as news as part of their commercial success. The mergers and acquisitions and overpaying for product brings inevitable cuts. And for what? Some of the radio and TV stations that get bought get closed down. Often enough there isn't even an attempt to sell the enterprise. Luckily, in Winnipeg, the National Post sold three papers including the Winnipeg Sun to Kevin Klein so they could be owned locally. There is a strong possibility that the papers might have been closed otherwise.

Throughout North America, the rate of closures is about two newspapers a week. Often this mean no local coverage of any regional issues which can lead to poor performance from local officials who face no scrutiny. You don't need a billionaire for a small media company but you sure could use a leading citizen or two interested in running and operating something that can't be treated like a franchise 

with identical reporting.

The Star Tribune has a billionaire owner in Glen Taylor and a local interested in investing in more reporting. The competitive market in Minnesota will be very interesting to keep an eye on. However, Minnesota is not the only state to keep an eye on. North Dakota has seen their own local media become regional in focus.

In the case of North Dakota, Winnipeg has been able to watch the growth of this media company much more closely. Anyone from Manitoba has been able to read the Grand Forks Herald and Fargo Forum newspapers has been exposed this Pulitzer-prize winning companies. The Herald won the Pulitzer for its coverage of the 1997 flood and fire which flooded and burned down their building.  The Forum won the Pulitzer for coverage of the 1957 F5 tornado that killed over 100 people. It was the northern most F5 today until the Elie, Manitoba F5 in 2007. 

The Black-Marcil family have built their business from the Fargo Forum platform. The newspaper was started in 1878 and took on the name Forum in 1891. The Black-Marcil family have owned it since 1917 and took over the Grand Forks Herald in 2006. Forum Communications is also a TV and radio owner. Most in Winnipeg will be familiar with today's WDAY (formerly WDAZ) that has been on the cable band for decades. Along with Prairie Pubic Broadcasting (PBS), these two station remain the only North Dakota stations still seen in Manitoba.

Forum Communications, from their Fargo headquarters, has run a large news team from their newspaper as well as their TV station. WDAY began in 1953 and was originally a NBC affiliate with a helping of other network programming from CBC, ABC and Dumont. A sister station in Grand Forks was started in 1967 because the region needed a station since Fargo's signal was now powerful enough to reach the area with CBC Winnipeg's broadcast. WDAZ ended in 2006 except for a news bureau of WDAY.

The Marcil family has had to adjust to the size of the state and but to go where their audience is. The state capital is down the highway from Fargo and has to be covered so a Forum bureau reporter is based there. The WDAY network maintains a bureau and sales office in Grand Forks. All of the newspapers that Forum Communications has purchased from big media companies have been folded into a news service that covers North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota.

In 2024, Forum Communications continues to pick up independent TV stations in places like South Dakota with the intent of establishing a regional media presence. The company has been expanding rather contracting. While it was a blow to Grand Forks to lose WDAZ, the trade off has been great state broadcasting of local sports throughout the region including Grand Forks. No national media corporation will ever be interested in this type of work.

Forum also owns WDAY radio but literally everything in radio is owned by huge conglomerates. Forum contracts out management to a North Dakota media group. Almost everything in American AM radio is conservative or Christian broadcasting. In many cases there is not a single employee working aside from some technical person. It has been problematic in disasters as there is often no one to even broadcast emergency signals as mandated by the FCC.

Bismarck, which is the second largest city in North Dakota, literally has no media that is locally owned. Were it not for  Forum Communications, it would not have any North Dakota owned media. So much of newspaper, TV and radio industry is controlled from somewhere else and often, they would rather shutter the business than attempt to sell it. It has been Forum Communications that has picked up these assets when they have come available.

In Canada and the U.S. we have seen newspapers, TV station and radio stations closed down with very little attempt to find buyers. Assets are trades by big corporations and then dumped after after a while. It is only local owners who will care such as we see in Minneapolis and Fargo or in Winnipeg. And the goal of the local owners is to expand coverage and reach a larger regional audience.

New York Times versus Washington Post

In recent years, two of the largest newspapers in the U.S. have struggled under the challenges of operating print and digital publications in a time when news operations are closing all over the U.S. and the world. Both papers have deep pocketed owners are navigating a world that shouts fake news for reporting that doesn't reflect their views. In America, newspaper readers are more likely to vote Democrat in recent years. This should not diminish their importance in news gathering. For the Washington Post, the commitment of their reporters has seen one assassinated and another held hostage for treason in a very short time.

