KTVU's 'Mother Of All Mysteries'; Why Did Elaine Corral Quit?; Channel 2 'Urban Legend' Stories Grow By The Day

 At the Jack London Square studios it's still regarded as the "mother of all mysteries." So much unknown intrigue that it's an ongoing urban legend.

This much is certain.

Suddenly and emphatically, inexplicably too one night, KTVU anchor, Elaine Corral quit on the air.

Without any rhyme or reason. Without any formal or non-formal notice to management, nor even her closest friends as to why. We heard to pursue an acting career but almost everyone agrees that didn't seem right --now or even today, Corral, or Corral-Kendall hasn't had a really steady movie career. Moreover, Corral was a 20-year-plus news anchor veteran --the timing couldn't have been fraught with more questions than this move and only added to the mystery.

 Even today, Corral has never spoken publically about the specifics of her resignation--after all, she was making a high, six-figure salary and was one of the Bay Area's most popular TV news anchor. Was it her business relationship working with co-anchor, Dennis Richmond. Were there issues that came up that might have led to her quitting so suddenly. Nobody knows. Not a single person--even those close to Corral who swear they have no idea other than what was offered.

A former KTVU staffer told me it caught everyone off-guard. "We have gatherings every once and awhile to shoot the shit and talk about the 'good old days' and this, (Corral's resignation), always comes up--Nobody really knows--It's KTVU's urban legend."

Several Bay Area media has attempted to get more information from Corral to no avail, even off the record which gave much more impetus to various stories circulating that Corral's decision involved something far more murkier. Corral signed a confidentiality agreement and was said to get a hefty amount of money from KTVU as a parting gift. That figure too is a mystery: some said over a half-million, some said significantly more. "A lot more", offered a KTVU veteran.

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KTVU Will Not Become 'Fox News West'; Relax Liberal Bay Area

 The Fox Network acquisition of KTVU will have zero influence on the look and editorial style of Channel 2.


As I told Chuck Barney of the San Jose Mercury News, viewers thinking a Fox News conservative mode will blanket Channel 2 are mistaken.


Fox News is not the over-the-air Fox TV Network, nor does it have anything to do with the overall business model. It is all a part of News Corporation, the parent company of Rupert Murdock's vast media empire that includes a wide array of TV, Newspaper and digital holdings.


Like I told Barney, "You're not going to see Bill O' Reilly popping up on Channel 2 any time soon."


In addition, KTVU News will look and sound very much the same and the average viewer will notice no difference whatsoever. At least for the coming months it'll be business as usual at KTVU while down the road the FCC approves the transaction which it is expected to do so.


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BREAKING ALERT: KTVU Acquired By Fox; UPDATED: Exclusive Memo From Cox Media President, Bill Hoffman; KTVU Staffers in Oakland 'Boiling Angry'

 BREAKING! 


KTVU ACQUIRED BY FOX!


**Source: Cox gets Fox Boston station in the deal.
*KTVU Oakland staffers: 'Boiling Angry'


*Rich Lieberman 415 Media Exclusive


*Developing...


UPDATE: 3: 17 PM PT --MEMO--

I wanted to let you all know that an important strategic opportunity has presented itself and Cox Media Group will acquire FOX affiliates WFXT-TV Channel 25 in Boston and WHBQ-TV Channel 13 in Memphis as part of a mutual agreement to exchange stations with FOX Television Stations. In exchange, FOX will acquire KTVU and KICU in the San Francisco Bay area from CMG.

CMG thanks the leaders and employees at KTVU and KICU for the outstanding work they have done in the San Francisco Bay market over the decades to superserve their community with award-winning broadcasting and sales solutions for their advertisers. We’re also glad that KTVU and FOX will continue to serve the market together.

