The story that veteran TV reporter Bernie Grace turned in to his editor at KARE in Minneapolis last month was hardly a muckraking expose. He simply reported that several cars had been stolen out of the service lots of a few car dealers. But the piece was killed. The reason, according to reporters at KARE, was that station management feared it might jeopardize advertising from dealers. KARE’s vice president for news, Janet Mason, denies that. She claims the Grace piece was spiked not because of ad fears but because it lacked “key information” and “perspective.” But Mason declined to identify the holes in the story, or say why she was not satisfied by Grace’s efforts to fill them.
Advertisers have always complained about unfavorable TV news stories, but in the past their irritation rarely affected news coverage. In hard times, though, advertisers are willing to be more insistent, and cash-hungry TV stations have become more susceptible to threats. The biggest victim is consumer reporting, a longtime viewer favorite. Those stations that still feature consumer reporters-about 20 percent compared with 40 percent a decade ago-now seem more likely to delete names of advertisers from critical pieces, allow their own sales department to grill reporters, or kill stories outright. “Everyone loves it if you’re chopping up the city of Philadelphia but if you’re chopping up car dealers or department stores, [many stations] don’t want to touch it,” says Herb Denenberg, a consumer reporter for Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV.
KARE managers had some cause to be nervous. Across Minneapolis at WCCO-TV, respected consumer reporter Silvia Gambardella’s pieces about car buying and repairs prompted local car dealers to pull more than $1 million last year. The station stood by her stories but in September decided not to pick up her contract. WCCO general manager Bob McGann insists the two actions were unrelated. After reporters and anchors complained, McGann did keep her on to eliminate, he says, the “perception” that WCCO had caved in.
Consumer reporters hear more viewer complaints about cars than any other product. That creates a dilemma for their TV stations, because car dealers are usually major advertisers. “We vote with our dollars, " says Tom Bennett of Tousley Ford in White Bear Lake, Minn., an advertiser offended by a Gambardella piece that tracked one of his customers through the state’s lemon-law grievance system. “If I’m out trying to tell a good story about what I’m doing and paying $3,000 for 30 seconds, and someone’s calling me names, I’m not going to be happy.”
Advertisers often complain that consumer reporters “crusade” unfairly or hype petty gripes by customers into major offenses. And some reporting is geared more toward boosting ratings than ending fraud or product hazards. But advertisers are often spooked by the most innocuous attacks. A California car dealer pulled ads from KCRA-TV in Sacramento simply because the station reported a survey showing that Chicago car dealers reaped higher profits from black and women car buyers.
Station responses to irritated advertisers range from courageous to panic stricken to amused. A woman saying she represented Jack-in-the-Box warned KCRA that the company would pull advertising if the station aired a story about a Phoenix employee who had blown his nose on a sandwich sold to a police officer. “I laughed,” says Bill Bauman, KCRA’s news director. “Most of us would have missed the story if she hadn’t called.” (A Jack-in-the-Box spokesperson denies the company made such a call.) Nevertheless, stations often end up running a critical piece but leaving out key details-like the name of a problem merchant. This fall KGET-TV in Bakersfield, Calif., ran a story about a customer’s troubles with a waterbed store. But editors believed the consumer bore some of the blame so deleted the name of the company, which has been an advertiser. Another waterbed store later complained that the anonymous approach tarred good stores along with bad.
Most disturbing, consumer reporters have begun quietly but severely censoring themselves. Reporters say they now weigh news value against potential revenue loss and career damage. “I won’t do the car-repair story, or the lemon story or the story about a misrepresentation in the sale of a car,” says a veteran Midwestern consumer reporter. “I don’t want to get into how you can better negotiate for a car. It’s not worth the hassle.” Herb Weisbaum of KIRO-TV in Seattle wrote this fall in the Investigative Reporters and Editors Journal that “I can’t do my job the way I want to anymore,” adding that enterprise stories are frowned upon and “we don’t even bother with most auto-related stories anymore.” Weisbaum says his news director, John Lippman, would not allow him to be interviewed. Lippman has not returned calls.
Behind the increased station skittishness are dramatic changes in the economics of TV news. Huge profit margins, common just a few years ago, have shrunk to single digits. Many stations, including WCCO in Minneapolis, are also wobbling under debt amassed during the leveraged-buyout craze of the late 1980s. Local TV executives say they still cover consumer issues more aggressively than newspapers. But it is precisely because so many people get their consumer news from TV that independence from ad pressure remains so important. Stations that buckle under once may encourage other advertisers to try boycotts. If that happens, either the station’s revenues-or its integrity-will end up suffering.
