PUSH, CBS’ WBBM-TV SEEM CLOSE TO A SETTLEMENT

A controversial 10-month boycott of the CBS-owned television station in Chicago appeared close to ending Friday, a top executive of the Operation PUSH civil-rights group said.

PUSH officials and executives of WBBM-TV were meeting in Chicago to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” on an agreement settling the sometimes bitter dispute about the station’s minority-employment practices, said the Rev. Hycel B. Taylor, national president of the Chicago-based organization founded 14 years ago by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Taylor said, however, that the proposed agreement would not stop similar PUSH efforts to increase minority hiring at other CBS-owned stations in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.

“We have been working toward closure of an agreement with WBBM-TV,” Taylor said in a telephone interview. “We are at the point of feeling that we have achieved some of our goals.”

Taylor said that he and WBBM General Manager Johnathan Rodgers planned to sign the agreement at a Chicago press conference scheduled for today.

Labeling its case against CBS as an issue of “fairness,” PUSH had demanded that WBBM hire more minority-group members and increase its business with minority-owned companies. It was unclear Friday what, if any, of those demands were agreed to by WBBM.

Efforts to contact station officials were unsuccessful.

PUSH’s Taylor declined to discuss terms of the proposed settlement, but said the station’s hiring last week of a black anchorman for its weekday newscasts prompted PUSH to drop its ongoing picketing and other boycott actions at the CBS station.

The boycott began last October when veteran anchorman Harry Porterfield, a black, was demoted and then resigned from WBBM to join another local station.

One of PUSH’s principal complaints with the stations was that it had no black male news anchor, a situation that the station moved to rectify last week with the hiring of New York broadcast journalist Lester Holt.

Taylor also said that there has been a noticeable increase in the employment of blacks and other minorities at the station since Rodgers, a black himself, took over management of WBBM in March.

PUSH has tried to extend its protest to other CBS-owned stations around the country. Taylor emphasized that the possible settlement of the Chicago boycott would not end PUSH actions elsewhere. He said that picketing of other CBS stations will continue on a “selective basis” and will, perhaps, “escalate” after a settlement in Chicago.