Bates, DePetro, and Patriarca Are Just Some of RI's Biggest Media Controversies
GoLocalProv News Team
Bates, DePetro, and Patriarca Are Just Some of RI's Biggest Media Controversies
In Rhode Island, where hundreds of millions in advertising is spent each year with media companies, the news is big business. The business of news has played out very publicly this week with the departure of the much-beloved Kelly Bates from WJAR-10.
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How the Mighty Have Fallen
For decades, Rhode Island media was dominated by the Providence Journal and WJAR-10. Now, the media landscape is much different, as new companies have emerged and corporate parents have slashed staffing at the old guard.
The Providence Journal once had a newsroom with a staff of 300 and now has about a dozen reporters. The Journal, owned by Virginia-based Gannett, now has a print circulation of around 25,000, less than 10% of its circulation at its height.
And at WJAR, once locally-owned by the Outlet Company, is just a shadow of itself. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, it was a leading launching pad to some of the best-known TV reporters and journalists in the business including Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer, Christiane Amanpour, and more recently Dylan Dreyer, to name a few.
But, under Sinclair Broadcasting Group's ownership, the station has seen a significant decline in stature. In 2018, GoLocal reported how media experts across the country were voicing horror about WJAR’s parent company — Sinclair Broadcasting — having its news anchors and reporters across the country voice-over a corporate message that sounded much like language often used by President Donald Trump.
In Providence, the carefully crafted message was read in the Rhode Island market by WJAR’s since-retired Frank Coletta and Alison Bologna. SEE VIDEO HERE
Sinclair, which owns 200 local stations across the country, has had close ties to Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The company more recently came under fire for a segment of "America This Week" produced by Sinclair. Eric Bolling, the host of the show, welcomed guests that claimed Dr. Anthony Fauci was responsible for creating COVID-19.
Media as Micro Celebrities
Media personalities — especially those on video — become well-known and micro-celebrities in Rhode Island.
Kelly Bates' departure from WJAR is the latest media controversy. Sinclair announced earlier this year that they were slashing staffing across the country by 5%.
The Bates controversy might be the most recent, but over the past few decades in Rhode Island, controversies have included lawsuits by organized crime bosses, fights over bear videos, and faking ratings for profits.
SEE THE CONTROVERSIES BELOW
7 of RI's Biggest Media Controversies
1960s to 1980s
Patriarca's Lawsuits Against Providence Journal
From the 1960s to the 1980s, there were a series of lawsuits filed by Raymond Patriarca and his son "Junior" against the Providence Journal, ranging from defamation to the release of illegal wiretaps.
The senior Patriarca even took out an ad in the Journal to publicize his lawsuit.
According to an FBI memo, Patriarca "obtained a Writ against the Providence Journal in the amount of one million dollars for the defamation of character.”
2008
Arbitron Ratings Fix
In 2008, DePetro was accused of falsifying ARBITRON rating books for his show on WPRO in Providence -- before blaming his wife. The books had significantly boosted the show's ratings, before they then took a tumble.
The Boston Herald reported:
The briefly stellar ratings of controversy-dogged-talkmeister John DePetro’s Providence radio show tanked yesterday after a whiff of scandal forced Arbitron to reissue its spring survey of listener-dial habits.
In the 6 to 10 a.m. weekday slot occupied by the self-proclaimed “Independent Man” on WPRO-AM (630), “the reissue ranked WPRO at number nine” among valued 25- to 54-year-old listeners, “down from the number four rank in the original release,” program manager Paul Giammarco and station market manager Barbara Haynes announced in a joint statement.
In 2009, DePetro has another issue at WPRO.
The Providence Journal reported on an altercation between DePetro and radio host Ron St. Pierre.
DePetro said he was hit -- and scratched -- in the eye with a balled-up paper with a staple thrown at him by St. Pierre.
2010
Social Media Scam
Former Congressional candidate Anthony Gemma garnered both local and national attention for his rapid rise in social media followers -- especially when it turned out most of those followers were not from Rhode Island.
"Who are the 20,000+ people subscribed to Anthony Gemma’s Facebook? And here’s a better question: what’s up with many of their unusual names? And why do most like 'Unicorn City Film' as a movie?" wrote Sam Howard in RI Future.
