Views on News, wispundits • November 14th, 2008

Freaky Friday

by Chris Lato

Gov. Doyle got a call from the Obama team? Shocker! I trust we’ll be hearing a lot more about what was discussed, and how Doyle is (or isn’t) preparing for a potential Washington move in the days to come. I’ve been saying all along that if I was a bettin’ man, I’d put money down that the guv is heading east, but time will tell.

Milwaukee represents…on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, that is. We’ll see whether that is enough to address concern that Milwaukee will not get its due in the upcoming legislative session.

Dan Shelley vs. WTMJ. This is fascinating on so many levels.

(First, in the interests of full disclosure, I once interviewed for a reporting job at ‘TMJ when Shelley ran the show - I was not hired at that time - and worked for TMJ for much of 2007 as an anchor/reporter under the steady hand of news director Jon Byman. Prior to 2001, I also worked for a radio network that supplied news services to TMJ under Shelley, and had the opportunity to deal with him several times.)

I won’t offer my personal opinion of Shelley, but I will say this new column of his, which essentially trashes his former employer at extraordinary length, has no apparent purpose. I guess it was OK to ‘suffer’ under the TMJ regime when TMJ was signing Dan’s paychecks…for more than ten years. Now, he’s been out of the market and the state for more than two years, and he’s bashing TMJ now…why?

Also, the points Shelley makes are awfully trite. The fact is that Sykes, Wagner and the rest generate ratings, keep listeners entertained and make the station money. If they did not accomplish these goals, they would be looking for a new line of work. Same goes for anyone on the left who can make a go of it and be successful in radio, which is a particularly ruthless business. If you’re not delivering the goods you won’t be around very long.

Shelley makes it sound like a right-wing WTMJ cabal is practicing some low-grade mind control, basically insulting the intelligence of the hosts, the staff and the audience that, again, helped Shelley get a paycheck for ten-years-plus.

But it’s the little details in Shelley’s piece – the fallout of reporting sporting event results hours before they were televised…the hyping of any and all weather events ad nauseam…the narrow, my-way-or-the-highway view of What News Is And How It Should Be Presented - well… I’m sure some of Shelley’s former colleagues would be able to offer the other side to Shelley’s story.

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