Following the completion of this exchange with FOX, which is expected later this year, CMG will own and operate four FOX affiliates, including:

· WFXT-TV in Boston

· WHBQ-TV in Memphis

· WAWS-TV in Jacksonville

· KOKI-TV in Tulsa

This will be the first time we will have had a media presence in Boston and Memphis, and CMG is excited about the prospects that WFXT-TV and WHBQ-TV bring to our TV portfolio. These new stations fit nicely into CMG’s broadcast portfolio, and we look forward to having a great news presence in these two markets and competing hard with the fine local broadcasters who already reside there. Once complete, CMG will operate 14 broadcast stations and one cable channel in 10 TV markets, including:

· Atlanta (WSB-TV ABC)

· Boston (WFXT-TV FOX)

· Charlotte (WSOC-TV ABC & WAXN-TV Independent)

· Dayton (WHIO-TV CBS)

· Jacksonville (WAWS-TV FOX & WTEV-TV CBS)

· Memphis (WHBQ-TV FOX)

· Orlando (WFTV ABC & WRDQ-TV Independent)

· Pittsburgh (WPXI-TV NBC & PCNC independent cable channel)

· Seattle (KIRO-TV CBS)

· Tulsa (KOKI-TV FOX & KMYT-TV MyNetwork)

Until this exchange is complete, it is business as usual in San Francisco. Our colleagues at KTVU and KICU can continue to expect the same level of service from everyone at Cox and CMG for any business or employment issue. We are confident that they will continue to serve their audiences, advertisers and community with timely, valuable and trustworthy entertainment, news and information.

Thanks for all you do every day to help us be the most essential local media source in our markets, delivering great products that connect with the needs of our customers.

Bill

Bill Hoffman | President

Cox Media Group | 6205 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd. | Atlanta, GA 30328

Ph: (678) 645-4344 | Fax: (678) 645-5002| Email: bill.hoffman@coxinc.com

KTVU PR Guy Holub Leaving To Join Cox Media Competitor in Atlanta

  Holub Leaving KTVU--

Jeff Holub, head of creative services at KTVU is heading to Atlanta to work for a direct competitor of the Cox (who owns KTVU) station in Atlanta, WSB-TV.

Holub became persona non grata to Cox with his constant complaining of wanting to be transferred out of the Bay Area, hoping to, if not work at corporate in Atlanta, then at least a more "agreeable" location for him in Charlotte, NC or in Ohio, his home state.

A station source opined to me:

Wonder if Tom Raponi, (Channel 2 GM), will comment on why Holub, who makes life miserable for the people who do the work he takes credit for, gets to stay and then give notice and work for a competitor, while others in his department are led out the door like criminals. 

 

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Exclusive: KTVU Reporters Vacar and Fowler Get Stripped of Editor Status; News Director Rosenthal Does Dirty Deeds Behind Back; Indignation at Jack London Square

  Siege Mentality inside KTVU...

KTVU veteran reporters, Tom Vacar and John Fowler--both with over two decades of tenure over at Jack London Square, have been stripped of their "Editor" status. Worse yet, the indignation was told to them by co-workers and not by the ND, Lee Rosenthal, who did the dirty deed himself!

How coincidental.

Word is that both Vacar and Fowler were outraged, according to a station source.

Vacar was KTVU's Consumer Editor and Fowler, the Health and Science Editor. Both have won numerous industry awards and local Emmys.

**In another outrageous move, according to my sources, Jeff Holub, the PR director, had reporter, Eric Rasmusen's, wife, one of their best promotions writers and producers escorted out of the building when he learned she landed another job.

Another producer in the department is supposedly going to a Cox station in Oklahoma, so she gets to stay for her last two weeks, and is given a heroes send off.

It used to be at KTVU, if you were being wooed by another offer, KTVU would do something to keep you, and failing that, they would win you the best, allowing you your last two weeks. Now their intent is to humiliate you as a shot across the deck as a warning to all the worker bees in the hive.

**Rich Lieberman 415 Media Exclusive

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Bay Bridge Closure: The Un-Crisis Crisis; KGO-TV; KTVU; What if Fox Bought KRON And NBC Bought KTVU? Thursday Scrambled Eggs and Coffee

 Excuse me for gargling my coffee and reacting to the latest systemic performance of Bay Area media outlets, called: Why do we act this way? Act 1:

Instead of acknowledging the obvious, (psst, the Bay Bridge is down, we told you that about 10,000 times--maybe 15, 000, I lost count); and moving on to REPORT!, we get the usual breathless glee-club members who act as if this was the second coming. Jesus Christ!

