Some Question If Channel 8 Shifted Gears on Car Report

There was “a lot of dancing on eggs” in the KFMB-TV (Channel 8) newsroom over last week’s upbeat five-part series on car buying, according to one newsroom source. Staffers were directed to be extra careful not to anger car dealers, some of whom had briefly pulled their advertising from the station last October.

Among other things, the series emphasized that because of overstocking, now is a great time to buy a car, and it attempted to give viewers helpful tips on how to get the best deals. Although the journalistic merit of the series could be debated, more than anything, it clearly illustrated the fine line news departments often walk between editorial independence and overt accedence to the wishes of advertisers.

News director Jim Holtzman, acknowledging that he took an unusual amount of personal interest in the series, says he wanted the “Buying a Car” features to accomplish two things: “One, to provide useful information and, two, to make sure we didn’t have a repeat of problems with the car dealers.”

Car dealers account for a large percentage of the advertising revenues of most television and radio stations, as well as newspapers. The dealers are organized and extremely sensitive to their image, and they are more than willing to use their power when they feel they’ve been portrayed in a negative light.

In October, local car dealers were angry with Channel 8 over the airing of a “P.M. Magazine” segment produced by a Seattle affiliate, which focused on car brokers, without, the dealers believed, giving dealers equal time.

The station has been attempting to kiss and make up with the car dealers ever since. Shortly after the incident, many industry observers thought that “P.M.” host Dave Hood was offered to the car dealers as a sacrificial lamb. He made the decision to run the car broker segment (following standard procedures), and soon after was pulled from a host job for a planned Channel 8 talk show. (The show concept was dropped a few weeks later.)

In December, the car dealers began advertising again with the station, including, as always, a heavy rotation of ads during news programs.

“Channel 8, over the years, has been quite aggressive in attempting to work with our industry,” said Stephen Cushman, president of the San Diego New Car Dealers Assn. “Certain dealers decided that time had passed. Channel 8 is a good station, they work hard and they have a good audience, so we went back on.”

Channel 8’s local sales manager, Randy Bixler, is on the association’s “Image 95” committee, which is seeking to “change perceptions” of car dealers, and Cushman said that Channel 8 has “spearheaded” efforts to involve the media in the association’s soon-to-be-announced freeway service program.

Holtzman says it was his idea, not the sales departments’, to do the “Buying a Car” series.

“I felt we were doing a payback,” said one newsroom source, who asked not to be identified. “It’s not really that uncommon in this business” to follow a negative story with a positive one.

Given the powerful influence of the car dealers, reporters were told to steer clear of interviewing people that may upset Cushman, according to another newsroom source. In fact, Holtzman says that he scrubbed a plan to talk to a car broker.

“I didn’t see any sense in opening wounds,” Holtzman said. “I told the producer it wasn’t part of what we were doing.”

Cushman, who was used in two different segments of the series, said he was asked by the news department to provide a list of people who “would be good representatives of the industry.”

Several people in the newsroom were surprised at Holtzman’s role in the series. His strident autonomy from the sales influences at the station is legendary.

That hasn’t changed, Holtzman says. It wasn’t the sales department affecting the reports, he says, it was his own desire to produce an informative series without creating waves.

“I probably made the people in the newsroom unnecessarily nervous thinking there were outside influences,” Holtzman said. “All I told them was that I wanted to avoid problems.”

Not surprisingly, Cushman liked the series. He thought it was “realistic.”

“It presented a lot of the (aspects) of the industry that don’t seem to get out too often,” Cushman said.

Cushman, who also was featured in a KGTV (Channel 10) feature segment Thursday night, emphasized that there was “nothing new and different” about the Channel 8 series.

“It’s not the first time they’ve done it,” he pointed out. “Last year (Channel 8) did the same thing.”

Channel 8 reporter John Culea told a recent Sunday evening meeting of the Emmanuel Faith Community Church in Escondido all about his reporting trip to Saudi Arabia, including his fear that his Bible would be confiscated by the Saudi government. “I could almost imagine a hand upon my shoulder, grappling for the Bible I held tightly, being separated from it and thrown into jail,” he told the congregation.

Quoted in Good News, Etc., “San Diego’s Christian Newspaper,” Culea said he hid “several photocopies” of a Bible in his luggage. To his apparent shock, his room at the Holiday Inn in Dhahran “didn’t have a Gideon Bible,” only a copy of the Koran.

When it became apparent he wasn’t going to lose his Bible, Culea “slipped the pages of the Bible into the Koran.” And he wasn’t done. “I noticed a decal on the end table which pointed north, the direction of Mecca--the direction all (Muslims) pray to five times a day. By the end of the time I was there I had peeled the decal loose and was able to reposition it so that north pointed in the opposite direction.”

XHTZ-FM (Z90) was starting to make a dent in KKLQ’s (Q106) huge Top 40 audience, so Edens Broadcasting, owner of Q106, did the only logical thing--it hired away Z90 program director Rick Thomas. The person most often credited for Z90’s recent success, Thomas is the new program director for Edens’ station in Phoenix, KOY-FM. “Edens may have snapped up Rick Thomas, but they didn’t snap up our pride,” says Jacko Adams, Z90’s interim program director. . . .

KKYY-FM (Y95) is now KRMX, playing “the hits of the ‘70s, ‘80s and today.” Former KFMB-FM (B100) morning guy Bobby Rich, taking over as program director, will resurrect the Rich Brothers for the morning show. . . .

Displaying a fairly typical knack for balancing news judgment and blatant self-promotion, one of KGTV’s (Channel 10) main stories for Thursday’s 11 p.m. newscast was an interview with Channel 10 news director Paul Sands, who took the opportunity to announce the station’s forum media coverage of the war next Sunday. . . .

Channel 8 has named former Channel 8 reporter Loren Nancarrow to replace comedian weather person Larry Mendte. No. 2 Sports Guy Artie Ojeda is also on his way out, heading to KCOP (Channel 13) in Los Angeles. That means Hank Bauer, who still comes across like he took a few too many blows to the head during his football career, will have an increased role as the No. 2 Sports Guy, at least for awhile.