The New York Times has about 1500 staff and the Washington Post has about 1000. Both have had their share of controversies over the years including that of bias and continuing bias. Some of this even applies to something like the New York Times Best Seller list that some conservatives says works against them. A recent Economist magazine investigation says they are right.

At one time books stores like McNally carried New York Times but that is an expensive proposition when the digital forms are so available today. Almost all print papers that used to come to the city from other places have ended. A place like Dominion News used to carry so many newspapers from all over daily. There was a time when Washington Post Syndicate columnists would appear in newspapers all across North America including Winnipeg. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Washington Post began to be known as being the investigative and insiders report of Capitol Hill. The reporter as hero with Bernstein and Woodward became synonymous with The Post.

It isn't like the New York Times was being a slouch. They had reporters in the various bureaus such as Vietnam covering some of the biggest stories in countries all over the world. But they also also reporters throughout the U.S. including fair size coverage in Washington. Between the Times and the Post, the amount of world-wide reporting bureaus easily surpassed U.S. TV and cable networks. No one quite has the coverage of the Wall Street Journal though. They have over 80 bureaus in over 50 countries. But it has always been different for a business newspaper reporting on markets across the world.

Almost all newspapers including the Times and the Post have laid off workers. Google, Facebook and others are hoovering up advertising dollars while using content produced by others. The Times has gotten better at subscription service and content people want to read and participate in such as Wordle and their crossword puzzle. Not everything is politics. New York City has so much media in it that if a publication does meet the needs, there are several newspapers in the city that will. Washington has a few newspapers but really only one is the daily newspaper where you would get your weather, sports and locals news as well. The Washington Post can't really think the Washington Times is competition.

There is a lot of disillusionment with newspapers in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. They have made big errors in the past, made choices in their coverage but in some cases, it is just cynicism about all established forms of government, media, religion and culture. At worst, it is outright hostility. The culture wars writ large where the media is the enemy. Even business papers like the Wall Street Journal which are more likely to have conservative views are not embraced as they still don't show enough deference to Trump or his movement.

The Washington Post is going through some angst about losing readership and has changed their editor in the last while. So what is happening and why does the New York Times seem to have an edge in the new journalism world? I mentioned a few areas. The Times tries to engage with specialized areas such as book reviews, crosswords and other things. They have been known for their cooking section for a very long time. These are things along with video games that drive new audiences. The Times also makes use of social media and podcasts. They cut their sports department and contracted it out to wholly owned The Athletic. There was some calls that this might be union busting. Since sports reporters were transferred elsewhere in the paper, the argument didn't go anywhere.

The changes at the top at the Post possibly reflect that the paper, despite the need to be innovative, has failed to add value in the way as the Times has. The New York Times Books and Games sections make it a must read. They have a climate section and recipes section but recently shut down their weekend section of the paper. Politics and Investigation are too areas of strengths but if Republicans are not reading your newspaper, you are hooped.

The Boston Globe, another big metro paper, makes sure they are the go to for real estate in Boston. They also have advice columns. They also embrace podcasts which is where many of the younger news people go for information.  A few other sections are must reads and that is why their digital subscriptions are up. In Winnipeg, the Free Press has a religion section that other newspapers don't touch. They tried cannabis a few years ago but it didn't stick. They once had an exceptional pets section. Cars and real estate have made the Free Press a must read for many.

The Post is probably saved by their Metro section covering Washington, Maryland and Virginia. The local news and sports is what will keep readers coming back. There is nothing wrong with newspapers having an editorial slant. It is important to label news, analysis and opinion as clearly as you can. There will be people who dislike coverage no matter what angle it takes. In recent years many American newspapers have recruited reporters and editors from the UK who are thought to have a more spirited approach to news gathering. The opposite certainly isn't true where there are few American editors of the big papers in Britain. The Free Press is not immune and have hired some Brits from time to time to the staff themselves.

There are some fantastic columnists on the Washington Post but the New York Times does more to show them off on the first page of their website. And has been clearly pointed out, it is the editors job to make sure the paper is not boring. That is not to say to filled with clickbait but interesting coverage, strong analysis and well argued opinions. The new people in charge at the Post recently called their reporting boring. It remains to be seen if the Washington Post can reclaim lost readership. At the moment their CEO and publisher is fighting for his career in court over his time as leader at the Times of London. 

