Interview requests from the Press with questions for Newsday Publisher Terry Jimenez and Cablevision CEO James Dolan for this story were responded to with written statements from Newsday Director of Community Affairs & Media Relations Deidra Parrish Williams.
Williams answered a question posed to both which sought a response to complaints from former and current Newsday employees that Cablevision’s agenda has interfered with editorial content and coverage with the following: “Under Debby Krenek’s leadership, Newsday’s reporters continue to cover the news with the utmost journalistic dedication and integrity.”
The incident wasn’t the first time Newsday’s editors and reporters took issue with policies of the paper’s owners. Staffers were upset, and are still scratching their heads, says Dowdy, over a particular big-name hire announced during a time when employees were being pressed for pay cuts and other hefty concessions.
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Tom Suozzi, the former Nassau County Executive and one-time New York State (NYS) gubernatorial candidate, joined Cablevision’s payroll in January, hired as a consultant to its Local Media Group, according to an internal memo dated Jan. 11 from Cablevision Local Media President Tad Smith to staffers.
Cablevision’s Local Media Group includes the company’s media and programming properties, says its website, including Newsday Media Group—which consists of Newsday, the newspaper’s website and free New York City daily am New York. The Local Media Group also includes Cablevision’s News12 Networks, which consists of 12 local news, traffic and weather channels, and MSG Varsity, “a suite of television and interactive services dedicated to covering high school sports and activities across the tri-state area.”
According to the memo, Suozzi will have a large supporting role in MSG Varsity, Cablevision’s most recent initiative. (One Nassau political insider close to Suozzi tells the Press he doesn’t even like sports.)
Cablevision, its political action committee and owners, the Dolan family, had been one of Suozzi’s biggest campaign contributors throughout his career—donating nearly $200,000 to Suozzi’s political aspirations since 2006, according to NYS Board of Elections financial disclosure records.
“Here they were talking about layoffs and then they wind up hiring somebody [on] a consultancy basis,” says Dowdy. “There was a couple of different theories as to why that happened, but, it didn’t sort of sit well with a lot of folks because it’s obviously another expenditure that—seems clearly unnecessary—but another expenditure that flies in the face of them saying that they’re poor.”
The hire, he adds, was viewed with frustration among members in the wake of media reports around the same time of hefty bonuses for Cablevision executives resulting from the company’s spin off of Madison Square Garden last month.
“These were happening during the same weeks that we were being told, ‘Hey listen, we want to pull 10 percent, or 15 percent of your income, of your salary, because we’re in trouble,’” he says. “So, it’s contradictory, to say the least, and a little unnerving. And I think that the Suozzi announcement was, in some respects, the icing on the cake. It was like another insult.”
Jaci Clement, executive director of the local nonprofit media watchdog Fair Media Council, thinks she might have the answer to the Suozzi hiring riddle.
“The Dolans gave him a lot in the way of campaign contributions, and they wanted him to earn some of their money back,” she laughs, adding that Cablevision’s politico sports advisor from Glen Cove could end up becoming the paper’s publisher one day—crediting his knack for raising large amounts of money and his name recognition. Clement says that reporters have also voiced their frustration to her regarding the paper’s direction in handling Suozzi.
“That, ‘Why can’t they go after this guy,’” she says. “He was very much the real knight on the white horse in the Newsday world, in the newsroom as well as in the editorial pages.”
Newsday’s Williams responded to a Press inquiry about the future Suozzi-publisher suggestion with: “Terry Jimenez is publisher of Newsday. That rumor has been around for months. It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now.”
The Fair Media Council denounced Cablevision’s acquisition of Newsday and its holdings when the deal was announced out of concern for the lack of diversity in news sources the marriage would create, with Cablevision owning, at the time, the only 24-hour news channel on the Island, News12, as well as its only daily newspaper.
“You shouldn’t have one organization that monopolizes an area with the information that area needs,” she says. “You don’t get the variety of information that you need to make an educated decision.”
