News Blackout
Mississippi station fires award-winning but low-rated news team.
By
Kathryn S. Wenner
Kathryn S. Wenner, a former AJR associate editor, is a copy editor at the Washington Post.
After a two-year attempt to reinstate news programming, Hattiesburg, Mississippi's WHLT-TV gives up, firing its award-winning 10-member news department and four production and engineering employees. "We weren't getting any ratings at five and six [o'clock]," says Station Manager Todd Buccelli . That leaves NBC affiliate WDAM-TV as the sole local news operation, but the 45-year-old leader in the two-station market was getting all the viewers anyway. WHLT, a CBS affiliate owned by Media General that has only been on the air since 1987, first dumped its news operation in 1996, Buccelli says. In April 1999 the station gave it another go, earning several awards from the Mississippi Associated Press Broadcasters Association, including best newscast and best sportscast.
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