Newsweek has fired the journalist who was responsible for the false story that President Donald Trump spent Thanksgiving “tweeting” and “golfing,” when in fact the president was secretly traveling to Afghanistan to surprise U.S. troops for the holiday.
Newsweek told Breitbart News in a statement that the magazine has moved away from “knee-jerk political snarkiness” to focus on real reporting.
A Newsweek journalist was terminated Friday after an article entitled, “How is Trump Spending Thanksgiving? Tweeting, Golfing, and More” by Jessica Kwong was published Thursday morning. The piece sparked major backlash, as President Trump had actually been landing in Afghanistan, where he surprised American troops for Thanksgiving.
Jessica Kwong
“The problem with this story is that it didn’t contain reporting,” said a Newsweek spokesperson to Breitbart News in a statement. “It was published before Thanksgiving was over. We are trying to pull Newsweek away from that, and into reporting.”
The article was later updated to reflect the president’s visit, changing the headline to: “How Did Trump Spend Thanksgiving? Tweeting, Golfing–and Surprising U.S. Troops in Afghanistan,” along with an added footnote stating that the story had been “substantially updated and edited at 6:17 p.m. EST to reflect the president’s surprise trip to Afghanistan” via additional reporting by James Crowley.
Jessica Kwong told the Washington Examiner that she was assigned to write a story about what the president was doing on Thanksgiving a week in advance and filed it to her editors on Wednesday.
Kwong went on to explain that she sent a message to the editor on duty with the president’s latest actions and the editor published the piece.
That editor decided to have a reporter write a new story on Trump’s surprise trip to Afghanistan, and neglected to update Kwong’s original piece in a timely manner.
The "CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell" has moved to the nation's capital. Beginning Monday, the program will be broadcast from its new permanent home in Washington, D.C.
Since its inception, the 30-minute newscast has been anchored from New York City by legendary broadcasters such as Walter Cronkite. Now, anchor and managing editor Norah O'Donnell plans to leverage the show's location to get to the heart of major stories impacting the lives of Americans.
"Many stories across the country have a nexus to Washington, such as health care and taxes," O'Donnell told CBS News. "We are going to continue CBS News' tradition of original reporting and great storytelling. Our goal is to remain a trusted news leader. And this just expands our reach."
In her career, O'Donnell has covered six presidential campaigns, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the White House. Since she began anchoring the broadcast earlier this year, she has made a point to uphold CBS News' mission of original reporting.
"Being based in the nation's capital allows us to showcase Norah's exceptional skills as a reporter, while still bringing our audience the in-depth investigations, powerful storytelling and worldwide reach people expect from CBS News," Executive Producer Jay Shaylor told CBS.
The "CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell" airs weeknights at 6:30 p.m ET.
Key Networks announces that its Thanksgiving week radio special featuring bestselling author and former #1 cable news personality Bill O’Reilly’s exclusive one-on-one interview with President Donald Trump was broadcast across almost 200 radio stations throughout the U.S., including 18 of the top 20 markets, and was heard by millions worldwide.
The interview also broke major news and was picked up extensively through media including the New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and CNN, and was covered internationally in London, Paris, Mexico City, Tokyo, Sydney, Kiev, and more.
The one-hour special aired on broadcast outlets from Wednesday, November 27th through Sunday, December 1st, and on SiriusXM’s Patriot Channel, which ran the interview on Saturday and Sunday. The radio special follows the recent release of O’Reilly’s new book, The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America.
O’Reilly spoke one-on-one with President Trump about the latest issues impacting the country as 2020 quickly approaches, including: Ukraine, Joe Biden, impeachment, the upcoming campaign and attacking the Mexican drug cartels – which Trump said he will be designating as terrorist groups. President Trump revealed to O’Reilly that he considers his greatest accomplishments so far as President to include his building up the U.S. military, his appointment of 182 Federal judges, the strong U.S. economy and low unemployment.
Key Networks syndicates Bill O’Reilly’s 15-minute daily radio program, The O’Reilly Update, to nearly 200 radio stations across the U.S. The special is the first in a series of specials and exclusive content to be created especially for affiliates of The O’Reilly Update throughout the 2020 election season.
