WKBW-TV announced a partnership with Time Warner Cable on Thursday, April 17 to provide WNY with more local sports coverage in the future. Both stations will be able to expand their coverage as they share resources such as “Super 7 Athlete of the Week” and “High School Sports Roundup”.

Channel 7 decided to make this move as WNY sports fans have a high interest in local college and high school sports which is what Time Warner Sports Net Channel 13 is all about. This can do nothing but help the Channel 7 sports department as they are the lowest rated sports departments out of the three stations in WNY.

You can read the full story and video interview by going to Channel 7’s website at wkbw.com.

It’s Super Tuesday, the seminal day during the presidential primary season where a significant number of delegates are up for grabs.

The results of today will shape the remainder of the primary season, leading up to each party’s convention over the summer. Look for political advertisements to sharpen in quantity and intensity, and watch for each candidate to make subtle shifts in their policies in order to position themselves as more electable.

My predictions on the Democratic side: Clinton will win NY, but will lose her home state of IL to Obama, along with CA, most of the midwest and all southern states. For the Republicans, McCain will make strong showings in all Super Tuesday states, and since the GOP primaries are winner-take-all (unlike the Dem’s proporational delegates), Romney won’t last much beyond tomorrow. Huckabee will win Arkansas, and will also end up bowing up by the end of the week.

The real fun will be at the Democratic convention. John Edwards suspended his campaign, he didn’t end it. After the first round of delegate voting, if no plurality emerges delegates are free to vote for whomever they want (at least that’s my understanding).

Microsoft is buying Yahoo , or are they? If you google search “Microsoft buys yahoo” you’ll get a whole lot of blog posts about the issue. (Go do it, read some and come back here. Yes, now.) Yahoo is reviewing the bid, and the Justice Department is also interested at looking into it.

Many of you in Com 300 were asking questions about regulation in the media. One regulation issue is who owns who. What are the implications for ownership, how does that affect what is/isn’t presented, and what is best for the society? Anyone have any thoughts?

Cross posted on my own blog, here. (Yes, I have a blog, do you?)

-Sarah Whitehead

On my way in this morning I kept seeing spray-painted signs, mostly handing from highway overpasses, saying “Ron Paul: Revolution.” After the fifth one I decided I was curious enough to Google this Ron Paul person. The first link that came up was his campaign site. Apparently this guy is running for president. Of course on his site it doesn’t immediately state if he is a Republican or Democrat. Turns out he’s Republican, running a campaign for freedom.

In my public speaking classes we talk about the “6 C’s of language”, one of which is Concreteness. That is taking an abstract idea, such as freedom and making it concrete: defining it to your audience. If Paul is the “leading advocate for freedom” as stated on his site, then what is he trying to say? Especially since he’s not outright with his political learnings on his opening page. Thoughts?

Cross posted on my SPE 130 page.
-S. Whitehead

Some interesting stories from NPR’s Morning Edition:

Wal-Mart sees no value in customer service. How’s that for a PR move?

Art imitates life? The movie The Kingdom opens today.

An interesting approach to Children’s Televison: Nickelodeon air a blank screen in an effort to get kids to go out an play. While it seems like a good idea, what about encouraging kids to be active the rest of the year? And how does this affect programming–telling kids to go play instead of watching TV?

Check out those stories and more and leave your thoughts in the comments section!!

Listening to NPR last weekend, I heard an interesting story about journalists trying to cover war crime trials. Journalists were trying to cover the trials, but information wasn’t being made available to them in the same fashion it would be if it were a civil trial. For example, instead of documents being read aloud and made available to journalists, lawyers would ask a witness “Can you verify that the statement on page 23 paragraph 5 is your swore testimony?” When journalists pressed for information they were told to go through the Freedom of Information Act.

I asked a colleague of mine, former lawyer and current adjunct here at Medaille, Tracy Kacher, for her thoughts. Kacher agree with the lawyer interviewed for the story: that it is going to take a lawsuit for the military to change their ways, and she clearly stated, “Journalist should not have to request info through Freedom of Information Act.”

Future and current journalists, what are your thoughts? Listen to the story, (it’s brief), and comment on how the situation should be handled.
–Sarah Whitehead