OK. Here's a pop quiz. Which of the following headlines strikes you as the most routine, to the point of no longer even being newsworthy?
"Mideast in Turmoil"
"Bush Says Surge is Working"
"Gonzales Can Not Recall His Own Name"
"Rumors of Firings and Low Morale Wrack Ch. 5"
I know. I know. The trivia at Caribou is tougher.
The first calls came a couple weeks ago, and the story, for someone who covered the ups but mostly downs of KSTP-TV news for 15 years, was familiar to the point of being pure deja vu. As in ... "Wha? Huh? Where's Stan Turner?!"
"No, really. This is the worst it has been in 15 years," said one KSTP employee. "I know you've heard that before, but this time the place has really jumped the tracks."
Conversations with several more sources -- all asking for anonymity in what they see as an unusually wretched climate -- corroborated the basics of the rumors. (How's that for solid?)
The essence of it all is this: News director Chris Berg will likely leave soon after the first of the month, (the end of the July ratings period), at least one veteran on-air personality, possibly weatherman Dave Dahl, may also leave, maybe on his own maybe otherwise, and the door may stay open for others.
What each source asserted independently is that they believe it is unfair to blame Berg, who many apparently have come to like and respect. Berg is a guy who induced snickers when he took over four and a half years ago for his cornball-tough "new sheriff in town" poses but who I'm told mellowed with age. The oft-repeated picture has Berg "beating his head against a wall". A wall built of chronically bad advice by Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. Hubbard Broadcasting's inexplicably long-term consultant.
Only Dick Cheney could be as flat out dead wrong as often as Magid Associates and still be getting a check.
For years, almost as far back as the last days of Ron Magers, Magid has billed Stanley Hubbard, the family's patriarch for research on who to replace in anchor chairs and how to brand and style KSTP's news. The results are pretty indisputable. Ratings have cratered to the point where only Bush's and Cheney's are lower. Simultaneous with steady erosion in audience levels down to what amounts to fourth place status in local news, the station has watched characters as often bizarre as Randall Carlisle, Harris Faulkner, Kent Ninomiya, Chris Conangla and on and on do quick, highly-mannered spins in the anchor chairs before being flung out the back door, all while a stream of news directors were hired and whacked nearly as often.
With each departure there was another round of employees (those canned AND those surviving) blaming Magid for yet another round of clueless, stale ideas and Magid in turn blaming THEM for poor execution of what Magid presumably assures Stanley Hubbard are superbly researched and expertly diagrammed game plans.
I'm told a recent Magid Inc. visit with their usual research presentation and "interaction" with newsroom staff went rather badly, with KSTP reporters in something close to "open rebellion". (I am allowing for hyperbole there.)
An accelerating factor in this latest meltdown is -- again as corroborated by multiple independent sources -- the apparent inability of Berg's boss, Rob Hubbard, (Stanley's son and General Manager), to assert any kind of positive influence over his news department.
"The guy never says anything positive or supportive of anything we do," groused one long term employee. "I don't need to be patted on the head every time I do my job. But don't come down to the newsroom if all you're ever going to do is shit all over us and blame us for the ratings. Clean up your own act."
Calls to Dave Dahl, Chris Berg and Rob Hubbard have not been returned.
Check out www.turnoff13.com for more fodder on working for Rob Hubbard.
Rob Hubbard is proof television smarts are not generic. If not for his inherited position, the most frequent question he would be posing all day to an endless line of people would be, "Paper ...or plastic ?"
Magid did find Ron Magers, maybe Frank and Stanley signed a lifetime contract when the ratings were on top back in the 1970s.
While you may have a specific agenda here, it is lost on me. I am of the opinion that most of your anonymous sources are people who are unwilling to change with the times. How about considering new digital technologies? How about worrying about breaking news? Maybe writing a little something that doesn't make viewers fall asleep or laugh? Look. It is the news director's job to lead these initiatives. Chris Berg can complain all he wants about Magid. So can the rest of the employees. Frankly, because Magid is faceless you can use them as a scapegoat. Maybe the people who are leaving actually need to improve? Maybe they should be fired if they don't?
As to the comments from formerKSTPeon -- they are accurate. The anti-intellectual bent and conservatism does not work well in the Twin Cities area. The family's strange opinions do not either. If anything, these two areas are mostly to blame. But by all means, please continue to blame the man behind the curtain. It works well for disgruntled news people.
I saw Angela, Randy, Chris, Inga and others walk in.. then walk out of KSTP's doors.
The place COULD be so good but it's SO not so good.
Mendez, Deborah, Dean, Scott and Chris all are hard workers.. but the Hubbards--and MAGID shot them down.
I've worked other places where Magid is consultant. I truly don't understand how the company continues to function. Consultants are either right out of school and subscribe blindly to the "Magid Way" or are failures in news and go into telling others how to do their job.
Cookie cutter isn't the way.
KSTP was once a beacon of great television journalism. They tried to go back to that in the early 2000's. I'm sure Magid got in the way.
Rob Hubbard: You're a good guy... surely you realize that family bonds don't mean as much as respect in your hometown. Dump Magid and listen to your present managment. They are being hog tied by hired guns who shoot re-run blanks all over the country. They've ruined your brand... and contunued to get paid for it.
You've fired everyone else, Rob. How about you look to the one thing that's consistent--Magid.
It's been commonly understood that the unbreakable Magid/Hubbard link dates back to when Stanley Jr. and Frank shared a dorm at the U of M. Apocraphyl lore or not, I cannot say. There is also the de gustibus non est disputandum factor, the inexplicability of taste or the lack thereof. As a sole proprietership, KSTP-TV has always reflected the collective sensibility of the Hubbard family, which, despite their great wealth, has always tended toward the homely and vulgar. There is a decidedly anti-intellectual bias that fairly permeates the very air there in the basement, a hallmark of the American conservatism adherred to by the family and those they admit to the mahogany-paneled executive floor. That, and Stanley Jr.'s interests have long been distracted from the workings of the news department by broader and hugely profitable interests in his then pioneering USSB satellite subscriber business. It's the Hubbard's candy store. So if you're averse to idiosyncratic ownership, best stear clear of that shop.