The O’Reilly Update is now also available to affiliates in a special weekend edition and can be heard on smart speakers and on Pandora.
Key Networks delivers The O’Reilly Update to stations of all market sizes every weekday beginning at 11:30am EST. All advertising is included, with no additional barter units and 2 minutes of local avails in the feature.
For more information and to get The O’Reilly Update for your station, contact Dennis Green, Chief Revenue Officer, Key Networks, at 844.KEY.NETS or dennis@keynetworks.com.
Ronan Farrow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, said in an interview published Saturday his relationship with Hillary Clinton cooled when word began to spread he was looking into allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Fox News reports Farrow told the Financial Times in 2011 he was selected by Clinton, then the secretary of state, to work as a special adviser on global youth issues. He said they worked together for years but noticed a change in their relationship when word got out he was looking into Weinstein - one of her top fundraisers.
Ronan Farrow
Farrow did not elaborate on how Clinton found out about his interest in Weinstein or how exactly the relationship cooled. After-hours emails from Fox News to representatives for Clinton and Farrow were not immediately returned. The paper said a Clinton spokesman did not comment for its article.
Farrow told the paper, “It’s remarkable how quickly even people with a long relationship with you will turn if you threaten the centers of power or sources of funding around them. Ultimately, there are a lot of people out there who operate in that way. They’re beholden to powerful interests, you become radioactive very quickly.”
Clinton, for her part, took days after the New York Times broke the Weinstein story to issue a statement. CNN reported that she said she was “shocked and appalled” by the revelations.
“The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated. Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior,” the statement read.
People do it better. That’s what AccuRadio has discovered as it’s looked at the data around skips. The streaming music service’s hundreds of channels are curated by human beings, many of whom are musicians and seasoned programmers. While Spotify’s skip rate is approximately 40-50% overall (and Pandora’s free tier limits skips), AccuRadio’s skip rate is a mere 4% and their average listening session is more than 3x the competition, logging in at over 2 hours.
“We have always thought people made better programmers than algorithms working alone,” says Kurt Hanson, radio veteran and AccuRadio founder and CEO.
“Listening sessions times and skip rates can arguably be used as an engagement benchmark. Our engagement is more sustained and reliable, and that’s thanks to our curation, which puts experienced, music-loving humans in the driver’s seat.”
AccuRadio disproves the notion that digital music consumption has led to shorter attention spans, more browsing, and less interest in listening for longer periods. Digital listening sessions can be long and habitual, the service discovered, by harnessing the best aspects of broadcast radio with certain key personalization features and a large number of highly specialized (and often wonderfully quirky) channels.
“Human programmers make sure the music makes sense, that there are no bizarre or jarring moments, but also that nothing is too banal or tired,” Hanson notes. “They’ve already put the work into the music and themes they’re programming, so listeners can lean back and enjoy it.”
Benztown, a global leader in radio imaging, voiceover, programming and jingles, announces that it will release the sixth annualBenztown 50 List of Radio’s Biggest Imaging Voices, the radio industry’s exclusive listing of the top 50 voiceover artists in the U.S. and Canada.
The Benztown 50 list will be based on several criteria, including number of radio station affiliates, station size and market. Benztown has partnered with P1 Media Group to compile and analyze industry data that will be the foundation for this distinction. The list is currently in development and will be released to the industry in early February 2020. Voice talent can apply for the Benztown 50 from Monday, December 2, 2019 through Friday, January 10, 2020, at: www.benztown.com/50.
Dave “Chachi” Denes, Benztown President, said: “Amid the growing demand for great audio content, radio’s premier voiceover talent are more essential than ever in defining audio brands that break through an increasingly competitive listening environment. As a company committed to creating the highest quality audio content, we are proud to give these professionals and artists recognition for the important role they play in the health and growth of our industry. High-performing audio brands harness the power of voiceover experts to captivate, excite and hold listeners. We look forward to sharing the results of the Benztown 50 and invite all voiceover pros to apply for this exclusive recognition.”
Ken Benson, Partner, P1 Media Group said: “Voiceover artists are an essential part of any radio station’s DNA, bringing a unique sound, personality and brand identity. It’s a pleasure to work with Benztown each year to identify and honor these all too familiar, yet nameless voices.”
