Wednesday, July 30, 2014

So Does Cincinnati-Based Scripps Family Need Right Wisconsin, Charlie Sykes?

[Updated] That's my first reaction to the deal that sends Journal Broadcast Group to new ownership in Ohio. 
Two storied media firms, Journal Communications Inc. of Milwaukee and E.W. Scripps Co. of Cincinnati, announced Wednesday evening an agreement to merge their broadcast operations while spinning off their newspapers into a separate company.
Under the deal, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will serve as the flagship of a new public company, Journal Media Group, which will be headquartered in Milwaukee. 
Meanwhile, Journal Communications' broadcast assets, including WTMJ radio and television, will be folded into Scripps, with the headquarters in Cincinnati. The E.W. Scripps Co. name will be retained and the firm will remain controlled by the Scripps Family.
Also glad to see the newspaper remains in a Milwaukee-based chain, and happy for my friends still working there, but it's the end of an era.

And frame this line from the story and check back in, say, a year: 
"Everyone wins," said Steven J. Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of Journal Communications, who will serve as the nonexecutive chairman of Journal Media.
Though I'll tell you who one winner is: Scott Walker. His Trek/WEDC outsourcing subsidies' story and scandal are off the Front Page for a spell. 

5 comments:

Wisconsin Soapbox said...

My question was more along the lines of, do we even know what group is getting RightWisconsin? Newspapers are in MKE but broadcast in CIN?

Sue said...

Cincinnati, huh? Charlie should remember that turkeys don't fly there.

Jake formerly of the LP said...

And now that the J-S doesn't have to contradict their company's radio shows by reporting the truth, will we finally start to see these guys start to call out obvious lies instead of playing the "he said, she said" game to protect the broadcasting side's profits?

Time to turn up the heat on the paper- getting some Pulitzers from real reporting might save some jobs at Fourth and State. So maybe they need to finally DO THEIR JOB.

WisGOP has to be freaking with this news. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch (both WisGOP and JournalComm's Steven Smith, who loses his CEO job)

Anonymous said...

This is good news because many mistakenly or falsely claim that milwaukee journal sentinel is fair and balanced -- when they actually hide a consistent pro-walker/right-wing bias behind the lie of objective journalism.

(NOTE: Jame -- the headlines at mjs do not inform people about walker's dishonest campaign stunt -- each and every dishonest ad is repeated as a nooooze story with perhaps 1 sentence from Burke's campaign and the walker ad beening entirely retold across paragraphs of prose).

The problem is that people assume because mjs isn't entirely full of racist right-wing talking points and content, all directed against its former hometown Milwaukee, that mjs is better because it is less shrill and obvious about its propaganda.

But make no mistake -- the "endorse divide and conquer governor twice" noooozepaper is not a source of information -- it is just a different flavor of propaganda.

Anonymous said...

Capitalists care about money. I would expect the right-wing slant to get worse as an out-of-town owner could care diddly-squat about local consequences. With the high level of low-functioning Tea-bagging morans in this state, I don't have much hope for more balance.