Hey, people, I got a story for you: You men and women got it over the so-called radio and TV professionals. You are allowed to giggle. They don't have a clue--at least most of 'em. While you managed to make it to work and navigate through the relatively minor disruption, the media masses tried in vain to create, to reveal, to extract any form of havoc. Problem is, there was no havoc. There was and is no crisis--the un-crisis crisis.

If not for a few radio traffic reporters, (KCBS' Kim Wonderly, for example, and on TV, the reliably calm and collected, Sal Castaneda of KTVU), you'd have thunk we were about to witness the end of the world. As Phil Matier told Stan Bunger and Susan Leigh Taylor on KCBS, "we've been through a number of these rodeos." Translation: Pipe down the volume. Nothing extraordinarily happened for the most part. Sure, the traffic was a little more pronounced; BART and the ferries were packed. The commute was a little sluggish--ho hum, get back to me if and when there's real news.

**At KGO-TV, the conversation in the lunch room is who's next. I've heard about two senior reporters but if management goes that route, they'll be a fight and the union will weigh in and that's never pretty.

**Meanwhile, over at KTVU the paranoia patrol continues to carry on despite the fact IT, yeah, that thing, still ghosts the Jack London Square building. The prevailing strategy is to let IT disappear, go away only, ironically, the MO by GM, Tom Raponi is merely creating the opposite. It's one thing to carry on and exact a "business as usual" at the OK-Corral, but it's another to have a series of staff meetings further warning employees not to talk about it. Raponi, and more specifically, ND, Lee Rosenthal, are not out of the woods yet. And sorry to disappoint the KTVU PR Dept, but this story has NOT ended yet.

**News to muse: Suppose Fox bought KRON and NBC/Comcast purchased KTVU from Cox? Don't laugh just yet, bubby.

**Someone at the local CBS O and O went ballistic over a $500 expense-account lavish lunch at Kokkari. Why? The guy took a woman from KRON to lunch and loaded up on the Cabernet. I hope it worked, dude.

**That morning mattress seller on radio that wanted a sandwich to go at North Beach Restaurant didn't bother to even throw a buck at the wait staff who brought his highness his sandwich in the limo. Worse yet, he and his bud were back from a wake.

**Oxymoron personified: "The R and B Joke Hour."

**Witness Protection Program: KTVU Sales Dept.

**A joke submitted for the R and B joke hour: So this guy who didn't tip the wait staff at a restaurant instead threw down a Benjamin at a Union St. nail salon! Ha Ha ha!

**Jim Eason wasn't on my radio show Wednesday: He and his wife had a family emergency. We wish them the best. Eason will reschedule at a future date.

**Larry Beil, if it were up to him, would be the big fish at a Honolulu TV station. Translation: Lead anchor and only that. From someone who knows.

**The bar over at Grumpy's come Friday night should be packed after office hours. The purge happy hour.

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Exclusive: KTVU Fake Pilot Name List OKed by Station 'Managing Editor Who Wasn't Fired; Station Feared Backlash by SF-Area Asian Community; Source That Provided Fake List Was Ex-Pilot

Several minutes before the moment the fake names of the Asiana Airlines pilots aired prematurely on KTVU News, a veteran staffer-- awarding winning TV News journalist, Roland De Wolk, (one of the four fired at the station over the incident), passed the names over to newsroom staffers whose duty was to make sure the names were authentic, according to a broadcast source close to the station. One of those staffers included the Managing Editor!

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the story.

"You better check these, (names), out", said De Wolk after he passed the names over to newsroom personnel.  KTVU's Managing Editor, Michelle Toy, who saw the list and whose duty, (among normal news procedures),  was to read the names out loud, phonetically, raised the issue that the names sounded suspicious. Told that they were confirmed by an NTSB official, (later to be known as an intern), OKed the list.  Toy, who is of Asian descent, was not one of the four staffers let go by KTVU and its corporate owner, Cox Media.

