BusinessReport.com

It’s hard to report the news when no one will go on the record publicly with the gripes they are venting in private. But then, that’s the regrettable nature of politics and big business.

Take the recent meeting at the State Capitol with a group of nearly three-dozen business, political and economic-development leaders from Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Its purpose was to ask Gov. Bobby Jindal to reconsider his administration’s decision to pull Louisiana from consideration for federal stimulus money to fund a commuter rail between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. After decades of working at cross purposes, leaders in both cities are finally thinking regionally in real and meaningful ways, and they view the prospect of this commuter rail as the physical and emotional tie that would bind them.

As is often the case, Jindal didn’t show for the meeting, sending staff members in his place. Those in attendance were incensed, and rightly so. Jindal has developed a talent of late for offending those people who were his biggest supporters by snubbing them—showing up late, if at all, for functions, not returning phone calls and shutting out those who thought they had the governor’s ear. These guys were mad.

When it came time to write a story, however, no one would confirm on the record just how upset they were. Most didn’t return phone calls requesting comment. And the only individual who did comment for attribution actually covered for Jindal, saying the governor never was expected in the first place.

That’s not the impression everyone had, but it really doesn’t matter. When mayors, legislators and top economic-development officials come to the Capitol on something that critical, the governor should at least pop in. No one had the courage to say that, however, for fear of falling out of favor. Instead, they pretended to have his back.

In the meantime, citizens are being kept in the dark about what’s really going in power circles on issues that affect them, either because of a fear of retribution or self-interest prevents those who could help the media bring these facts to light from doing so.

WBRZ launches Web site

WBRZ-TV finally has its own Web site—and it’s long overdue. The local ABC affiliate officially unveiled WBRZ.com in late September.

Interestingly, WBRZ remains a partner in 2theadvocate.com, the Web site it shares with the daily newspaper. It will continue to feed some stories to the paper’s site, as well as weather and traffic. But the sites are otherwise separate and couldn’t be more dissimilar in their approach to delivering content. Where 2theadvocate.com is busy and cluttered, WBRZ.com is simple and continuously updated.

That’s the goal, say station administrators, who quietly suffered while their stories played second fiddle to The Advocate’s on the joint site. News Director Chuck Bark hopes to eventually update the site as frequently as 100 times a day. Those updates will come directly from reporters, anchors and producers, who now will be writing for the Web as well as for the daily newscasts.

Station brass explains that the sites will serve different purposes—one for immediate news, the other for more in-depth information. As such, they say, the two sites will not compete. In reality, of course, they will, at least to an extent. While not all of WBRZ.com’s users will come at The Advocate site’s expense, some will. The question is how many, because that will determine whether advertisers stick with the old site, jump to the new one or split their buys between the two.

WAFB promotes Zimmerman

WAFB-TV’s veteran news director, Vicki Zimmerman, has been promoted to full-time regional news director at Raycom Media, where she will oversee news operations at the company’s nine stations in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

As a practical matter, that means Zimmerman will be on the road a lot, working with general managers and news directors on strategic goals, regional partnerships, content-sharing and major event coverage.

For Zimmerman, it’s not unfamiliar territory. She has been functioning as part-time regional news director for the past three years, one of three at Raycom. Now, she’ll be taking on the duties full time as Raycom, like other media companies, increases content-sharing among its stations.

Taking over day-to-day news operations at the market’s top-rated news station is Robb Hays, who has been Zimmerman’s assistant news director for the past four years.