Cox City Public Media Chronicles
GPB swings from deficit to surplus. WABE breaks even. NPR’s ‘puff piece’ on Andrew Morse airs.
In August, Atlanta’s competing public broadcasters, state-run Georgia Public Broadcasting and WABE, licensed to the Atlanta Public Schools, both held quarterly board meetings revealing the results of the fiscal year that ended June 30th.
Also in August, NPR’s story on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s publisher Andrew Morse aired.
As I suspected, it didn’t press the paper on its role in the now decade-long competition between the NPR member stations. In fact, it touched on no controversies, scandals or conflicts of interest arising from the paper’s generations-long billionaire ownership.
It was, as one local independent journalist told me, a “puff piece.”
GPB’s Reversal of Fortune
Georgia Public Broadcasting ended Fiscal Year 2024 with a surplus of slightly over $1 million dollars, a reversal of fortunes from the beginning of the year when it labored under a $1.4 million cut to its state appropriations.
“…Really the whole focus of this year was on fiscal responsibility, sustainability. It was on accountability for staff … so to end the year with a $1.2 million surplus is a massive win for us, especially as a company that in the past has had much larger deficits.”
CEO Bert Wesley Huffman told members of the Georgia Public Telecommunication Commission at their August 21st meeting held online.
“We grew as a company. We’ve been undertaking a lot of really a kind of once in a generation effort around strategic planning and rebranding. And so, I’m just really proud of the company and the work that they’ve done.”
Huffman became CEO last year after the state funding cut, which was initially even larger, and subsequent retirement of longtime CEO Teya Ryan.
Under Huffman, GPB made programming changes including the cancelation of Political Rewind with Bill Nigut, its daily radio show heavily featuring reporters and editors from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The AJC subsequently hired Nigut directly and WABE agreed to air a similar show, now with explicit AJC branding.
In the 2024 legislative session, with Ryan out and Huffman in, half a million dollars was added back to GPB in the state’s supplemental budget.
Huffman is a fundraiser by training.
Atop the list of GPB donors in 2023 are James and Sarah Kennedy. That’s James Cox Kennedy, the Chairman emeritus of Cox Enterprises and owner of the AJC.
While the AJC blamed the cancelation of Political Rewind on political interference, they dialed back any negative coverage of GPB once Nigut was on the AJC payroll, where he should have been the whole time, and the paper had a new radio outlet on WABE.
Asked via email about the contribution, Huffman said it was wholly unrelated to the Political Rewind cancellation.
Q. The state budget cut forced the cancellation of Political Rewind with Bill Nigut which heavily featured AJC journalists and editors. The paper’s coverage of the cancelation didn’t disclose any conflict of interest and the paper hired Mr. Nigut weeks later.
A. “First, the state budget cut didn’t ‘force’ anything. GPB received fewer state funds than in previous years, and we made decisions as a company that reduced the overall budget to a manageable and realistic level. That is what any nonprofit organization should do to ensure success. Clearly this worked for us. This was done to safeguard the overall investment by the state and our individual donors”
Q. When did the Kennedys donate to GPB and what was the total amount? Were they involved in getting other large contributions to GPB to make up for the state budget cut?
A. “The Kennedys gift to GPB was in support of the program “Your Fantastic Mind,” a television property completely unrelated to Political Rewind or the AJC.”
Q. Do large donors influence GPB news coverage?
A. “No.”
Q. In this case, of the AJC, local media, or Cox Enterprises?
A. “Again, no.”
Q. Last week NPR did a story about the AJC’s new publisher and left out any context about the paper’s relationships with Atlanta’s NPR affiliates.
A. “– I’m not aware of the story you are referring to, but what context is even needed? GPB is not an affiliate of NPR — we are a member station.”
Q. Did NPR interview anyone at GPB for the story?
A. “No.”
Q. Did the AJC connection and Kennedy donation to GPB influence NPR’s own reporting on Georgia media?
A. “I can’t speak for NPR, but I certainly have confidence in the ethics they employ in their reporting, and I don’t believe that they would be influenced by this, nor would they even know about the donation. We do not share any donor information with NPR or PBS.
“If anything should have been evident from the meeting you attended this morning, it is that GPB is focused on our future and the future of our service to the communities of Georgia. We’re happy to discuss any of that at length but are most certainly ready to move on from the past. This is a successful, strong, and transparent public media company focused on bringing value to the lives of everyday Georgians. There is no deeper, hidden meaning in the work that we do.”
I asked about donor influence because there is a precedent for Cox donations stifling a journalist.
https://www.startribune.com/popular-ducks-unlimited-columnist-runs-afoul-of-his-bosses/349127341
And obviously when a billionaire family can donate or invest large sums of money to favorite causes or news organizations there is an incentive for non-profit leaders to cater to them and for journalists not to investigate.
WABE Breaks Even
At its own board meeting a week later WABE announced, to great relief, it had broken even.
“Our core business, memberships, underwriting, etc. had a little bit of a weak year.”
CFO Sam Delaney told the board.
“We missed by a million two [$1.2 million]. The good news is we had things like film tax credits, rental income, and lower expenses to offset. So, the team did a wonderful job of identifying early in the year softness in our market and we made it up.”
For FY25 Delaney projects a 3 to 5% decrease in memberships and underwriting “however major gifts will make up a lot of that.”
A major cost reduction came when WABE dropped full-service PBS membership for its TV station to become a PDP station.
PDP stands for Program Differentiation Plan and is an option for stations that overlap with another. In Atlanta, GPB has long dominated on television with WABE being a PDP station previously.