NBCUniversal has dramatically amped up its on-air promotion for its flagging “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”
Over the past month, NBCU has aired some 365 on-air promos on its various networks and programs, pulling in 416.3 million impressions over a month-long period (Oct. 25 to Nov. 25), according to Media Post citing data from iSpot.tv.
This is almost 37% of the 985 total on-air promos aired over the past year for the show. Since the start of the season, in late September, “Tonight” has had 438 promos.
This past month, NBC Television Network has seen 73 promos for the show, with E! at 31 and Bravo, CNBC and NBCSN each at 30 promos.
Shows where the promos have run include “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Sunday Night Football,” “Chicago P.D.,” “Pro Football Talk” and “Snapped.”
By comparison, a year ago during the same period, the “Tonight” show had a total of 60 on-air promos, all on the NBC TV network -- pulling in some 276 million impressions.
Over the last year, late-night competitor CBS’ “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” has seen a ratings gain -- not only in total viewers, but among younger 18-49 viewers, the most important audience for late-night TV marketers.
Season-to-date, “Late Show” now has a commanding lead in total viewers -- a Nielsen-measured 3.51 million viewers and a 0.44 rating/3 share in 18-49 viewers.
“Tonight” -- which had been running neck-and-neck with “Late Show” in 18-49 viewers -- is now at 0.40/3 in 18-49 viewers and is averaging 1.93 million total viewers -- coming in slightly below “Kimmel,” which is at 1.95 million viewers.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” is at a distant third place in 18-49 viewers with 0.34/3, compared to “Late Show” and “Tonight.”
Siri decided to offer its own take on the weather to BBC meteorologist Tomasz Schafernaker while he was on the air. Voicebot reports the voice assistant contradicted Schafernaker while he was live on the air in a perfectly timed reminder of the quirks of voice and AI technology.
Schafernaker was wearing an Apple Watch while discussing the weather, specifically the snowstorm in Minneapolis. In the middle of his report, Siri loudly proclaimed that snow was not in fact inbound. Schafernaker attempted to gloss over the disagreement with his voice assistant, but his co-host found the moment far too funny to not highlight for a minute or two, saying that he thought there was snow in the forecast after Siri’s comment.
When you're live on air and your watch contradicts your forecast....😆 🔊Sound on👇 pic.twitter.com/sYwY6iLTf4
Afterward, Schafernaker took to Twitter to make the point that Siri had activated and spoken up without him deliberately awakening the voice assistant with the deliberate use of the ‘Hey Siri’ wake word. While the awakening was accidental, it likely didn’t happen for no reason. Either someone in the studio may have said ‘Hey Siri’ or something similar at just the right moment or the gesture Schafernaker made when he raised his wrist to point at the screen may have activated Siri. The sleeve of his shirt may even have pressed the button on the Apple Watch long enough to awaken the voice assistant.
According to VoiceBot, a 2018 survey found that 28.5 percent of smart speaker users have noticed false wake-ups at least once a day, and 43.7 percent at least once per month. Normally, this just requires telling the voice assistant to stop listening, but it can be annoying even if it isn’t on live television.
Lyons was assistant vice president and director of Broadcast Communications at The Durst Organization.
He was responsible for the communications infrastructure of Durst’s multimillion-square-foot commercial portfolio and played a major role in helping broadcasters return to the air in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack on the World Trade Center. Among his many accomplishments was leading the design and implementation of the redesigned master antenna at 4 Times Square and the new broadcast transmission facility at One World Trade Center.
In 2006 Lyons received the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award; in 2017 he was honored with the NAB Television Engineering Achievement Award.
Earlier in his career he held engineering positions with several New York-based broadcast organizations and served two stints as chairman of the Master FM Broadcasters Committee at the Empire State Building. “He was a walking history of New York broadcasting,” said fellow New York engineer David Bialik. “In addition he changed the RF landscape of New York.”
