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Welcome to the247Newsroom.com Today is Wednesday, February 22, 2012. It’s a busy afternoon, here;s the latest media news at this hour: **New this afternoon: Central Forida’s News 13 hires senior news director from Sacramento - Hal Boedeker at the Orlando Sentinel reports, “Tim Geraghty joins the 24- hour cable news operation on March 19 from News 10 KXTV in Sacramento. He was vice president/news director there since 2009. Stephen Chavarie, the former senior director of news at News 13, has retired. He worked 11 years at News 13 and spent more than 30 years in Orlando TV news.” (more) **New this afternoon: D.C. news director quits, citing ethics...Asendio Says Reporters Shouldn't Be Part of Donor Event. Richard Prince reports on his Journal-isms blog, Jim Asendio, likely the highest ranking African American news director at a top-tier National Public Radio affiliate, resigned at WAMU-FM in the nation's capital on Tuesday "because I did not agree with an upper management decision to have working journalists attend a donor-only, station-sponsored event," he said” (more) **New this afternoon: Ex-marketing director Brad Moses named general manager at Tampa's WFLA-Ch. 8. Eric Deggans reports on his blog, The Feed, that “Brad Moses, former head of Media General's NBC affiliate in Raleigh, N.C., was just named president and general manager of Tampa NBC station WFLA- Ch. 8, leading a station where he once served as marketing director for five years. Moses worked at WFLA from 2002 to 2007, leaving to head Media General's NBC affiliate in Savannah, Ga. WFLA has not had a permanent person in the general manager's position since May 2011; Moses starts in the job March 26.” (more) **New this afternoon: Here’s what you might call a bell ringer of a surprise...'CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley' Beats ABC World News in Adults 25-54 for the First Time Since September 2006. Readers have to consider the source in how much of a change this is...and what the spin is.., since it’s coming in the form of a press release from CBS, but they are citing NIelsen: “The CBS EVENING NEWS WITH SCOTT PELLEY beat “ABC World News” in adults 25-54 (1.8/06 vs. 1.7/06, +6%), according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for the week of February 13. This marks the first time CBS EVENING NEWS finished ahead of "ABC World News" with adults 25- 54 since the week of September 25, 2006. The CBS EVENING NEWS WITH SCOTT PELLEY also posted double-digit percentage gains for the week among households (4.5/08 from 4.1/08, +10%), viewers (6.83m from 6.10m, +12%) and adults 25-54 (1.8/06 from 1.5/06, +20%), compared to the same week last year.” **New this afternoon: Poynter Investigates...How ESPN published “Chink in the Armor” Jeremy Lin headline & what’s happened since. Jason Fry at Poynter peels back the layers in the Jeremy Lin story/ESPN mess of “offensive and inappropriate comments” that got one employee fired and another suspended. Jason Fry writes, “The rise of Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks’ Asian-American star, has been one of 2012’s feel-good sports stories. But it’s come with an unwelcome undercurrent: racial references by fans, columnists and TV personalities that have ranged from innocent-but-cringe- worthy to openly offensive...After looking into the incidents, The Poynter Review Project sees one as a lapse in judgment by an editor working without a net and the other two as terribly timed slips of the tongue. One of the punishments imposed strikes us as too severe. And we note that the phrase that got ESPN in so much trouble is awfully shopworn and lazy.” (more) At the top this morning was s a story out of New Haven, Connecticut - Shots Fired at News Crew...The crew was reporting on an earlier shooting. WVIT reports: As an NBC Connecticut news crew was reporting on a shooting at a market in New Haven on Monday evening, bullets just missed their marked news van...The news crew said the man then ran off, but police found a weapon, shell casings and a bullet that was lodged in the rear of another car that was traveling north on Sheldon. No one was hurt. **Richard Huff at the New York Daily News has a few market tidbits including: Whitney Houston funeral coverage was a hit with viewers on a usually slow Saturday. According to Huff, “Whitney Houston’s more than three-hour funeral Saturday was a huge draw for some local stations, according to Nielsen figures. Indeed, from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday — normally low viewing times — WABC/Ch. 7 averaged 560,000 viewers with its live coverage. The audience for the station peaked at 750,000 viewers between 3:45 and 4 p.m., when the funeral ended. (more) Brain Stelter at The New York Times has more on the numbers for the Houston coverage: Whitney Houston Funeral Drew Millions on TV and Online. ...speaking of Brian Stelter at The NY Times...I ran across an odd posting on Jim Romenesko’s blog: Brian Stelter on using Twitter to lose weight. Romenesko reports that Stelter talked to WGBH radio on Friday about using Twitter to lose weight. Here’s an