It is the New York Times that seems to have come up with ways to be relevant, make money but serve the public interested in a variety of things a newspaper provides. The line has blurred a bit and it is not just about print but pictures, video, podcasting and up to date breaking news. Still, a newspaper will take longer to develop stories, give them more in depth, develop sources and then break news themselves rather than just reporting after the fact. In recent years though, newspapers have fallen on manufacturing grievance rather than reporting. It is the low hanging fruit in journalism. 

The Times just doesn't have columnists. They have some very good reporters and do investigations well. These often require resources and time to do those stories. Not all are politics. Consumer and technology stores often take time take to put together. The various foreign bureaus offer insight just not found in television news since there are just fewer TV reporters based elsewhere. 

In the United States, polarization seems mean talk radio is a conservative medium, newspapers a liberal one. TV network news liberal and cable a mix of liberal and conservatives but even more slanted. Online it is often most slanted. It is sad that newspapers are being abandoned by conservatives. It didn't matter who you were in Washington, everyone read the Post. Now conservatives want to only hear from conservative sources and liberals want to hear from liberal sources. It is a confirmation bias that bangs it's head against certain realities. Unless some people accept alternate facts or narrative.

There is still much debate about social media like Google and Facebook hoovering up ad dollars. Even the Canadian federal government has spent millions on foreign owned social media advertisements. It seems counter to what is needed for a national media of any kind. Not every small newspaper can adopt the subscription model as successfully as the New York Times. Advertising remains important. The big social media companies seem prone to hacks, agent provocateurs from foreign governments and actors and sharing information with other companies who don't take privacy or security seriously. Worst, is the anti-competitive nature which concentrates everything in fewer and fewer hands.

So when it comes to Washington Post versus New York Times, it probably has to land with the Times because of all the extra stuff they bring to the table. And they have managed to change to a subscription model that makes money. The Times continues to be a newspaper that innovates and draws reader. Even Republicans read The Athletic which it owns. This might be the key for newspapers to beef up their sports and arts coverage to make the newspaper more universal. For kids, many read their first newspaper for the comics. After that for the sports, arts, etc. The only difference nowadays could be reading or viewing in digital. A newspaper needs to be able to deliver the goods digitally nowadays and how they present it is key. So for other newspapers out there, they should look at the New York Times to see what the future is like and how to be meaningful as well as successful.

Reliable Sources Cancelled 2022

Ever since I returned from Japan, I have watched Reliable Sources through three host starting with Bernard Kalb in 1993 on CNN. Ted Turner as founder of the cable network wanted the lens turned on the media. This was a response to the Gulf War where questions about the reliable information in the war and decisions leading to the war were being asked. Embedding with troops, limitations on media and access issues were all being thought of.

The upstart network founded in 1980 as the first 24 hour cable news station swept the U.S. and by 1982 was in Canada along with its sister station CNN Headline News. It would be a mistake to think the networks took a cable news newcomer sitting down. From 1981 to 1983, ABC, NBC and CBS would all install what was likely the most powerful anchors and news teams ever assembled. Peter Jennings at ABC, Tom Brokaw at NBC and Dan Rather at CBS would command their network programming and put time in coverage that rivalled CNN for marathon hours.

The 1980s were an embarrassment of riches for news in print, radio and television. But it also drew attention to how the media could be manipulated and fed misinformation by the sources and sometimes by their own news teams. Questions about ownership and direction of the news rooms and and cost cutting as a result of mergers began to occur more often. Bernard Kalb was one such man. Going from journalism to a position within the Regan Administration, he quit over the disinformation campaign against Libya's leader Gadhafi. He returned to journalism and later was the perfect host for when Reliable Sources began in 1993.

CNN had established its immediacy during the Gulf War in 1991 when Bernard Shaw, former ABC correspondent and his team John Holliman and Peter Arnett covering the start of bombardment in Baghdad by American missiles. The network also showed a bit earlier too that it could be controversial when Shaw as questioner in the 1988 debate asked Michael Dukakis if he would still support the death penalty if his wife Kitty was raped and murdered. Some people believe that Dukaksis did not show enough outrage to the question and answered it with logic and thereby missed the point of the question. CNN did what other journalist did not want to do: Be provocative and perhaps inflammatory to get an emotional response. Or more accurately, a human response.

