GPB Releases Names of Finalists for CEO; WABE Announces Own “Partnership” with AJC and Bill Nigut

Yesterday GPB released the names of the finalists for its CEO position and today WABE announced its own “partnership” with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that will give it a daily radio show with Bill Nigut.

This is essentially the same unethical relationship between a public broadcaster and the privately-owned AJC that Cox had with Georgia Public Broadcasting from its debut on WRAS in 2014 until the cancellation of Political Rewind this past June.

Adding to the incestuous musical chairs, WABE’s CEO Jennifer Dorian, appointed in 2020, is the daughter of former AJC publisher and Cox Enterprises Vice Chair David Easterly.

At GPB

Twenty-nine applicants applied to be CEO of Georgia Public Broadcasting. The three finalists were Roger Clark, a former CNN executive and Hong Kong bureau chief, Allyson Meyers, a veteran general manager at Fox and Sinclair-owned local TV stations, and GPB interim CEO Bert Wesley Huffman.

Governor Brian Kemp’s office announced last Friday that GPB’s board had voted unanimously to appoint Huffman to the position.

Clark has an international pedigree and worked at CNN for 18 years including as its Hong Kong bureau chief. That’s an interesting wrinkle given GPB’s own susceptibility to political pressure.

But his appointment would have meant a second CNN executive leading GPB after Teya Ryan’s long tenure.

Contacted via LinkedIn, Clark offered this statement:

“I would like to thank the Board members who interviewed me twice and took the time to listen to my thoughts and my vision for the future of GPB. I would also like to congratulate Bert on his appointment as CEO. Public service broadcasting on television, radio and on digital is a very important part of the media landscape in Georgia. I therefore wish Bert and GPB every success in the future.”

Allyson Meyers did not immediately respond to a similar inquiry, but a profile with the same spelling shows tenure as General Manager at Fox-owned stations in Orlando and then at Sinclair’s Tulsa station from 2020 to this past May.

Fox and Sinclair stations have reputations as conservative outlets, but GPB has been housing a Fox News bureau since 2004 with seemingly no one in public media expressing any concern.

A new lease was signed this year and began July 1st.

Huffman’s background was in arts and nonprofit fundraising, but he has been at GPB since 2014 and has served as President since 2021.

In the state press release GPB board chair Brian Dill is quoted as saying “His record of dedicated service helped to set him apart throughout the process of finding the agency’s next leader….”

Huffman is a known quantity and his March appearance before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee was friendly. It showed no indication of the large budget cut that was to come later that month.

CEO Searches Compared

WABE’s CEO position last became vacant in 2020 after then head Wonya Lucas left for the Hallmark Channel.

In contrast to GPB, WABE’s larger board formed a search committee, hired search firm BoardWalk, and gave progress updates in public meetings.

From my notes on a Nov. 2020 meeting, it says nearly 300 candidates were looked at, 6 were interviewed with 4 finalists. Three were from public media and one from commercial.

But for all this transparency and attempt to cast a wide net, the choice was not someone from public media, but another former Turner Executive, and one with family ties to legacy local giant Cox Enterprises.

That was already concerning, given Cox’s dominance of local media, but now WABE’s partnership with the AJC shows public media’s independence in Georgia, from both political and corporate interference, is severely limited.

Cox and the many ways it wields power, including through nonprofits and foundations, won’t get any guff from Atlanta’s NPR affiliates.

Not only has WABE never held the AJC accountable for its role in GPB’s hijacking of WRAS, its now becoming a tentacle of the Cox media empire itself.

And while the AJC is on the rebound from GPB no less.

At its March 2022 board meeting, WABE’s CEO Dorian proposed, and the board quickly adopted, adding the words “Advancing Equity” to its mission statement.

Bill Nigut getting another elite gig and WABE “partnering” with Cox’s AJC the same week unionization efforts at two Georgia Gannett papers failed, highlights how inequitable media is in Georgia.

Nepotism and Cox connections trump even a nonprofit’s mission.