bury the lede

WTHR Names Williams As News Director

This just in: The staff at WTHR was informed today that longtime assistant news director Carolyn Williams has been named to the news director post. Sources say the personnel news was well received by all.

Tracy Forner Signs Off Tomorrow

WXIN is losing an early morning co-anchor. The Star's Susan Guyett has the scoop:

Tracy Forner, the early morning co-anchor at WXIN Channel 59 for the past five years, will sign off Thursday after his contract was not renewed.

That means Angela Ganote will be doing the morning broadcast with subs until Forner’s replacement, Scott Jones, joins the Fox Station in mid-April from KJRH (Channel 2), the NBC station in Tulsa, Okla.

Forner is the second longtime Indianapolis newsman to go off the air in a week. Ray Cortopassi of WRTV (Channel 6) left the station on March 21 after his contract ended without being renewed.

WXIN Honors DCS Restraining Order

Here's a local example of possibly unconstitutional prior restraint in action, courtesy of this morning's Star:

Mark McGaha wanted to share his frustrations about the Department of Child Services with the public, but he never got the chance.

McGaha did an interview with an Indianapolis TV station, but a Fountain County judge issued a restraining order barring the station from airing his complaints or even showing his face -- apparently without even having seen the footage.

The segment about family advocacy group Honk For Kids was broadcast March 13, without McGaha's comments and with his face blocked out in a group shot of parents.

A legal scholar called Judge Susan Orr Henderson's action unconstitutional and said it "borders on judicial misconduct."

"Quite simply, a judge does not have the authority to stop the press from publishing or airing a story," said Henry Karlson, a professor at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis. "Any person has a right to contact the press and say a public agency is not treating them right."

Karlson said the judge's action amounted to "prior restraint," or government censorship, which is a violation of the First Amendment.

Dawn Robertson, spokeswoman for Honk For Kids, said Henderson's actions underscore the group's concerns about the way families involved with the child welfare system are treated.

"These are the kinds of abuses of power people across Indiana are dealing with every day," she said.

Robertson said the public is not aware of the extent of those problems because most aspects of child welfare cases are confidential. That means records and court proceedings typically are not open to the public or media.

A disabled veteran and single father of four, McGaha, 37, said he thinks the court and Department of Child Services are out to get him because he stood up to workers he contends have treated him and his four children unfairly.

After the TV segment aired, Honk For Kids asked the station, WXIN (Channel 59), why McGaha's face had been blurred and was told of the restraining order. That was the first that anyone, including McGaha, had heard about the judge's action.

Gavin Maliska, news director at WXIN, said station officials discussed challenging the order, which was issued the day the segment was to air, but decided McGaha's contributions weren't essential to the story.

"It came down to principle versus practical," he said. "If it would have affected what we were trying to do with the story, we probably would have had a different outcome."

Ray Cortopassi's Last Day

Today marks field anchor Ray Cortopassi's last day at WRTV.

A short message earlier this week informed staff that Cortopassi's contract was set to expire at the end of the month and that he would be leaving the station.

Cortopassi got bumped from the anchor desk last year when WRTV brought in "Todd and Trisha" to do the evening news.

Sean Ash Signs Off

WISH-TV meteorologist Sean Ash, who joined the station in February 2000, signed off last night. He told the Central Indiana audience that he's heading to Detroit to "follow his heart."

He also jokingly accepted blame for all the bad snow forecasting that's gone on this winter.

Best of luck, Sean.

No Feed For You

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE, AND THEN NO MORE UPDATES: Yeah, there's something wrong with the Star feed, but who knows what the problem is. Whatever. Hopefully they'll have the whole thing uploaded later.

UPDATE: The Star's feed is coming through clearly on Ustream.tv, the live-streaming host website. It must be the redirect through IndyStar.com that's slowing down the process.

Here's a bit of a gripe directed toward the two television stations in town (you know who you are) that live-streamed Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Plainfield today: Why you gotta hate the Mac users of the world? At least set up your stream to support those of us who have installed Flip4Mac.

Presumably PC users were able to log on and watch the live coverage, which is more than the blogmistress can say for the Star's direct feed. Yes, it supported Macs, but the feed itself disappeared about three minutes into the event.

Clearly, our media market has a long way to go in the realm of online communications.

Check Out IndianaPolitics.tv

In case you haven't already seen it, WISH-TV has a slick new site, complete with its own separate Web address, entirely devoted to Indiana political races at every level of government.

Among other things, you can find information on candidates, check out the latest political coverage, and, if you're running for office, upload your own information.

The site fills an electronic space that's largely unoccupied and creates a new revenue stream for the station in an already-lucrative area of advertising.

WISH Responds To CanaRx

WISH-TV has responded to a defamation lawsuit over its investigation into a Canadian company importing drugs to the United States. The Star reports:

WISH-TV (Channel 8) asked a federal judge this week to dismiss a defamation lawsuit against it by a Canadian pharmacy benefit company that sells to Americans.

CanaRx sued WISH in November saying it was defamed by a broadcast linking the company to sales of counterfeit imported drugs.

The Indianapolis TV station says Indiana's Anti-SLAPP Act protects the media against lawsuits over reports on public issues as long as the reporting was done in good faith and has "a reasonable basis in law and fact."

WISH charges that CanaRx's lawsuit, filed in November, is "attempting to silence media coverage of newsworthy events." At the time its lawsuit was filed, CanaRx had contracts with five Indiana municipalities, including Muncie, to offer mail-order prescription drugs to their employees.

The company said it knew of no reports of "bogus or counterfeit medicine" found in any of millions of prescriptions it's shipped to U.S. customers.

No Cuts At WTHR

The new general manager at WTHR tells the Indianapolis Business Journal that there will be no budget cuts on his watch. From the afternoon update:

"WTHR-TV Channel 13's new General Manager Jim Tellus promises to continue outspending the market's other local stations when it comes to news gathering and hopes to help the station retain its status as the No. 1 local TV news channel. With WISH-TV Channel 8 coming up in the ratings, new anchors making their mark at WRTV-TV Channel 6 and a beefed-up news product at WXIN-TV Channel 59, Tellus has his work cut out for him. Tellus, who joined WTHR as news director in December 2006, was named yesterday to replace 13-year WTHR veteran Rich Pegram. Pegram left abruptly Nov. 1."

Eff Bombs Away!

This report just in from the national desk: Diane Keaton has no self-control. Heh.