THIN HAIR

Is Princell Hair up to the job at CNN?

Genial and collaborative, his journalistic imprint nonetheless remains indistinct.

An article in the Chicago Tribune dryly notes that the 36-year-old Hair has held nine jobs.

Hair was news director for WMAQ-5 in Chicago when the NBC station signed on raunchy talk show host Jerry Springer as a political commentator for its newscasts. Two respected anchors resigned and the shows' ratings dropped. Springer was quickly dumped by the station. Hair somehow escaped the controversy.

Hair is a protégé of former CBS executive Joel Cheatwood, who had repeatedly hired him at local stations and more recently at the network itself. 

Cheatwood is often characterized within the business for his devotion to sensationalism and ratings stunts - anything to attract viewers. He also was the one who picked Hair, then in Baltimore, to become corporate news director to mold the news offerings of CBS parent Viacom's local stations. 

He served briefly as news director in CBS' ratings-challenged Los Angeles station, but rejoined the corporate ranks after it was combined with another Viacom station.

When Cheatwood was cast aside for a new executive vice president, Hair was given a promotion to vice president. But his new boss publicly embraced a hands-off approach that effectively allowed news decisions to be made in local newsrooms.

The kind of corporate hand-holding that had defined Hair's job was no longer needed, and so he left CBS.

At a relatively young age, Hair has attained heights few reach in the profession.

Now, he has to deliver.

David Folkenflik reviews Hair's years in Baltimore....

SHAM MARTYRS

Steve Wilson, investigative reporter for Detroit's WXYZ-7-ABC, has filled our e-mail box with allegations that an article in Friday's Creative Loafing newspaper by Senior Editor John Sugg was "false and motivated by a personal vendetta."

Wilson demanded that NewsBlues grant him "unedited access" to our readers, claiming we had "printed, nearly verbatim, Sugg's baseless charges about me and (wife) Jane (Akre) without EVER bothering to verify them or seek another point of view."

In the article, Sugg suggested that Wilson and Akre may have misappropriated money from a legal defense fund and used some of the proceeds to purchase a $1.4 million home in Ponte Vedra Beach. 

The Wilsons, you will recall, sued Fox and Tampa's WTVT nearly five years ago and have been soliciting and collecting "donations" on their website ever since. 

We contacted Sugg, who denied any sort of "personal vendetta" against the Wilsons.

"I'm amused when he (Wilson) claims I have a grudge against him," laughed Sugg from Atlanta. "Wilson is master of personal attacks. I took a look at the case -- really took a look -- and concluded that Wilson and Akre were sham martyrs. Most of my writing is media criticism and this was just a good media story."

"We (Creative Loafing) didn't make accusations and gave him numerous chances to respond. We encouraged him to respond -- but I asked him to do so with specifics. E.g., he said there were mistakes in the public records and threatened litigation if we printed the mistakes (I'd think an investigative reporter would know of the legal protections granted in quoting from public records). We just asked him to specify the mistakes. He wouldn't do so."

Wilson's dodging and sidestepping continued when NewsBlues asked him to explain how he was able to afford a $1.1 million down payment on a luxury beach townhouse.

"Since I make somewhat above the minimum wage (at WXYZ)," said Wilson, "have other business interests and investments, and lived in a luxury waterfront home (today valued at $1 million) when I went to work and was fired by Fox, the fact that my name is on a piece of similarly-valued real estate shouldn't be a total shock to anyone who knows anything about me and my 32-year career in journalism. And it certainly doesn't begin to prove Sugg's allegations."

Interestingly enough, the Florida Department of Agriculture Division of Consumer Services is the state agency that registers and monitors public solicitations.

When we called Tallahassee on Tuesday, we were not at all surprised to learn that Wilson and Akre had never bothered to register or report their collections.

State officials now say the two must produce audited records of their fundraising or face a $10,000 fine and possible criminal charges.

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HOT POTATO

The Republican-controlled Senate dealt a blow to the Bush Administration Tuesday, voting to rescind new Federal Communications Commission rules that would allow large media companies to get even bigger.

By a vote of 55 to 40, the Senate approved a resolution that would roll back the F.C.C. regulations allowing television networks to own more local stations and that would have permitted conglomerates to own newspaper, television and radio stations in a single metropolitan market.

The resolution faces a tougher battle in the House and a possible veto by President Bush.

Details in the New York Times....

Writes New York Times political columnist William Safire....

F.C.C. chairman Michael Powell, sensing that not even his friendship with Senator John McCain nor his backing by Big Media is stopping the popular groundswell, has resorted to a fear appeal: that stopping more gobbling up of local stations by the broadcast networks will be the ruination of "free TV."

That's the ludicrous party line being peddled by G.E., which owns NBC.

But four-fifths of broadcast network TV is now delivered to homes by cable or satellite — not free — and NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox are making money hand over fist.

"Powell's Last Stand" on this false argument has become an embarrassment to the Bush White House, which has been foolishly threatening to veto any disapproval of the F.C.C.'s abdication of the public interest.

Don't miss Safire's brutal commentary in today's Times.....