7PM News

The 7 PM news—I know this is causing Wheel and Jeopardy great heartburn—that we’ll no longer broadcast those shows.  But as badly as I hate for our viewers to move to Channel 8, they will be broadcasting those programs at the same time that we broadcast them.  It’s my strong belief that there are so many Las Vegans who do not reach home in time to see the 6 O’clock news that a one hour news broadcast from 7 to 8 will satisfy those needs.

Our Next Move

In the last four years I’ve slowly replaced syndicated programming with news.  Access Hollywood was the first to go and was replaced by Ralston.  Judge Judy was the second to go and the 4 O’clock news was expanded to an hour.  Our 12:00 news was expanded from one half hour to an hour, as we eliminated paid programming.  Our next move in August will be to begin a 3 PM one hour news broadcast.

Add Three Hours

When I graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1956, NBC and CBS did a fifteen-minute news broadcast each night.  ABC had only become a national network a few years before.   Both NBC and CBS thought long and hard about expanding the evening news from fifteen minutes to thirty.  They were concerned that there were not enough interesting subjects to fill thirty minutes. Nearly 60 years later we do news from 4:30 in the morning to 7; 12 to 1; and 4 through 6:30PM that includes NBC Nightly. Ralston Reports at 7:30PM and then news at 11PM.  We believe there’s enough news of substance to add three hours to that.

News Programs

Nevada’s minorities have become the majority and for some reason the new minority, formerly the majority, hasn’t wakened to the influence and importance this new majority has in our society.  I need help to develop news programs that will respond to EVERYONE’S needs.  I am open to all suggestions; my office number is 657-3142 and my home phone is (406) 933-9999 until September 10, and thereafter in Las Vegas at 222-2298.  Don’t call before 5 AM, or after 11 PM.

Walt

I’ve asked former Clark County School District superintendent Walt Rulffes to do a scheduled segment on our news about K – 12 education in Southern Nevada.  During my five- year tenure as chancellor I worked closely with Walt on K – 16 problems and solutions.  His insight and understanding will go far to answer your questions about K – 12.

Brookings

The Brookings Institute provides us with insight into Nevada’s economy and its future.  We will be inviting a representative of the Brookings Institute to discuss Nevada’s economy with our own reporter, Marissa Mike, a Harvard graduate in economics.  Marissa represents the intellect and education of our outstanding news staff.

Ken Ladd

Ken Ladd, long time financial wizard and financial leader throughout the entire West, but especially in Las Vegas, joins us as a regular commentator on business history and outlook in Southern Nevada.  Now a retired president of U. S. Bank, no one understands banking and financial structure and the influences upon our entire economy that the banking industry exerts better than Ken.  His knowledge of the financial structure of UNLV will shed real insight into the funding of higher education.

Ideas

Substantive and relevant journalism is what we’ve attempted to broadcast and will do even more so in the future.  Rape, robbery and mayhem are certainly part of our society’s conduct, but for too long journalists have used this easy access information to fill their broadcasts and newspapers.  We want to broadcast information THAT AFFECTS ALL OF YOU, NOT JUST A FEW OF YOU.  We need and want your ideas, and during the next four days I’ll give you some of ours.  In order to know where Las Vegas is going we believe you need to know where it’s been.  Former Governor and U. S. Senator, Richard Bryan, and our own news director, Robert Stoldal, will discuss Nevada’s history and how that history will influence Nevada’s future.

Better Serve

I believe local broadcasters are finally being forced to present programming that serves the needs of local residents.  We are being forced out of the entertainment business because cable, with more than a hundred channels, has captured that audience.  This will present us with a challenge and yet an ability to broadcast content in substantial amounts as we should have broadcast over the last thirty years as Nevada grew and developed a whole new series of problems.  In September we will begin a one-hour news program at 7 PM.  We anticipate that in August we will be changing another hour of programming and replacing that with an hour of news.  In September 2014, we will replace Dr. Phil with an hour of news.  It is a major undertaking for us, but we believe we will better serve all of you.

Opposing Views

Contrary to what a small group of viewers believes, I have the right and I believe the obligation to present as many viewpoints, including my own, about this community.  I’m a liberal and have no problem explaining to you that I am a liberal with liberal views.  My views are biased and unlike Foxes editorial policy, I do not claim that my views are unbiased.  But I present those views with the thought that it might stimulate you to examine the issues to reach your own conclusions.  I invite anyone with opposing views to present those in a professional manner and we will broadcast those views.

FCC

Under FCC law, I’m able to broadcast nearly anything I choose to broadcast.  Content regulation by the FCC is very, very limited.  But regardless of not having to control the content of our programming because of some government institution’s restrictions, our entire philosophy has been to inform and educate you so that you can deal with and adjust to the environment in which you live. 

Serve

Our company is licensed by the FCC to broadcast in several states.   I’ve owned this company since 1971.  The federal government licenses our company like the state of Nevada licenses gaming institutions in Nevada.  We are not owned by any government and we are free to program our stations and sell ads and present news and our own opinions, both political and non-political, as we see fit.  In spite of the profit motive our company has always sought to serve its communities.