The above examples and how news teams do their reporting and where they get it from was and has been ripe for examination. Even for good journalism can be manipulated from within and from without. Bernard Kalb was good at introducing the discussion. Other media followed suit and there was a more fulsome discussion of how the sausage was made. Kalb retired in 1998 and is 100 years old this year.

One company that was cutting edge on media reporting was the Washington Post who had Howard Kurtz covering that area among other assignments. It became a natural thought to assume he might be the person to replace Kalb. He had the job from 1998 to 2013 and I found it was instructive on standards and performance of media including CNN.

It was around 2010 that Kurtz left the Washington Post and then was working both at the Daily Beast and Reliable Sources. So much money was involved back then, Huge sums. And a whole bunch of start-ups like Politico were luring reporters away from other media. It was around 2013 that Kurtz became the source of controversy as a result of a NBA player coming out. Another incident where a source was incorrectly identified led to Kurtz leaving the Daily Beast and CNN as well. He went to FOX and began Media Buzz which was put up in competition against Reliable Sources.

I personally did not note Reliable Sources being anything but instructive during Kurtz's helming. I only learned years after the pull of big money to capture the online news world and how it could lead to cutthroat and mercenary behaviour on the part of far too many people. And a lot of that was not known or revealed with near enough candour.

The third and final host of Reliable Sources emerged from the New York Times but his coverage of media started even earlier than that in high school with a blog on media that became an industry must for following. Brian Stelter came to host in 2013 and was probably the first to come to the job specifically tied to media journalism. That is to say that he didn't work at other journalist assignments like Kalb and Kurtz had over decades.

To be clear I found Reliable Sources to be a professional show at all times. Most viewers interested in media would value the insight. I know I did. Over the many years, Sunday was a day to reflect on issues, politics and media for American TV. Meet the Press, This Week, Reliable Sources, FOX Sunday and Face the Nation have all been around decades.

In Canada, the Sunday political show Question Period has been a mainstay since 1967 and has had  many good hosts. Global has had the West Block since 2011. CBC has had a few things mostly confined to their news network such as Sunday Scrum but also The Weekly with Wendy Mesley from 2018 to 2020. Now they have Rosemary Barton Live. If there is a weak performer here, it is CBC. They should have had an analytical show on Sunday for decades but they never seem to have the commitment.

The battle in the U.S. among networks reflected the polarized politics in the United States. Cable networks staked out places on the spectrum and more opinion shows emerged. News divisions that such reported the days event were squeezed by political shows back to back. Such huge sums of money were being made and provocative disinformation was rampant. Stelter focused a lot on the lies which raised the ire of the FOX network. It made for great ratings for both networks to take potshots at one another. Stelter lived very publicly which generated hostility from some, especially in Republican circles. They wanted him gone. Or at least said so. The culture wars make for good ratings. But it can be fickle as witnessed by how the ratings sag when the message can't be sustained.

I'll miss Reliable Sources because we need more media analysts. It will be curious to see where CNN will go next. I think we will see less wall to wall political coverage. Even FOX is not showing every speech Trump makes now. In the past, it was all cable news companies showing Trump's plane coming in and waiting hours for the speech. It consumes a lot of time but is the wait newsworthy? There are certainly times like 9/11 or a Hurricane Katrina where cable news networks have the immediacy to inform and offer insight.

If CNN decides to beef up news coverage across the U.S. and the world, it could change the dynamic considerably. For example, more bureau reports from around the U.S. is something that can be newsworthy instead for three hours blocks of time devoted to politics every day. I'm always amazed that network news in the U.S. are able to put such high quality into a 30 minute newscast.

Let's not forget that CNN has done a lot in lifestyle reporting too with shows like Anthony Bourdain that were widely popular. FOX has no easy counter for that. CNN Films can do historical look backs at culture, politics and people to great effect. There is still room for political shows but put people in a  room together. It is a little harder to insult a person over and over in a studio where they are sitting opposite you versus talking in a monologue with only you in the studio with no consequences of someone calling you out.

Freedom of the Press is required for a functioning democracy. I hope I have not seen the last of it and good programming that analyzes the world around us.

What the Media Ignores

The media is often accused on not reporting stories. Or they get accused of editorial bias as part of their ownership strategy or on the part of individual reporters.

In some cases reporters or their respective owners are being maligned but in other cases the criticism is bang on. I think it is no secret that political leanings of some newspaper groups is fairly obvious.

