MEDIA : Layoffs Aside, KPBS Quietly Pursues Fund-Raising Plans

At the same time that KPBS is cutting staff and “reorganizing” due to financial problems, the public broadcasting station is moving ahead with its secretive $10-million capital improvement fund-raising drive.

The station hasn’t gone public with the plan, citing the need to organize details of the campaign before making any formal announcements. The goal of the effort is to build new facilities for both the public television and radio stations, situated on the San Diego State University campus.

“The facility is absolutely inadequate,” General Manager Paul Steen said.

The fund-raising campaign has been slowed by the resignation of Development Manager Susan Dutton, who is leaving next month for personal reasons, Steen said. But the station is proceeding with plans to raise the $10 million.

Although some may find it difficult to understand how the station could be asking for $10 million when it is laying off its big-name producers, Steen said the two are unrelated. The approach to potential donors for the capital improvement campaign is different from the station’s regular fund-raising efforts, Steen said. People will donate in different ways for different reasons.

“The capital campaign for facilities is quite different from our on-going operation,” Steen said. “It will not help with our annual budget problems.”

Steen realizes that the announcement of the reorganization comes at a lousy time for the big fund-raising drive.

“It would have been nice if it hadn’t happened,” he said. “We will have to make it clear” that the reorganization is an attempt “to fix something that has plagued us for years.”

In its report on the still-mysterious Karen Wilkening case, the county grand jury flatly reports “that one member of the media received preferential treatment during police investigations.” According to the report, the person received “scoops” because of “ready access . . . to almost any police department office area at almost any time.”

The report doesn’t identify the media representative, but it is widely believed to be KGTV (Channel 10) photographer Bob Lampert. His wife is a SDPD sergeant, and he is often accused of gaining unfair advantage due to his chummy relationship with officers, most recently when he followed a suspect in a murder investigation who was under police surveillance.

Police officials told Lampert that he is the media person mentioned in the report, and he is angry about it. From his perspective, the grand jury’s accusation is a rehash of charges that have been discussed and dismissed several times.

Lampert says police officials have told him that he is going to be watched closely in the future. He feels he is being penalized for his enterprise reporting.

“The allegation was made by somebody, and the grand jury took it as fact,” Lampert said. “They never asked me.”

However, the report doesn’t criticize Lampert. It attacks the SDPD, which has consistently denied that Lampert gets any special privileges.

Commander Larry Gore, head of the SDPD’s public affairs department, says it is difficult to respond to the grand jury report because it refers to unidentified incidents that happened several years ago.

“I don’t know what their conclusions are based upon,” Gore said. “There isn’t any inappropriate access by anybody. Lampert is not allowed access that others don’t have.”

But the grand jury left little doubt about its perspective.

It found that “special treatment or favoritism to be unfair to others in the public, including other people who work for print and electronic media businesses. The police department, to be professional, must do everything to prevent that sort of favoritism and to prevent the compromising of criminal case investigations.”

The final transfer of funds was due to take place Friday, officially making Mike McKinnon the owner of KUSI-TV (Channel 51). McKinnon now can move ahead with hiring staff for a 10 p.m. newscast, which he hopes to have on the air by the fall. Former KNSD-TV (Channel 39) reporter Cathy Clark, currently working as a temporary reporter for the San Diego Tribune, is often mentioned as someone who is going to be hired to help organize the newsroom. Both Clark and McKinnon say talks have taken place, but that nothing is definite. . . .

Beginning today, Escondido-based KOW-AM (1450) will become KSPA-AM (1450), “The Station of the Stars,” a middle of the road format featuring artists like Frank Sinatra, Robert Goulet and the Carpenters. The station had been simulcasting the country music of KOW-FM (92.1). Al Gordon from KPLM in Palm Springs has been hired as operations manager and afternoon disc jockey. . . .

They ran the flag up the pole at the Union Tribune’s Mission Valley building last Monday, but no one saluted. Primarily because no one recognized the red, white and black flag with three green stars. Staff members scurried to reference books. It was discovered to be the flag of Iraq, which raised even more questions, specifically what it was doing on the U-T flagpole. As it turns outs, it is common practice at the U-T to honor visiting dignitaries by raising their national flag, according to a spokesman for U-T security. The flag of Iraq was raised, he said, because the Iraqi ambassador to the United States was in town. . . .

The KGTV (Channel 10) promotion department was quick to use comments from this column in an ad touting the station’s news coverage. They quoted the column accurately, but it’s hard not to chuckle at their selectivity. Channel 10 “presents the most balanced newscast on the air,” the ad quotes. The complete comment: “Although it still does more warm and fuzzy animals stories than any station on Earth, it presents the most balanced newscast on the air.” They also left out the line in the same column about Channel 10’s “geeky” on-air personalities. . . .

A report in a national trade magazine has Commonwealth Broadcasting and local radio veteran Dex Allen taking over troubled XHRM-FM (92.5), with help from Lee Mirabal. Allen says his group has made an offer and the “ball is in the court of the station’s Mexican owners.” It’s difficult to confirm the other side of the story. The station’s phones have been disconnected. . . .

Life at KPBS goes on, despite the budget problems. KPBS-FM (89.5) is searching for a new news director (filling a position that has been vacant for several months), with an eye toward expanding its local news coverage. Within a few months, the station hopes to be filing three or four in-depth reports a week for use during National Public Radio shows, station manager Craig Dorval said. . . .

Stacey Kramer, who publishes Chicago Sports Scene with her husband, Keith, was in town last weekend promoting the monthly newsletter, which caters to transplanted Chicagoans looking for news from home. San Diego is one of its largest markets. Twenty percent of the publication’s circulation is in the San Diego area, which says quite a bit about San Diego as a place to relocate, as well as about die-hard Chicago fans. Chicagoans “don’t lose their loyalty because its instilled in them at birth,” Kramer said.