By Andrew Gauthier TVSPY
WPIX reporter Larry Mendte returned from Libya last week after a hectic trip to the country’s capital with U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon, and now some are questioning the wisdom of the mission as Weldon’s planned meeting with Muammar Qaddafi never materialized. “This is a station that fires people left and right, and they’ll pay for a Libya trip,” a WPIX insider complained to the New York Post recently.
This morning the New York Post published a takedown of WPIX, which is currently trailing far behind its rival WNYW in the ratings, and wondered if Mendte’s trip to Libya was less about bolstering the station’s hard news identity and more about repairing the image of the troubled reporter, who is in the midst of a messy legal battle with his former KYW co-anchor Alycia Lane:
Skeptics inside the station told The Post they believed Mendte wanted to go on the assignment so he could rebuild his reputation weeks before he faces charges for damaging Lane’s reputation.
Weldon and Mendte this week returned from Libya essentially empty-handed.
After a splash of publicity early last week, Qaddafi ultimately refused to meet with Weldon. And the congressman, who has a long-term relationship with the Qaddafi family, was left trying to fabricate moral victories from his trip. As WPIX reported last week:
While the initial goal of the trip proved elusive, Weldon’s visit was a timely one as he says he was able to work on pressing humanitarian missions — securing the release of four journalists who were seized Tuesday by Qaddafi loyalists, and escorting rape victim Eman al-Obeidi out of Tripoi to her family in Benghazi.
According to Weldon, he organized a face-to-face meeting between Eman and Muammar Qaddafi’s son, Saadi Quaddafi, to garner support for her release. He also claims to have reached out to Angelina Jolie’s publicist through U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (CA) to coordinate an escort to Benghazi through Tuis and Cairo.
Even after meetings with high Libyan officials including Quaddafi’s son and the prime minister, al-Obeity and the four journalists are still detained, however.
In the meantime, Mendte was left reporting, not on a historic summit with the famously elusive Libyan leader but on “The Beauty of Libya,” a segment that certainly won’t provide the type of ratings momentum that WPIX so badly needs.
Tribune Troubles: Lenders Fiddle As WPIX-TV Stumbles
By JOSH KOSMAN and CLAIRE ATKINSON
Competing Tribune lenders are still fiddling over the bankrupt company -- while its local TV station WPIX burns. If they do not reach an agreement, the bankruptcy judge may take another six months to choose a winning plan, another source said.
The confirmation hearing for bankrupt media conglomerate Tribune is expected to resume today, after months of haggling among creditors, if court-ordered talks yesterday between two competing groups of lenders do not result in a settlement, a source close to the situation said.
A confirmation plan for Tribune and a new plan of attack for WPIX appear badly needed.
Ratings for WPIX among the highly coveted 25-54 age group, which were trailing WNYW-Fox 5 by just 1.16 to 1.10 in October, saw the gap widen to 1.35 to 0.92 in December and then 1.96 to 0.84 last month, according to Nielsen. In addition, Chris Burrous, who joined the station last June as part of an overhaul directed by News Director Bill Carey, and anchored the "PIX Morning News," was transferred last month to Tribune's Los Angeles affiliate KTLA after ratings failed to grow under his stewardship.
A WPIX spokeswoman pointed out that WNYW's lead-in, "American Idol," draws much higher ratings than WPIX's CW reruns.
That may be true, but the ratings disparity started in December, a month before the "American Idol" season debut on Jan. 19.
WNYW, like The Post, is owned by News Corp.
Carey also ran into turbulence last year when he hired long-time friend Larry Mendte as a commentator although he had been let go by KYW-TV in Philadelphia after allegedly hacking into co-anchor Alycia Lane's e-mail. Soon after salacious details of a bitter lawsuit between the two recently surfaced, Carey sent Mendte to Libya for an exclusive interview with Muammar Khadafy.
He accompanied former Pennsylvania Rep. Curt Weldon, who has a long history with Khadafy, and went to broker a truce.
Skeptics inside the station told The Post they believed Mendte wanted to go on the assignment so he could rebuild his reputation weeks before he faces charges for damaging Lane's reputation.
Weldon and Mendte this week returned from Libya essentially empty-handed.
"This is a station that fires people left and right, and they'll pay for a Libya trip," a WPIX insider said.
As for the Tribune reorganization, hedge fund Aurelius and Deutsche Bank, which have competing plans, are trying to get JPMorgan and others who financed Sam Zell's disastrous 2007 Tribune buyout to pay them more for settling charges of profiting from financing a deal that they say rendered Tribune bankrupt from the start.
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