According to a biographical summary published earlier by Radio World, Lyons attended Brooklyn Technical High School and was a transmitter operator and studio engineer for radio station WRFM (later WWPR). He spent nine years as chief studio technical operator at WWRL and while there also worked as director of engineering at ZDK Radio in St. John’s, Antigua, a station he built and put on the air. He worked for WOR Radio as assistant chief engineer, then was moved by the company to WXLO (later WRKS) to be chief engineer, where he served for a decade.
During most of that time he was chairman of the Master FM Broadcasters Committee at the Empire State Building, coordinating the operations of 13 city FM stations with the broadcasters at Empire and the World Trade Center.
I➦n 1917...actor/director Ezra Stone was born in New Bedford Mass. ezra-stone His major acting success was as the teenaged son, Henry, in the popular radio comedy The Aldrich Family. As director he shot that show when it came to TV, as well as The Munsters & Lost in Space. He died at age 76 in an auto accident Mar 3, 1994. ➦In 1932..."The Adventures of Charlie Chan" first aired on the NBC Blue Radio Network. The Chinese detective became even more popular on the movie screen in the 1930s and 1940s.
On radio, Charlie Chan was heard in several different series on three networks (the NBC Blue Network, Mutual, and ABC) between 1932 and 1948. Walter Connolly initially portrayed Chan on Esso Oil's Five Star Theater. Ed Begley, Sr. had the title role in NBC's The Adventures of Charlie Chan (1944–45), followed by Santos Ortega (1947–48). Leon Janney and Rodney Jacobs were heard as Lee Chan, Number One Son, and Dorian St. George was the announcer.
➦In 1963...Jay Nelson aired his first morning show on CHUM 1050 AM Toronto.
Born Frank Coxe in Scranton, Pa., Nelson was a disc jockey there before arriving in Buffalo, where WKBW was riding the crest of rock's surging popularity.
He joined Joey Reynolds, Danny Neaverth, Fred Klestine and a handful of other star disc jockeys who were kings of radio and school record hops. Owing to the station's 50,000 watts of power, their irreverent voices and record selections boomed into homes up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
On weekends Nelson changed into a pith helmet and khakis for his role as host of WKBW-TV's "Jungle Jay Show," a humorous audience participation series that aired on Saturday morning.
The program was a hit with Canadian viewers as well, and it was Nelson's cross-border popularity that earned him the morning job at CHUM.
Nelson had a 17 year run in morning drive at CHUM, finally stepping down in 1980.
Nelson went on to gigs at CITY-TV, CKFM, CKEY, CHFI and CJEZ and was teaching radio at George Brown College in Toronto shortly before his death.
On February 18, 1994, Toronto radio fans were shocked at the news that long-time CHUM morning man Jay Nelson had died.
➦In 1971...Don Imus signed on at WNBC, New York City.
Imus was a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Upon winning a talent contest at Johnny Otis's nightclub, he began working as a singer/songwriter, managed by Otis. After hearing a morning disc-jockey, he went to the nearby radio station and persuaded the owner to hire him. Thus he began his career as a radio disc jockey on June 28, 1968 at radio station KUTY in Palmdale, California. He stayed at the station until 1969 when he left for a job at KJOY, a small radio station in Stockton, California.
He was later fired for saying "hell" on air. After being fired in Stockton, he went to KXOA in Sacramento, California. His on-air pranks, such as calling up a restaurant and ordering 1200 hamburgers to go, made his show immensely popular and boosted ratings. He was inspired to pursue a career in radio by listening to California radio personality Don MacKinnon.
After a stint at WGAR 1220 AM radio in Cleveland, Ohio, Imus moved to New York City and WNBC 660 AM radio in December 1971. During this first stint at WNBC, Imus recorded three record albums, two for the RCA Victor label (1200 Hamburgers to Go, including some of his more popular humor from KXOA, WGAR and WNBC broadcasts.
Imus was fired from WNBC in August 1977 along with several of the station's other personalities, in an effort to revamp the station's sound and boost ratings. In 1978 he returned to Cleveland radio as afternoon drive host on WHK, making the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on his first day back in town.
In a surprise, Imus was rehired by WNBC in September 1979, and revived his morning drive show. From 1982 to 1985, the station also employed talk-radio host Howard Stern, and WNBC heavily promoted the pair in print and TV commercials, which often featured the slogan "If We Weren't So Bad, We Wouldn't Be So Good."
