* That was quite the impressive “get” last week for NBC News when anchor Brian Williams sat down in a Moscow hotel with Edward Snowden, who’s either a national-security traitor or a whistle-blowing patriot. Other networks referenced it; it was all over the internet and NBC maxed out with tease hype.
Impressions of Snowden: Not your basic 30-year-old, high-school dropout with a GED. He was prepared, well-composed, articulate and quick. And not unlike the NSA itself, disingenuous at times.
* Back in the day, Florida attorney Pam Bondi used to get national news play by offering legal analysis on Fox News. These days, of course, the Florida attorney general, gets coverage by making news. The Temple Terrace native was, for example, the lead attorney general in the unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to overturn President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
More recently AG Bondi’s response to a lawsuit that alleges Florida discriminates against gay couples by not recognizing out-of-state, same-sex marriages has become the focus of a major media buzz storm. Basically, she need only have noted that her job was to defend Florida law, notably the one where Florida’s voters approved a 2008 constitutional amendment banning gay marriages. It was in that spirit–whether states can make their own determinations–that she was responding to the lawsuit.
But, ironically, she channeled her inner Fox News for a sound bite. She went on to note that “disrupting Florida’s existing marriage laws would impose significant public harm.” Major media red flag. That’s the part that went viral. It resulted in stop-the-presses, context-be-damned “Gay Marriage Causes Harm” headlines to the disparagement of Florida’s attorney general–and the confirmation of another vintage Flori-DUH moment in the news.
* Come November, this TV-media market, the 14th largest in the country, will be without one of its foremost professionals. John Wilson, 73, the lead anchor of WTVT-Channel 13 for more than 20 years, will retire. Before that he had anchored the news at WTSP-Channel 10 for 12 years.
In a business that can still live down to a cynical “If it bleeds, it leads” mantra, Wilson has been a rock of class and gentlemanly mien for more than a generation.
I remember catching his act live one time.
It was over at Eckerd College in the late ’80s. Representing the Tampa Bay Business Journal, I was co-interviewing David Brinkley with Walt Belcher of the Tampa Tribune. Brinkley was a big name and great-as-expected copy. No surprise that his guest-lecture appearance at Eckerd attracted a lot of local media interest. Including, naturally enough, local network affiliates.
When Belcher and I were finished, I noticed Channel 10’s John Wilson setting up for his on-air interview with Brinkley. I hung around and transcribed my notes. Then along with the Eckerd PR people, I watched Wilson’s interview with Brinkley.
An icon and a pro’s pro, with Wilson conducting. He was prepared to inquire, to probe, to engage. His manner was affable, professional and humor-inducing. The chemistry was palpable. They both enjoyed the process, and viewers were the beneficiaries. It doesn’t always work that way.
Wilson reminded me how important–and often overlooked–is the skill of listening. You could see him seamlessly pivot to something not in his notes to follow up a Brinkley quip or anecdote. It was masterful.
This market–and this business–will miss him.
* High Life, the British Airways in-flight magazine, includes a nice “Sunshine State of Mind” spread this month. And British freelancer Emily Payne touted a lot more than Miami, the Keys, the Everglades and Walt Disney World. “For the flutter of city life and the feeling of sand beneath your feet, Tampa and St. Petersburg/Clearwater make a perfect two-step holiday,” she writes.
Mention is made of International Plaza, Hyde Park Village, Ybor City and SoHo, as well as The Florida Aquarium, Lowry Park Zoo and Busch Gardens. The layout includes a night-time Tampa skyline shot and a panoramic one of pristine Clearwater Beach.
It’s always of interest to see how the area is represented to outsiders. Even better is to be reminded that, hey, we live here!
And where we live is a place with a ratcheting visitor profile. Last year, according to Visit Tampa Bay, nearly 14 million Tampa-Hillsborough visitors spent a record $4.4 billion. Pinellas also set a spending record of $4.2 billion from its 14.3 million visitors.
* Why is there a market for Adam Sandler movies? Just askin’.