Tag: Media

Aug 25

2025

Let’s talk football: Terry Pegula’s yacht and brain damaged players

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It turns out Terry Pegula owns a yacht valued at up to $100 million.  Fox News reports the yacht “was custom-built and delivered in 2021 and is valued between $75 million and $100 million. From designer interiors, including Louis Vuitton and Gucci, the yacht offers a glass-sided spa pool, sauna, gym, cinema lounge and much more … The yacht is reportedly available to charter at around $500,000 per week.” The story notes that taxpayers are forking over $850 million to help build a new stadium for Pegula’s Bills. As if he needed the money. Today’s football heroes are tomorrow’s damaged[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Aug 25

2025

The coming duopoly at Channels 2 and 4

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Editor’s mote: This story was updated on Sept. 1 My item last week about the pending purchase of Channel 2’s parent company by Channel 4’s parent company generated a lot of traffic and a fair amount of speculation and hand-wringing.  Well, the deal went through last week and from what I’ve learned, there’s plenty of justification for continued hand-wringing. Alan Pergament of The Buffalo News wrote a good analysis on the local impact and The Washington Post produced an insightful analysis from a national perspective. Both are worth a read. (The Post story is a gift link.) Pergament wrote about[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Aug 18

2025

Bad news on the horizon for Channels 2 and 4

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You could have read this Sunday if you subscribed to our free newsletters, sent Sunday and Wednesday. Sign up at this link. We’re facing the prospect of a merger involving the chain owners of Channels 2 and 4, who between them dominate the local TV news ratings. According to press reports, Nexstar, whose holdings include WIVB, is negotiating to acquire TEGNA (WGRZ) in a deal that would involve 264 stations nationally. Media consolidations are rarely a good thing, and the Buffalo market is likely to be  ill-served by a Nexstar-TEGNA merger. Competition is likely to take a hit and a[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Aug 4

2025

Gaza: The most dangerous place in the world for kids

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A Washington Post story last week focused on children killed during the war. The current body count is 18,500, a number The Post found to be credible and perhaps an undercount.  A Palestinian child has been killed an average of one an hour since the onset of the war, prompting UNICEF to declare Gaza as the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.  Wrote The Post: “Some were killed in their beds. Others while playing. Many were buried before they learned to walk.”  Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that Israel has done the math and calculated what it[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Jul 28

2025

Reform gives way to greed at OTB

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Before I get to what I’m reading, allow me to expand on a story I edited last week: A pay raise already for Byron Brown. As I wrote in my newsletter yesterday, I’ve written once, maybe twice that Brown has been doing a better job than his predecessor, Henry Wojtaszek, at the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. Admittedly, it’s a very low bar to clear.  Then came last week. Dale Shoemaker reported that Brown got his board of directors to give him a $8,850 raise, bringing his salary to $303,850. Never mind that he’s already the highest paid OTB administrator[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Jul 21

2025

Public broadcasting cuts will harm WBFO

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Central to the playbook for dictators dismantling democracies is neutering the press. That’s been at the top of Donald Trump’s to-do list since he retook office in January and that effort gained further traction last week when he strong-armed Congressional Republicans into voting to withdraw $1.1 billion previously appropriated for public broadcasting. National Public Radio (NPR) is comprised of over 1,000 stations. They provide vital news and information, many serving rural communities who have lost their daily or weekly newspaper to closure. A recent study found that the number of journalists nationally has dropped from 40 per 100,000 residents in[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Jul 14

2025

Zyglis cartoon: Much ado about nothing

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Adam Zyglis has exhibited his work at the Buffalo History Museum since the spring. Early on I attended and found most interesting a display of the hate mail he’s received over the years.  Pretty vile stuff from assorted wing-nuts, although nothing that compares to what came out of the woodwork last week when The Buffalo News published a Zyglis cartoon on the flooding in Texas.  I’m talking death threats against Zyglis and his wife and children. Over a cartoon. Michael Kracker, chairman of the Erie County Republican Committee, kicked things off with a tweet that characterized the cartoon as “filth[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Jul 7

2025

Killing more innocents than the Holocaust

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This is what Hakeem Jeffries, minority leader of Congressional Democrats, said the other day on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding the impact of Donald Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill on the nation’s health: “People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people. I’m sad. I never thought I would be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene.”  Tens of thousands of deaths are just the tip of the iceberg. Huge cuts in foreign humanitarian aid made[...]

Posted 4 months ago
Investigative Post