The blurring between news and editorial is what appears to be the most obvious point of frustration for reader of newspapers. The news section generally follows the formula of who, what, where, why, when and how.

It isn't that simple of course. What stories do you choose to put in the newspaper though that are simply reported? I suppose in the case of a local newspaper, you put in local news, weather, sports and entertainment.

For example, a crime story ought to be reported with the W5 formula. Who was the crime committed against, who committed it? What was the crime? When did it happen? Where did it happen? How did it happen? The why of it happening can lead to editorializing but it is okay to quote others in reporting.

"He was a target of opportunity on a dark street."

"The house was known to police for past violent episodes."

In some cases, the media has to push for a story or investigate. They gather information as part of an overall mandate to serve the greater community in the freedom of the press and freedom of information. Political scandal, consumer dangers, law enforcement operations, government departments and spending all present challenges to reporting.

Police are always a tough nut. They will often say the media never gets things right in reporting but then button up as a reflex or because of orders from higher up. And if one of their own is in trouble, it is near impossible to get any information.

But what about the media themselves? They will acknowledge that they need to dig for stories and that they face hostile responses in their efforts. They proceed anyway as many regard it their reporting as a calling. But what happens when the story is the media themselves or more specifically, a reporter?

I say this only because social media is linking to a story involving police and the press that no media inside Manitoba is covering. None. Zero. Nada.

How is this possible when a national news reporting organization is reporting it?

I won't mention the specifics but it is easy for anyone to find out.

You have to ask though: if the media expresses frustration with others for withholding information, what credibility do they have if they don't cover their own?

This isn't the first time this has happened and it probably won't be the last. It does seem curious the lack of reporting in Manitoba and if the story was spiked.

Basic principles of W5 and How should have prevailed despite the sympathies for the plight of the subject of a police matter.

No one is perfect. But ignoring a story that ultimately gets reported by other outside media is poor form.

City Circus On Shaw

City Circus On Shaw


Marty Gold started a new series on Shaw TV's Channel 9 as of May 15 at 9:30 pm. It runs 13 episodes and will examine city and provincial issues. It repeats various times during the week so no danger of missing it in a week.

It is always hard to match the strength of a radio show with what you get on TV.

Charles Adler, Rush Limbaugh and Larry King were all accomplished radio hosts before jumping into TV. It is hard to match your radio format to your radio style. Limbaugh gave up in the 1990s and now his TV appearance consists of him being filmed while doing his radio show. Adler has done TV on and off as a commentator and now has a regular show on Sun News.

Larry King has been able to match a radio style with a TV style and for a long time was part of the national conversation with his CNN show.

Marty Gold's strengths in radio broadcasting are a possible strength in TV broadcasting. I am sure we will see some fits and starts as they find their pace and style. What we see now might not be quite what we have a few episodes down the road.

TV is a visual medium and Gold has promised City Hall and Legislature video. Punctuated with his observations, there might not be anything like it on TV in Winnipeg. Combine things with some interviews and some correspondents and the show might be must see TV.

For those not getting it on Shaw, I suspect it will be available in the days after on a website.

Here's to a new voice on TV on issues affecting us where we live. Hats off.

CBC Changes

The CBC announced the changes to their schedule for the fall. Once again they are tinkering with their presentation of the news. In some cases, they have been successful doing this as when they moved The National news broadcast to 10 pm back in 1982. It was part somewhat of a golden age for the CBC which saw the broadcast teamed with The Journal and regularly win its timeslot.

CBC's daily local news broadcast 24Hours started in 1970. Priot to that, Winnipeg's local news came once a week on a program called Eye-to-Eye. Garth Dawley was the original newsreader.

The local CBC news occupied its present 6 to 7 pm slot in 1977. It proved to be a very successful model for the local CBC and for decades, 24 Hours won its timeslot over local rivals.

From 1985 to 1990, 24Hours LateNight ran on the CBC. It was a more robust platform than the local late night news round up that had existed in the years before. Alas, it was abandoned due to continued changes when 24Hours Talkback expanded the supper news to 90 minutes from 1990-1992.

Local latenight news returned from 1994 to 2000 but it never has the same robustness of the 1980s.

In 2000, cutbacks at the CBC resulted in a national news program taking the 6 pm slot in Winnipeg. The program was renamed Canada Now and hosted by Ian Hanomansing. Local news was relegated to 6:30 pm. The change proved to be deadly for ratings and the national news experiment ended in 2007.

