The Gill Unreport

Posted by Mary Mancini on August 23, 2007 under Uncategorized |

I noticed this morning that the blurb at the bottom Steve Gill’s guest commentary in this morning City Paper describes him as “a statewide radio talk host and television political analyst for WKRN in Nashville.” Maybe I’m not watching at the right times but I haven’t seen Steve Gill on a newscast in quite a while. Not to mention that he’s no longer labeled as a “WKRN Political Analyst” on Muellerpoulos’ Sunday morning show.

I called Matthew Zelkind. WKRN’S Station Manager and News Director, for a little more info. He refused to comment on what he called personnel (or maybe he said “personal”) issues “even if the president called.” Funny guy.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. During this week’s Muellerpoulos, Gill was introduced by Mueller as News 2’s political analyst.

El Dano said,

??? It’s not like you are asking for the guys SSN or something. Couldn’t he even say something like: “We have an ongoing relationship with Mr. Gill”, or even “Just because you haven’t seen him doesn’t mean that he isn’t involved with the station”?

And isn’t it a TV station? Didn’t they bring him in to drive viewers to their programs? Isn’t the whole idea of having a ‘big’ name so that you can advertise your affiliation? I would think that an appropriate response would be something like: “tell your audience to check out his next appearance at such and such a time!” I guess that’s why I don’t run a successful local news organization.