Other candidates recently have been caught up in allegations that their campaigns were buying Twitter followers, including [Mitt] Romney and Newt Gingrich. That’s relatively easy to do online, costs only pennies apiece and is not illegal — only in violation of Facebook and Twitter terms of service.
But an oversized social footprint that suggests mass appeal can be embarrassing for a campaign should it be revealed.
"If a candidate abuses the appropriate channels to gin up their followings, they risk hurting their reputation as a grass-roots candidate," said Amy Brown with Harris Media LLC.
2004
Taricani Convicted
The New York Times reported in 2004:
A local television reporter was convicted of criminal contempt on Thursday for refusing to identify the person who leaked him an F.B.I. videotape in 2001 related to an investigation of government corruption in Providence.
Jim Taricani, a longtime investigative reporter for WJAR, an NBC affiliate, faces the possibility of up to six months in jail when he is sentenced on Dec. 9.
Mr. Taricani would be one of only a handful of journalists to go to jail for refusing to identify a source. He is also one of several reporters currently facing court action over their refusal to reveal confidential sources, but he is the only one to go on trial on criminal contempt charges.
"When I became a reporter 30 years ago, I never imagined that I would be put on trial and face the prospect of going to jail simply for doing my job," Mr. Taricani said outside the courthouse after Judge Ernest C. Torres, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Providence, pronounced him guilty.
1997
Sale of the Journal - Loss of Local Ownership
The locally-owned Providence Journal Company was sold in 1997 to A.H. Belo in Dallas, Texas.
The loss of local ownership transformed the media landscape and changed Rhode Island forever.
The paper sold for $1.5 billion. It had once been a breeding ground for young talent that went on to bigger - and national - platforms. Their careers took them to the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to name a few. Combined, the group won multiple Pulitzers and scored multiple finalists for their journalism.
In 1994, the Providence Journal won its last Pulitzer Prize for “thorough reporting that disclosed pervasive corruption within the Rhode Island court system" -- specifically for their unveiling the deeds and misdeeds of Chief Justice Tom Fay and Court Clerk Matty Smith.
At the time of the sale of the Providence Journal to Belo, the newsroom was packed with talent, energy and ambition. In retrospect, the lineup read like Murderers' Row - Barry, Starkman, Stanton, Mingis, Frank and on and on. All gone from the Journal.
The New York Times wrote about the sale of the Journal at the time, “With a fine reputation in American journalism, few people question the newspaper's honesty, honor or integrity today. But its independence vanished late last month when, after a series of moves aimed at strengthening the Providence Journal Company, it was absorbed in a friendly $1.5 billion takeover by the A. H. Belo Corporation of Dallas, owner of The Dallas Morning News and a number of television stations.”
2013
Taricani Blasts WJAR
The viral "bear video" produced by WJAR-10 was criticized by the station's venerable investigative reporter, Jim Taricani.
The late-Taricani was an award-winning reporter who then headed the WJAR's I-Team investigative unit. He lashed out at the bear video, writing on Facebook, "Some TV reporters like to draw attention to themselves...its an insult to most of us trying to be professional."
Taricani won numerous journalism awards and was widely recognized by journalists when he refused to reveal who leaked a controversial surveillance tape to him during a federal trial.
Taricani said the viral bear video produced by his fellow news reporter Julie Tremmel was "a smudge on our station's reputation."
The bear video was remixed by a TV station in Michigan to the hit song, "Blurred Lines."
2014
DePetro Boycott
In 2014, a grassroots advocacy group launched a campaign aimed at WPRO talk show host John DePetro.
He was the target of For Our Daughters for what it calls DePetro's "History of Hate." The group said it would not stop until WPRO's owners, Cumulus Broadcasting, fired DePetro.
The group released a four-minute video using actual on-air clips to detail DePetro's "long history of degrading not just women, but also minorities and gay people."
“We started this campaign because John DePetro called a group of nurses and classroom teachers ‘whores’,” Maureen Martin, Chairwoman of For Our Daughters said at the launch of the campaign. Martin said the group was calling on listeners to boycott WPRO's advertisers and politicians to stop appearing on his program.
Martin said, "He’s thrown racial and gay slurs at people. He’s been accused of sexual harassment by a co-worker. He’s threatened violence on someone’s family members. He’s cheated on the Arbitron ratings. It is incomprehensible to us that he has yet to be fired, and WPRO management should be ashamed that they employ such a person.”
DePetro left the station a couple of years later.