➦In 1992...WQXR 1560 AM New York City changed calls to WQEW-AM. Today the station is WFME and is owned by Family Stations.
The change in call letters co-incided with owner New York Times flipping to popular standards format, which was inaugurated by a live studio performance by Tony Bennett. The change came a few months after WNEW 1130 AM, New York's heritage popular standards station, announced an impending sale to Bloomberg L.P. and a format switch to business information with the new call letters WBBR. The format change at 1560 to standards happened 10 days before WNEW's transition.
The station focused on a broad range of pop standards–the format's foundation artists including Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin and Perry Como, but also artists from the big band era (such as Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington); and non-rock-and-roll pop hits (by artists like Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles, Bobby Darin and Pat Boone, among others). Light rock'n'roll material such as the Turtles was also occasionally heard.
Although initially successful, the station's advertising revenues were not spectacular, and older audience demographics were deemed undesirable for long-term success. On December 3, 1998, the Times announced that WQEW would switch to Radio Disney after agreeing to what was initially an eight-year local marketing agreement term with the Walt Disney Company and its ABC Radio subsidiary. Radio Disney programming launched on WQEW on December 28, 1998.
At the end of the agreement with the Times in late 2006, Disney had the option to purchase the station or to extend the arrangement with the Times maintaining ownership. Disney exercised the option to purchase in early January 2007. Disney/ABC officially became the owner of the station on May 24, 2007.
On August 13, 2014, Disney announced its intention to end terrestrial distribution of the Radio Disney format, in order to focus on digital distribution. Disney would also sell its remaining Radio Disney broadcast outlets, including WQEW and with the lone exception of KDIS in Los Angeles.
On November 21, 2014, Oakland, California-based Family Stations announced it would purchase WQEW from Disney/ABC for $12.95 million. In January 2013 Family Radio sold the original, Newark, New Jersey-licensed WFME 94.7 FM, which it had owned since 1966 but had been programming since 1963) to Cumulus Media, who converted the station into country music-formatted WNSH.
In what amounted to a station trade-plus-cash transaction, Family Stations also acquired the license for WDVY (106.3 FM) in Mount Kisco, New York. The 106.3 FM signal, combined in tandem with Family Radio-owned WFRH (91.7 FM) in Kingston, New York mainly serves the Hudson Valley region; another Family Radio outlet, WFRS (88.9 FM) in Smithtown, New York serves Long Island. This left Family Radio programming unavailable over-the-air in New York City proper and northern New Jersey (including Newark) for over two years.
After the FCC approved the sale on February 10, 2015, 1560 AM went silent on February 17 in preparation of the format change. The sale was finalized on February 20 and the call sign was changed to WFME. The station returned to the air on February 27, again giving Family Radio full coverage of the New York City market.
➦In 2008...Canadian broadcaster/cellular mogul Ted Rogers Jr. died at his home in Toronto, after recently being admitted to hospital with a cardiac condition. While he was best known for Canada's Rogers Cable, his communications empire actually makes more money from the mobile phone business.
➦In 2010…Former MLB Chicago Cubs player and sportscaster Ron Santo died. He was 70. He had been dealing with diabetes and other health issues for some time.
As the "single biggest Cubs fan of all time", Santo joined the Cubs' broadcast booth in 1990 as the WGN radio color commentator. He worked with play-by-play announcer Pat Hughes, and these radio broadcasts were also known as the Pat and Ron Show. He also worked with Harry Caray, Thom Brennaman, Steve Stone and Bob Brenly.
Santo also briefly worked with Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers commentator Wayne Larrivee.
Benztown, a global leader in radio imaging, voiceover, programming and jingles, announces that it will release the sixth annual Benztown 50 List of Radio’s Biggest Imaging Voices, the radio industry’s exclusive listing of the top 50 voiceover artists in the U.S. and Canada.
He was later fired for saying "hell" on air. After being fired in Stockton, he went to KXOA in Sacramento, California. His on-air pranks, such as calling up a restaurant and ordering 1200 hamburgers to go, made his show immensely popular and boosted ratings. He was inspired to pursue a career in radio by listening to California radio personality Don MacKinnon.