Clement, who is also a former Newsday editor, tells the Press that since Cablevision’s purchase of the paper for $650 million in 2008 from real estate magnate-turned-media magnate Sam Zell, who purchased Tribune Co. and its holdings—including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times—in an April 2007 transaction worth $8.2 billion, Newsday has been reduced to little more than a marketing vehicle for its owners.
Tags: Bethpage, Bob Greene, business, Cablevision, Cablevision Systems Corp., Charles Dolan, Chicago Tribune, Christopher Twarowski, Debby Krenek, Deidra Parrish Williams, Ed Lowe, Eddy Curry, George Tedeschi, Glen Cove, Graphic Communications Conference/International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Howie Schneider, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Jaci Clement, James Dolan, James M. Klurfeld, Jimmy Breslin, John Mancini, Laurie Garrett, Les Payne, Local 406, Los Angeles Times, madison square garden, Melville, Michael Amon, Michael Patrick Nelson, missed, monopoly, MSG Varsity, Murray Kempton, New York Knicks, New York Newsday, New York Observer, New York Post, New York Rangers, New York Times, New York University, News12, Newsday, Optimum Online, Paul Vitello, Richard Galant, Robin Reisig, Sam Zell, Stony Brook University, Tad Smith, Terry Jimenez, Times Mirror Co., TimesSelect, Tom Suozzi, Tony Marro, Tribune Co., Verizon, Washington Post, Zachary Dowdy
the dolans are gredy pigs i remember having cablevison years ago when that was the only show in town and how they kept raising the rates and giving everybody less and less. get dish or verizon or direct get away from the dolans and there monopolys they under pay there employees and have money to buy and support sport teams
[...] Dolans deliberately destroyed what was once considered to be one of the best national newspapers. How Cablevision Is Destroying Newsday | Long Island Press Marvin Kitman: Why Cablevision Bought Newsday Cablevision Exec Defends Newsday Web Strategy | The [...]
NEWSDAY IS A LEFT WING PAPER THAT THE MAJORITY OF ISLANDERS DONT AGREE WITH. UMP ALL THE WRIGHTERS AND START OVER WITH SOME CONSERVATIVE THINKING FOLKS!
I don’t know how I missed this oldish article(??)…
Newsday will continue to hemorrage money as long as it is owned by the Dolans. Dolans – give it up. It has nothing to do with the economy.
And yes people, this is what the unions are for. To prevent employees from being completely bulldozed by management. Imagine how bad it would be without the union. As it is, even the union can’t protect the bias writing by Newsday.
It’s no wonder that Snoozeday is so anti-union. I would imagine that their writers/journalists are being force fed what to write.
Cablevision’s day will come when a worthy newspaper competitor steps up to the plate, and everyone has access to FIOS.
[...] in effect, the heads of the corporations that own Newsday, and have had their accountants cook up phantom depreciation expenses to their books to make it appear that Newsday is deeply in the red, are part of a team that is actively pursuing basketball superstar [...]
The second cablevision and those heathens known as the dolan’s bought newsday I knew it was going down the toilet. I saw it more with coverage more focused on the knicks, and rangers. The yankees and mets coverage had always been pretty good, but I could see they both were not being covered right. Same could be said to an extent with the jets and giants. The Islanders on the other hand have been ridiculed in newsday since the dolan’s took over. Whether it was in regards to the lighthouse project or what was happening on the ice. The coverage on them became abysmal. I quit buying newsday every morning before going to work. I rely more on bloggers and yahoo sports these days since I don’t have to pay to read the articles on the websites. I remember a story in regards to the Lighthouse project last summer that was reported by one of the Islanders bloggers and on various hockey websites the day it happened and newsday didn’t print it for more then 10 days after it was circulating the web. But what really angered me about newsday’s coverage of the story was edin larkin changed it around and edited it to her liking and made the story into a negative piece on the islanders, the fan base and the lighthouse project. If I ever move back to LI or any part of new york for that matter, i’ll never waste my money on newsday, even if the dolan’s sell the paper to someone who might help the paper regain their integrity.