WSRE-TV has been a vital source of community information for decades.
2006 Maritime Park Vote
The week before the 2006 referendum vote on the Community Maritime Park, WSRE-TV’s “Connecting the Community” had Quint Studer and Mort O’Sullivan and Save Our City’s Charlie Fairchild and Councilman Marty Donovan answer questions from the local media.
- “It’s an important community decision with implications stretching far into the future of Pensacola. We want to provide citizens with the facts in an organized and non-partisan format, one last time before the vote,” stated Tony Ferguson, program producer. “We’re going to have equal representation from park supporters and the opposition here. Our format will give local journalists from print, radio and television an opportunity to ask fair and balanced yet challenging questions to both sides.”
WSRE moderator Robin Woods, today Robin Reshard, hosted a panel of journalists from the Pensacola News Journal, the Independent News, WEAR-TV, and WUWF-FM. Whether the Independent News would have a reporter participating became a hot topic right up to airtime.
Almost Canceled
On August 29, two days before the telecast, I received an email from Ferguson: “To help foster an impartial and informative program, WSRE invited working reporters to ask challenging but impartial, issue-oriented questions. Up until Monday of this week, two people who oppose the Community Maritime Park project, Charles Fairchild and Marty Donovan, were going to join the program. They have since declined, citing media bias as their reason.”
- He added, “As program producer for WSRE, while disappointed that the Save Our City parties have made this decision, I continue to make efforts to schedule a park opponent for Thursday’s program. In discussions regarding the program, we never contemplated or even discussed canceling the program; only ways to still present the best possible information to voters.”
An hour after I posted Ferguson’s comments, Donovan agreed to participate with reservations. Another SOC member would substitute for Fairchild.
- Save Our City believed all the journalists were biased, particularly my editor, Duwayne Escobedo. Duwayne called Fairchild to convince him that the process would be fair. Fairchild responded that he had no problem with Duwayne, only me. My editor was “collateral damage.”
Targeting Me
During the show, Duwayne asked Donovan how he believed Quint would profit from the park. The councilman went into a tirade against the Independent News, Rick’s Blog, “Outtakes,” which he called a “gossip column,” and me. Donovan accused me of demonizing him and SOC, calling them “Hitler-like,” and offending World War II veterans.
- He said, “The Independent News is anything but independent and newsworthy.”
Donovan said it was “irreprehensible” that I never called him for a quote for my articles. He added that he initially refused to participate in the debate because Duwayne was added at the “11th hour,” which was untrue. Of course, Donovan never answered the question.
In my “Outtakes,” I admitted that Donovan had a reason to be upset:
Donovan has reasons to be angry with me. For the past six months, I’ve relentlessly challenged him and Save Our City in “Outtakes,” “Winners & Losers,” and on the other opinion pages…