excerpt: ““I looked around at myself in early 2010, realized I had to lose weight — didn’t know how much — but had to lose a lot of weight. So I set a goal of 25 pounds at first …Eventually the goal became 50 pounds, then it became 75 pounds and I finished out around 90 pounds.”” (more) **Houston market - KTRH's Michael Berry Responds To TV Station's Hit- And-Run Allegations. According to allaccess.com, “Clear Channel Talk KTRH-A/Houston host Michael Berry’s response on the air today (Tuesda) to stories on NBC affiliate KPRC-TV/Houston that alleged Berry was involved in a hit-and-run accident outside a gay bar was to blast the media, and especially the TV station, for the reports. Berry opened today’s (Tuesday’s) show by saying that he would go against the "very expensive" advice of his attorneys and would speak on the reports, and then, after saying "I don't care what people see on some TV station," he said that "the fourth-place TV station" had "run out of house fires to report on, so they decided to do a hit piece on me" using "unnamed sources."” (more) **Cincinnati market - Channel 5 hires new co-anchor. According to John Kiesewetter at Cincinnati.com, “Sheree Paolello won’t be anchoring solo at 5 p.m. very long. Seattle morning news anchor Mike Dardis has been hired by WLWT-TV (Channel 5) to anchor with Sheree Paolello at 5 p.m., and report for the 11 p.m. news, starting in April. As I blogged two weeks ago, News 5 pulled anchor Jack Atherton off the 11 p.m. anchor desk starting with February sweeps. Sheree had been anchoring solo at 5 p.m. since Lisa Cooney ended her split shift late last year. Paolello was the sole focus of evening News 5 promotions during NBC’s Super Bowl telecast two weeks ago.” (more) **Cleveland market - Legendary Broadcaster Fred Griffith Signing Off Cleveland Television. Frank Macek reports on his Director’s Cut blog that “Longtime Cleveland broadcast Fred Griffith will sign off from local television on Wednesday, February 22nd, after a 50 year career in broadcasting in Northeast Ohio. Most recently, Fred was a host of Channel 3's 10 a.m. weekday program, "Good Company" with Andrea Vecchio, Michael Cardamone and Joe Cronauer. Fred first joined Channel 3 in May 2000 after leaving his longtime home at WEWS where he worked for 33 years, as a reporter, news producer, news and public affairs director, and for over 26 years, host of the daily two hour Morning Exchange program.” (more) **Orlando market - WFTV: Bob Baxa goes from drivers to putters...Hal Boedeker at the Sentinel reports, “Traffic reporter Bob Baxa left WFTV-Channel 9 in January, but his former colleagues are still rallying around him. “We joked that he is no longer worried about drivers but putters,” anchor Greg Warmoth said. Baxa and his brother-in-law took over Volcano Island Miniature Golf, at 7460 International Dr., last week. (more) **The NWT Group (No Whining Talent) - one of the247newsroom sponsors - just released its list of recent client moves. Click here to see the complete list. **...in one local newsroom where I worked, the morning meeting joke was, what are we covering today? Well, let’s see what’s in The New York Times has today. I spotted piece in The Huffington Post that brought back that morning meeting crack. According the Huffington Post piece: Fox News' Steve Doocy: I Turn On CBS When I Wake Up And 'Figure Out What We Will Be Talking About Most Probably.' Doocy did an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette...here’s an excerpt, “"The reason it is 3:27 is that I get up and turn on the hot water and by the time the water is hot in the shower the news on the half-hour on CBS is going to start. I turn off the shower and listen to the news and figure out what we will be talking about most probably." (more) **2 Western journalists killed in Syria, opposition activists say...CNN is reporting that “Two Western journalists were killed Wednesday in the Syrian city of Homs amid heavy shelling from government forces, opposition activists said. The Sunday Times of London said one of the journalists reportedly killed was reporter Marie Colvin -- the only British newspaper journalist inside the embattled Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr. And French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe confirmed journalist Remi Ochlik was killed in a bombing. He was 28. The night before, Colvin was on air with CNN describing the horrific onslaught in Homs. (more) **More Market & Media Matters: .....In case you missed the posting the other day, here’s the release and a rundown of the 2011 of the LIU Announcement of the 2011 George Polk Awards in Journalism. Winners in 15 categories include 24-year-old crime reporter who broke the story of the Penn State sex abuse scandal. .....Alexis Rivera joining WSVN’s Today in Florida. Rivera joined the station in April 2011 as a general assignment reporter and later a fill-in anchor for the 5-10 a.m. newscast Monday-Friday. Enter the247Newsroom here to search the archives and read more about these stories. If you have a story, comment or suggestion, drop me a note at: editor@the247newsroom.com. Tom Petner Editor & Publisher