In 2018 under then CEO Wonya Lucas, WABE upped the status to full service. Current CEO Jennifer Dorian announced the return to PDP status at its May board meeting.
“The superstar is what we talked about last year. PDP,” Delaney said at the August meeting. “It’s cut our costs by $750,000.”
“Bottom line, we’re going to break even again.”
Delaney predicted for FY25.
WABE ceding TV to GPB begs the question of GPB ceding radio to WABE. And of NPR creating a regional newsroom for Georgia.
Asked via email about that and the NPR profile of Andrew Morse, Sherri Daye Scott, EVP Audience Development and Engagement at WABE replied,
“We did not talk to NPR for its piece on the AJC. We are not involved in GPB strategic planning. Our two stations operate independently as autonomous organizations. Questions about GPB or NPR’s future should be addressed to those respective orgs.”
NPR’s Access Interview with the AJC Publisher
For its story on Morse and his ambitious plans for the AJC, NPR sent its media reporter David Folkenflik to Atlanta where he was on hand for a morning news meeting and a tour of its new office space in Midtown Atlanta.
The only voices heard in the story were Morse and AJC editor Leroy Chapman. No local critics of the paper, from the right, left, or anywhere, were heard from.
“Morse has won major runway from the paper’s longtime owners, one of the richest families in the country, the Cox family. It’s willing to invest up to $150 million.”
It doesn’t say how Cox got their wealth, whether their business interests ever conflict with news coverage, or how the AJC handles those conflicts.
The only hint of negativity is the overall decline in newspapers and crisis in local news.
FOLKENFLIK: “I spoke to six industry executives with experience in local news about Morse’s plans. I expected sharp pushback. Five said they thought Morse stood a pretty good chance of pulling this off. All six said they were rooting for him. David Folkenflik, NPR News, Atlanta.”
I asked Folkenflik via Twitter/X about the interview and why the AJC wasn’t pressed on any conflicts of interest and its relationships with Atlanta’ NPR member stations.
Q. Both GPB and WABE tell me they did not talk to NPR for your story on Andrew Morse. Did the AJC pitch it to NPR or did NPR approach the AJC? Were any conditions set on what would or wouldn’t be asked?
A. “We told the local stations we were working on the story and I spoke informally to local public radio journalists well before my piece ran. I do not accept conditions like that for interviews. Never have or would. Don’t understand the question.”
I asked about who approached and what parameters were set because Folkenflik famously rejected and later exposed an access interview offer by Washington Post’s publisher Will Lewis so long as NPR stopped digging into scandals from ten years ago.
Folkenflik’s profile of the AJC’s publisher as a tech savvy innovator with bold plans to revitalize a legacy newspaper seems just like the kind of story the Post’s Will Lewis was pitching.
MORSE: Our mission is to be the most essential and engaging source of news for the people of Atlanta, Georgia and the South.
FOLKENFLIK: Bold declaration. Then again, Morse is bold and buoyant and ebullient. He operates with a personal touch, showing up routinely at company softball games and civic events, meeting all 400 employees in small groups and dinners, writing front-page editorials and insisting on the need to change the culture.
Since NPR didn’t ask the AJC any pointed questions I did. Again. And specifically, again, about its role in GPB’s takeover of WRAS sparking the now decade-long public radio war in Atlanta.
Certainly, a paper whose owner can now invest $150 million to modernize and reach new audiences wouldn’t have conspired with a state-run broadcaster to steal a college radio station as a platform for itself?
And surely the would-be New York Times of the South would be ethical, transparent, and accountable enough now to admit if it had.
Despite multiple requests for comment, the AJC did not respond. Again. Nor did NPR’s Public Editor Kelly McBride.
Cox and Friends
Last Friday night at Manuel’s Tavern I spotted Dekalb County CEO Michael Thurmond enter and be directed to the back room. A quick peak through the curtain revealed what looked to be the retirement party for AJC reporter and senior editor James Salzer.
Salzer was the AJC’s chief budget reporter and could, at times, write stories critical of GBP and its past deficits and turmoil.
The difference in when and how the AJC covers GPB seems to be whether their reporters are appearing on it or not.
A prime instance was a 2021 cut to GPB’s budget that appeared in budget documents from the state Senate but were absent from the AJC’s report.
The funds were restored in conference committee and never mentioned in any news stories surrounding that year’s budget.
This blog was the first to report on the cut after learning of it following an Open Records Request related to GPB’s canceled board meeting that spring.
But most of the state’s political and media elite likely knew well before me and chose not to report on it at the time.
When introducing the much larger cut in March of 2023, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Blake Tillery even called out the media for having ignored the 2021 cut.
“The reason behind it, if they look, if folks have questions in the media about it, they can look back at FY21 budget. They’ll see this is not the first time this has been addressed.”
The cut to GPB could well have been politically motivated and another “swipe” by Republican legislators at the perceived liberal bias at public radio.
It could also have been a swipe at the AJC and Cox Enterprises for using GPB as their radio arm.
I didn’t crash the party but did snap a picture while leaving soon after seeing Thurmond hug Bill Nigut on his own way out.
Thurmond is an AJC favorite who has been a regular on Nigut’s show since the GPB days. His stances on “Cop City” align with the AJC’s editorial board.
That Atlanta Democrats like Thurmond or Atlanta Mayors didn’t join the #SaveWRAS chorus always struck me as a sign that their loyalties were to Cox and its reporters above all other media and even the larger public interest.
Something that echoed in the “Cop City” debate.
That the career interests of politicians and the press have started to align causing them to promote and protect each other more than serve their respective roles as checks and balances on abuses of power.
Be that abuse by public officials or media oligarchies.