Extensive Changes In Future Programming

Local televisions stations were licensed by the Federal Communications Commission for the primary purpose of serving the communities in which they broadcast.   Unfortunately the profit motive made local television stations seek programming that was more entertaining than informative, and therefore, more profitable.  Our company fell into that trap.  We’re going to make some extensive changes in future programming to recapture the FCC’s original local broadcaster’s goal.

Equal Rights

Equal rights for women:  it is beyond my comprehension and I sit in utter disbelief as I watch state legislatures across this country which are comprised of at least 90% men continue to exercise their arbitrary, illogical, prejudicial and ignorant views of all the rights that women have—that is not only in their personal lives, professional lives, parental lives—but simply as members of the human race.  If I were the wife of one of those arrogant asses my husband would find that he’d better find a new place to eat and a new place to sleep.

They Don’t Understand The Problem

I spent nine years in colleges and law schools.  The most important lesson I learned was how little I knew after graduation and how much it was necessary to know if I was to become a productive American.  I used to be shocked that those with an 8^th grade education or even a high school education who had trouble keeping a job, who had no understanding of economics or politics, or for that matter any other important part of our lives, seemed to have become experts in every subject through some magic formula that I’ve never been able to find.  Beware of the person who has simple answers to every problem.  Their answers are simple because they don’t understand the problem.

Federal Government

We spend each summer in Montana where we have a television station.  Each morning I have breakfast with a group of “cowboys” at a local café.  I listen to them carry on about how they hate the federal government, the federal government is corrupt in every sense of the word and that Montana should either secede from the union or refuse to pay federal taxes that are used to operate America’s horrible, corrupt and senseless government.  I often speak when I probably should keep my mouth shut, but one fact seems to stump them.  For every dollar of taxes Montanans pay to the federal government the federal government returns $1.75.  Seems to me that’s a pretty good deal for Montana.

They Preach Bigotry And Hatred ...

Beware of those who call themselves conservatives and try to sell the conservative philosophy by attaching it to their own ignorant, bigoted, simple, thoughtless, prejudicial and inflammatory principles.  They preach bigotry and hatred under the guise of sound political and economic philosophies.  If you want the ultimate ignorant, bigoted simpleton as your leader, may I suggest that you follow either Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.  Between them they don’t own a high caliber high school degree and they couldn’t find the front steps of a good college without a tour guide.  You can compare them to a person who claims to be a medical doctor who professes expertise, but who never got through medical school.

Beware Of The Simpletons

Sean Hannity, that fraud who claims he’s a conservative, should be an embarrassment to every true conservative in this country.  I’m a liberal but I believe that the conservatives have fundamental philosophies that are important in establishing and carrying out the productive policies of the United States.  As a liberal I believe my policies would work better than those of the conservatives, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that I have all the answers.  Beware of the simpletons like Sean Hannity, Sara Palin, Michele Bachmann, Sharron Angle and those others who will preach politics and economics in the hope to sell bigotry, hatred and ignorance.

Eliminate Bigotry

BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY.  I can’t think of any emotion that costs us more than bigotry.  The hours spent in hating other people in preventing other people from developing to their maximum ability of preventing those other people from being able to fairly compete in our society must be second only to the waste that wars cause.  I know it’s a waste of time and effort to suggest that we should make every effort to eliminate bigotry but I feel compelled to make every effort to do so. 

My Experience

BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY.  It’s been my experience that bigotry is more than an inherited concept than an environmental concept.  I was born in the south, Kentucky, and although I lived there my first four years, given that time the nature of the population certainly would have provided me with ample opportunity to absorb bigotry from my environment.  But those concepts never entered my thinking because I had parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins  who never once in my first four years of life ever made a disparaging remark about any person because of their race, color or creed.  And given that inherited position I sincerely believe no environment different than that could have or would have changed my attitude toward other people.

Bigotry Is Incurable

BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY.  It may not be genetic.  It may not be a concept that you inherit directly from your parents.  But if not, it’s a concept that’s so close to being inherited that it might as well be so because parents who are bigots pass that fundamental trait on to their children immediately after birth.  The traits of a bigot are so pervasive and so intrusive and so destructive of the human spirit that they attack that human spirit more invasively than any cancer.  Bigotry is incurable. 

“see I told you so”

BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY.  Is there any logic to its concept?  As far as I know the answer is “No”.  Let’s see how it works.  Too many white people believe that Hispanics and African Americans don’t participate or even want to participate in the democratic process of voting for our leaders.  They believe that these minority groups are freeloaders who take no responsibility for their rights as American citizens because they don’t vote, they are inferior human beings.  So how does the bigot fix this problem?  He sets up a set of rules that make it even more difficult for the minorities to vote and when that becomes the result, that is the minorities don’t vote because they can’t vote, the bigots response is “see I told you so”.

BIGOTRY

BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY, BIGOTRY.  I cannot think of any human trait that is more destructive to human relationships and also to the ability of people to succeed in every aspect of their lives than bigotry.  It is the concept built on a total lack of understanding and rational concepts.  I’m not sure if we’re ever able to rid ourselves of the terrible result of this pernicious concept except through legislation that forces people to do what any rational person would do regardless of the circumstances.  The recent decision by the United States Supreme Court which in effect destroyed the voting rights legislation regardless of how constitutionally sound it may have been has released many states, especially Texas, to once again make bigotry one of its fundamental beliefs.