Goodmon Makes the Front Page of the Wall Street Journal
On Wednesday, October 15, 2003, Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters Matthew Rose & Joe Flint featured CBC President & CEO Jim Goodmon in their story “Behind Media-Ownership Fight, An Old Power Struggle Rages” on the front page of the publication.
Rose & Flint write, “Mr. Goodmon has emerged as one of the most vocal combatants in the fierce battle over media ownership, which has drawn activists across the political spectrum concerned about the power of Big Media.”
The article focuses on the clash between local affiliates like Goodmon and the major networks over these issues: “But the fight is also being fueled by something far more parochial: the rising antagonism between broadcast networks and their local affiliate stations, whose partnership forms the backbone of the TV industry.”
In fact, the article begins, “Jim Goodmon, chief executive of Capitol Broadcasting Co., has maintained a successful relationship with Viacom Inc.’s CBS for almost 20 years. His TV station here, WRAL, is one of the most profitable CBS affiliates in the country and has helped cement Mr. Goodmon’s position as an influential community figure.
“Yet in May, when he found himself seated with Viacom President Mel Karmazin at a Senate hearing on media concentration, Mr. Goodmon said: ‘I need to suggest that I basically do not agree with anything that Mr. Karmazin said.'”
The article goes on to chronicle the recent fight between the Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Powell and local broadcasters like Goodmon. Powell and his associates want to loosen media ownership rules, while Goodmon and other committed voices warn these actions will be the death knell for localism.
The Wall Street Journal article ends with an example of the row between local broadcasters like Goodmon & national networks like CBS: “Describing Mr. Goodmon’s efforts to defeat the rule changes, CBS [Chairman Leslie] Moonves calls the station owner a ‘rabble rouser.’
“Mr. Goodmon prefers to see himself as a Plott Hound, North Carolina’s state dog, famed for its enthusiasm and its persistence. Having chased a bear into a tree, the hounds have ‘been known to sit at the bottom of the tree until they starve,’ says Mr. Goodmon.”