Another individual close to De Wolk said that the source that provided the fake pilot's names,(electronically via e-mail or text), was an ex-pilot who had worked with KTVU in the past and was considered to be trustworthy.

I asked the source if the pilot knowingly sent the names as a joke and if so, did the station know? "Apparently not." At least 4-5 people saw the list of names, including anchor, Tori Campbell, who read them on the air on KTVU's Noon Newscast, Friday, July 12th.

Toy, according to the source, made note that even though the downed jetliner was a Korean airline, the pilot, (fake), names were that of Chinese descent. Furthermore, the real names had already been posted on-line and KTVU was one of several news organizations that published them.

So, why then was Toy spared? Said the source: "KTVU didn't want to offend the Asian Community. They'd already did so with the fake name scandal and they were worried about a backlash."

Attempts to reach Toy were unsuccessful.

KTVU management has ignored repeated requests for comment on this and other items related to the story. 

De Wolk has hired SF-area attorney, Michael Cardoza, over a wrongful-termination act.

KTVU has placed a gag order on its entire staff regarding the affair. It should be noted that Cox Media sent its own media attorney out to the Bay Area to head an internal investigation into the highly embarrassing incident. An incident that has tarnished KTVU's stellar news product reputation and continues to haunt several of its key personnel, both on and off the air.

**RICH LIEBERMAN 415 MEDIA EXCLUSIVE

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Source Close to KTVU Asiana Name Gaffe: 'Perfect Storm' of Unintended Consequences; In-House Joke That Somehow Aired; The Latest

   Spoke to a person close to the entire matter at hand and this individual told me that the entire affair was a "perfect storm" of unintended consequences. In other words, an internal "joke" that wasn't meant to get anywhere near the studio, let alone the anchor desk.

"I don't think (the person) who sent it could ever imagine that it would have made air, " said the KTVU insider.

That person who sent the joke e-mail; a longtime source that the station has relied on in the past as a trusted informant, is now at the heart of the investigation. It's looking pretty simple from here: the fake, joke e-mail that wasn't meant for anyone other than in-house laughter found its way, remarkably to the air, and thus, cost four people their jobs. It's abhorrent and indefensible and it's probably played out in almost every newsroom in America. How many joke e-mails have you and your co-workers in the office laughed at a matter that would never be intended for outside viewing? Only, this internal joke got through the fortress. No excuses, indeed, but it sheds light on matter. Was it racist and offensive? Did it cross the line? Yes and Yes. Ultimately, and I still can't fathom this: IT MADE IT PAST PEOPLE WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER. End of story.

**Keep it here for any late-breaking developments.


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Somber Feeling at KTVU Over Airline Gaffe Firings; Cox Sent Its Own Media Attorney; More Could Go; Bay Media Notes Thursday

While the mood is somber around the Jack London Square studios of KTVU over the firing of some veteran news staffers, a sense of relief, albeit temporary, permeates the station.

For one thing, Wednesday's mini-bloodbath, however dreadful for those who got the hook, was not shocking for many.

"We're definitely down," a longtime air talent told me. Although the word of the dismissals was announced by News Director, Lee Rosenthal, rumors started fast and furious at the Oakland Fox affiliate. Even some of my most dependable insiders were reluctant to talk, on or off the record.

I got word midday about the developments and tried to gauge reaction and what's in store for the future.

QUICK BULLET POINTS---

1. Cox sent its own media attorney to Oakland to head the internal investigation. Ever mindful of its image and brand, which has taken a beating over the Asiana Airline name gaffe, Cox was adamant that it got to the bottom of the affair.

2. An e-mail that made its way to the newsroom the day of the gaffe, was seen by 4-5 people, (Brad Belstock, one of the staffers fired, was not a part of the gaffe, but his tweet, "Oh Shit", immediately after it was read, was let go because he violated station social-media policy.)

3. Cox and upper management suits at KTVU have not completed the investigation. The matter is not closed. Keep in mind that this is the worst mistake that has ever happened at KTVU, (duh!); it's a matter so stark and disturbing, the possibility of more firings is likely.