Since 2007, the CBC has returned to a one hour news format called CBC News: Winnipeg at Six. now hosted by former CTV News corespondents Janet Stewart and John Sauder. It has slowly restored ratings for the one time champion of local news but CTV News (CKY News) has been number 1 for many years now. In the last ratings period in spring in 2009, CBC local news vaulted back into second place.

From the Free Press:

CBC-TV was the biggest winner in this spring's version of the local-news ratings race, according to figures released this week by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement.

CTV maintained its dominant position among local newscasts, despite a dip in ratings, while CBC leapfrogged Global to take over second spot among Winnipeg's supper-hour news programs.

CTV News drew an average audience of 126,700 during the spring BBM ratings period, compared to 165,800 in the same period last year. CBC News at Six increased its viewership dramatically, attracting an audience of 43,600 compared to 31,200 last spring.

It would be terrible if the CBC experiment that failed in the 1990s hurt the CBC's present climb back to better ratings. In part it looks like the news is being bookended with products picked up last year and this year.

The new schedule starting August 31 looks like this:

4:00 PM to 5:00 PM Ghost Whisperer
5:00 PM to 6:30 PM CBC News
6:30 PM to 7:00 PM Coronation Street
7:00 PM to 7:30 PM Wheel of Fortune
7:30 PM to 8:00 PM Jeopardy

There has been some criticism from some anonymous CBC sources.

The gist of the argument is that it is very hard to produce a 60 minute broadcast and doing 90 minutes is going to extremely difficult. It is also argued that the move to an earlier hour is to get bigger ratings for its British and American imports.

Time Program National Toronto Calgary

4:00 p.m. Fashion File 22,000 3,000 No rating

4:30 p.m. Rick Mercer 34,000 No rating No rating

5:00 p.m. The Simpsons 169,000 13,000 9,000

5:30 p.m. Wheel of Fortune 370,000 18,000 3,000

6:00 p.m. Local News 294,000 44,000 6,000

7:00 p.m. Coronation Street 557,000 173,000 11,000

7:30 p.m. Jeopardy! 683,000 161,000 9,000

It remains to be seen whether this move will hurt the CBC even more or whether this will turn local ratings around.



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CKX Part 3

CKX finally feels the love. After Shaw left them on the altar, an investment group has stepped forward.

It is hard to believe previous bidder Shaw was ever serious about buying the station. They seemed to have bid only in an attempt to embarrass CTV.

Bluepoint investment is the new buyer lined up for CKX. They outlined their strategy to the Globe and Mail.

On CJOB, Bluepoint said that they will continue with their affiliation with the CBC but pick programs they like rather than taking the whole thing.

Local news and programs will be funded by the new federal program for small market stations.

It remains to be seen if Bluepoint will be successful with this formula. It does seem the big media players have orphaned some of the smaller players and more focused ownership may be better.

I suspect local TV can be profitable but it can't pursue foreign programming that is overly expensive and gives narrow returns. I expect local news and programs might be a good way to get the ad dollars in western Manitoba. A suitable relationship with CBC and some affordable daytime and primetime programming might be the ticket for CKX.



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CKX Part Deux

It looks like CKX has a new owner in this high stakes game of chicken that cable is playing with regular broadcasters.

Shaw has bought CKX.

Shaw already owns Kenora's TV station which it runs at a small profit. Let's see if they can do the same for Brandon.



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The loss of CKX

A news story on February 19 indicated that CTV was looking to sell its CKX station in Brandon, Manitoba. The CBC agreement to broadcast its signal over CKX's tower ends in the summer.

The advent of digital programming and the costs associated with it means that CKX is not needed by the CBC to get it signal to the Brandon area. CTV appears to have no interest in the market for its own use despite the fact that it serves over 125,000 people at present.

CKX was founded in 1955 and employs about 40 people.

One wonders how WDAZ can operate in Grand Forks in North Dakota and broadcast in digital no less.

Smaller market stations are threatened all over Canada at the moment as debt laden companies look to cut costs. Winnipeg has already played the part of pawn with stations like Joytv and CityTV changing hands repeatedly.

We already know that Joytv constributes next to nothing to local content and Citytv got rid of its evening newscast.

Now it looks like Brandon will have to get its TV news from Winnipeg. That is, if we don't lose our local news ourselves.



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