About the 247newsroom

About the 24/7Newsroom and its editor, Tom Petner Tom Petner, editor and publisher of the247newsroom.com website. This might be more than you’ll ever want to know about me. But you should know something about the person responsible for this site and the mission of the247newsroom.com. Broadcasting has been a part of my life for decades. Actually, I spent the better part of my adult life in newsrooms. I think it’s fair to say that I grew up in television stations. My first broadcast job was in Philadelphia in the mid-1960s. As a conversation starter I enjoyed introducing myself as the Director of Inter-Corporate Communications at WFIL-TV (now WPVI). I was a mail boy! That puffed-up “director” title --- and my spiffy, station-blazer --- helped me develop a much needed social life. Social networking wasn’t part of the vocabulary then. My editorial, production and management experience - more than 35 years worth - spans various sides of the content universe from broadcasting and the Internet to several “new media” venues. On the traditional side, I led several broadcast news operations, first as Vice President of News at WWOR-TV in the New York market for close to 10 years, and then at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh for over six. I’ve been fortunate throughout my career to be part of several strong newsroom and editorial environments, among them: WCBS-TV, the CBS O&O in New York, as Managing Editor/Senior Executive Producer/Executive and Producer of Special Projects; WCAU-TV, the CBS O&O in Philadelphia, as Assignment Manager/Producer,Special Projects; WXYZ-TV in Detroit as Assignment Manager; and WNAC-TV (WLVI) in Boston as News Operation Manager/Assignment Manager/Producer . Early in my career I dropped out of the business and returned to my home town, Philadelphia, to study at Temple University for my undergraduate degree in Communications. So, my return to Temple decades later for a faculty position in the Journalism Department was a sweet homecoming. Over the years, I added to my Temple University education by taking a hands-on approach to learning virtually every job in a television newsroom from Editor and Assignment Manager to Executive Producer and News Director. My editorial growth is built upon the belief that staying ahead of the changing media landscape is paramount. You can either complain about change or figure out how to navigate it. If you’re really lucky, you can lead the charge and take the change in a direction you want. Consequently, I didn’t want to be breathing someone else’s digital dust, so I left the safety of a broadcast career in Pittsburgh in 1999 to be part of the emerging Internet world in New York’s Silicon Alley. Over the next few years I had some amazing “new media” experiences, first at APBNews.com as the site’s Executive Producer & Publisher and later as SVP of Broadcast & Broadband. I then joined Vault.com as the VP of Content and wound up the company’s COO. My online experiences have been quite an adventure involving an array of Internet, broadband, and content initiatives. And after the horrific events of 9/11 in 2001, I left Vault and joined the journalism faculty at Temple University as the founding director of the university’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab (MURL) in Center City Philadelphia. For several years at Temple I commuted between two cities while splitting my time between several jobs, teaching broadcast classes, directing the MURL lab and in-between, editing the daily ShopTalk newsletter and TVSPY site, founded in the mid-1980s by my predecessor, Don Fitzpatrick. In 2008 I was offered an opportunity to consolidate my life to one city and focus on just one job, editor of ShopTalk and TVSPY. After a year and half of reporting on industry news, the shifting media landscape and the impact of the recession on broadcast newsrooms, the downturn caught up with the parent company, Vault, and me. My position was cut, but I had some good fortune that made the transition better. I have had several opportunities to share my experiences and industry insights as a contributing editor to TVNewscheck.com and as a columnist for NewsPro magazine/TVWeek.com. And in-between, I’ve been tweeting away as part of the Poynter Insitute’s posting team on the social networking site. With all these experiences under my belt, I thought it was time for me to step out and launch my own site, the247newsroom.com. If you’re like many in our newsrooms, your job is more than a career, it’s an all-consuming lifestyle from the market where you live to your circle of friends, your decision-making and how you view world events. I hope what you find in the247newsroom will deal realistically with those lifestyle demands and the pressing issues facing today’s broadcast newsrooms. I will strive to make the content timely, without the name calling, put downs and bad mouthing about our business. While I believe there are many things wrong in the broadcast industry and our newsrooms, local news is far from dead - it’s changing. My hope is that the247newsroom will help you stay ahead of the curve and keep you informed about the changes and trends. Enjoy what you see and read. If you don’t, tell me about it. If you have an idea, let me know. You can reach me by email at editor@the247newsroom.com or click the icon Tom Petner Editor & Publisher The247Newsroom.com