4. ND, Rosenthal, is safe for now, (he's only been here barely 3 months), but his much-ballyhooed PR release only a few days after the crash, left many disgusted and added to the embarrassment --don't think Cox high-ups were too pleased with this sheet.

5. Tori Campbell, who read the dreaded script, is also safe and is most likely spared. For one, she recently re-signed a contract extension, (for fairly decent money), and letting her go would be fraught with legal issues and financial matters.

By the way, Campbell is not on the air this week--she's on vacation, (which has nothing to do with Namegate--the vacation was planned months ago.) Probably good timing.

**Developing...

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A Classic Sunday Commenter on the KTVU Secret Meeting

Cox Media Conducts Internal Investigation; KTVU Namegate Still Fluid; Fake Press Release Latest Development

Now that Asiana Airlines has threatened legal action against KTVU, the internal investigation in Oakland has shifted to Channel 2's corporate owner, Cox Media in Atlanta.

Which effectively puts both the GM, Tom Raponi, and News Director, Lee Rosenthal out of the loop on Namegate. Raponi, the GM, was the latest recipient of a fake news release that looked and sounded genuine until the very end. It bears to repeat that someone out there really hates KTVU. Who and why remains to be seen and investigated. The situation gets more bizarre by the day.

Inside the station the staffers remain tight-lipped, (as they should now that the legal arena has entered into the equation). Even a few of my insiders don't know what's going on. They just go to work and do their job although all of this has put a tremendous amount of strain on people in the newsroom.

There's growing belief that someone is going to take the fall. No one is immune. Rosenthal has barely been on the job for three months yet if the situation remains fluid and/or more embarrassing developments occur, he might get the hook. This is Cox mind you; a private company fiercely protective of its name and brand. They've never been in love with their progressive entity in the Bay Area but they also acknowledge it's still a cash cow. (At one point years ago KTVU's vaunted "10 O'clock News" alone accounted for 1% of the overall gross earnings for Cox Media).

**Developing...

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Exclusive: Was KTVU Victim of Sabotage Over Asiana Airline 'Namegate?' SF TV Competition Or Rogue KTVU Staffer; Cox Media Investigation

The KTVU Namegate affair has taken a dramatic turn.

Several insiders in the know have told me that the Asiana Airliner pilot-name brouhaha might very well have been perpetrated by individuals from the local SF-TV competition. Or from a rogue KTVU staffer bent on revenge!

Even with the disclosure that an NTSB intern has been identified and relieved of his duties, the embarrassing incident still made it past KTVU news personnel on duty at the time of the Noon News newscast last Friday.

*Bullet Points:

1) The internal investigation is being run by Cox Atlanta. The Cox family does NOT like controversy, or to be embarrassed. This is a family owned company; there are NO stockholders. The family holds its pride close. Their internal security team usually consists of retired FBI and Secret Service. As one of America's richest families, they protect their own interests.

 

2) NO ONE at KTVU is safe. If COX feels management is lax, the GM or ND could be gone.

 

3) Probably 4 or 5 employees in the newsroom "touched" the story before air. They include the assignment desk; a writer; a producer; a graphic artist; and the anchor. It's possible the executive producer and/or news director saw it, too. That's a LOT of eyes missing the real story! All could be fired.

 

4) A leading candidate for the prank...other TV stations in the market. KTVU made LOTS of enemies with its over-the-top, self-serving promo touting its coverage of the plane crash (which WAS very good). But in doing so, they rubbed noses in the dirt at KGO, KPIX, KRON and KNTV. Any p-o'd person at one of those stations could have pulled the prank.

 

5) Whoever did this has insider knowledge of the "flow" of the KTVU newsroom (which is typical of any TV newsroom). The fact that the information came in as breaking news, so close to news time, tells you that the perpetrator knew the story might be rushed to air, with only a cursory review of the "facts!". The person who did this leveraged their knowledge of how a newsroom works on deadline. Well played.

 

**Developing...

 

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