Journal Fires Back At Political Coverage Study

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/13/2006 4:51:00 PM

The Journal Broadcast Group, whose stations were included in a University of Wisconsin study critical of the amount of political news coverage on Midwest TV stations, fired back Friday.

Doug Kiel, Vice Chairman and CEO of Journal Broadcast Group and President, Journal Communications, called the study "disappointingly narrow" and failing to provide a "complete or accurate" picture of the the commitment to election coverage of Journal stations WTMJ Milwaukee and WGBA-TV Appleton/Green Bay, Wis., two of the nine markets surveyed by the University of Wisconsin's NewsLab with funding from media reformer The Joyce Foundation.

The study looked at early evening and late newscasts (about an hour per day on each station). "By limiting the scope, the authors of the study have made a choice to exclude potential election coverage included in more than thirty hours of news programming each week in Wisconsin's two largest television markets," said Kiel.

"Our broadcast group has made a significant commitment of five minutes per day for the thirty days leading up to the November 7th general election," he said. "We have broadcast debates, public service announcements urging people to vote, and significant news and public affairs programming.”