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Talking points in local TV news


Rodney Anderson, Gordon Keith and Mike Snyder

By ED BARK
Rodney Anderson gets around.

The executive director of Plano-based Rodney Anderson Lending Services has a Saturday morning radio show on KLLI-FM and had been a weekly Wednesday presence on WFAA8's locally produced Good Morning Texas.

Now he's CBS11's new "Financial Analyst," periodically appearing on newscasts to talk about how you can best manage the ongoing financial crisis.

Here's the thing, though. Anderson paid WFAA8 for his weekly four-minute "Home and Wealth" segments on Good Morning Texas. Is he doing the same to get air time on CBS11, where he joins an anchor at the news desk?

First to WFAA8. Good Morning Texas, not part of the station's news division, long has taken money from a wide variety of guests. A brief printed disclaimer -- "Promotional Considerations Paid for By" -- lists pay-for-play guests near the end of each show. On Monday, Oct. 27th, there were four of them.

WFAA8 president and general manager Mike Devlin declined to comment. But in a February unclebarky.com story on NBC5's relationship with Children's Medical Center, Devlin drew what he sees as an ethical line between news and entertainment programming produced by his station.

"We have a longstanding policy that advertisers and sponsors cannot buy news content, and that's the distinction," he said.

So might CBS11 be crossing that line by taking money from Anderson in return for his financial expertise during newscast appearances? In a statement emailed to unclebarky.com, the station unequivocally denied any such arrangement.

"Rodney is NOT paying to be part of our newscasts," the CBS11 response says. "He was asked by our news department to serve as an expert for the station based on his expertise in the areas of mortgage lending and consumer credit. As you know, these issues have played and continue to play a major role in the current economic downturn."

That downturn is tough on everybody, including D-FW television stations. CBS11 is now firmly on the record as saying it resisted any temptation to take Anderson's money.

LOCAL PEACOCK SPORTS NEW LOOK

NBC5's retitled and remodeled website, nbcdfw.com, also has new pictures of the station's news team, including anchor Mike Snyder (shown above). Good luck in finding them, though. It's an archaeological dig so far.

A majority of NBC5's anchors and reporters also doubled as bloggers on the station's old Web site. So far that's missing on nbcdfw.com, which is part of another corporate-driven makeover for all of NBC's owned and operated stations.

Former NBC5 president and general Tom O'Brien now runs the network's flagship station, New York's WNBC-TV, where consolidation and automation are in overdrive.

A telling story in The New York Observer has much more on what O'Brien calls "a 10-plus-million-dollar commitment to transform the operation into a newsroom of the future."

HERE AN EMMY, THERE AN EMMY

The latest giant pile of Lone Star Emmy Awards were distributed earlier this month in Houston at the annual dress-up ceremony.

Two North Texas stations took home the biggest overall honors. KXAS-TV won the Emmy for overall station excellence and WFAA-TV received the statue for overall news excellence.

D-FW's own madcap Gordon Keith received three separate Emmys for his WFAA-produced Gordon Keith Show. And no, this is not a prank. Those who care to survey the entire Lone Star Emmy list of winners can see for themselves that Keith has a threesome.

He otherwise slums on KTCK-AM ("The Ticket") with morning drive time pals George Dunham and Craig Miller.