Will Milwaukee Area Technical College President Darnell Cole end Milwaukee Public Television’s editorial independence?
That’s the complaint of some insiders at the station, which runs Channels 10 and 36, but is itself owned by MATC. Cole doesn’t deny thrusting himself into station operations, arguing it’s his prerogative as president.
But should a college president be selecting TV show hosts? In the last year, Cole pressed the station to air a cooking show hosted by a motivational speaker and engineered the selection of a new host for the 10/36 magazine show “Black Nouveau.” These actions suggest a broader agenda to exert control of the station.
Cole has decided to bring the station’s marketing director under the oversight of the college’s own marketing and public affairs division. And he wants to move MATC’s broadcast education program, long run by the TV station, over to the college’s academic operations, a decision that has upset some broadcast alumni, who’ve mounted a campaign against it. “We’re going to stop it,” says one Cole critic on the MATC board.
All of which bolsters the complaints of Cole’s critics, who call him a micromanager who fails to build consensus and promotes favored cronies. Cole says they just don’t like his take-charge style.
Station insiders claim the half-hour show “Cooking Simply for the Soul,” hosted by motivational speaker Tyler Brown , was created on orders from Cole’s office. A 13-week series of shows aired last year and a second 13-week series will air soon.
Staffers privately complained that Brown wasn’t up to the demands of broadcast presentation and, in the words of one, was “unwilling to take direction.” When the second series was taped, a station employee says, an administration employee, Synovia Youngblood , sat in on meetings involving Brown and station personnel. “There was the definite feeling that Youngblood was there to make sure Brown was being ‘treated properly,’ ” a staffer says.
A review by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Nancy Stohs noted that Brown used boxed mixes in some recipes and referred to water chestnuts as “water crescents.” The show, Stohs noted, “does not have perfect polish, but then neither did Julia Child.”
Cole says Brown approached him with her idea for the show and he put her in touch with 10/36 management and “I insisted we look at it.” Cole also says he helped pick the members of a search committee that chose Milwaukee Courier Publisher Faith Colas to be the new host of “Black Nouveau.” Like Brown, Colas came to the station without TV experience.
The incidents hurt station morale. “There’s really not any regard for the level of competence to do the job,” one insider complains.
Cole minimizes his role: “I’m not really involved in public television. I’m trying to think of the last time I was even there.” But he claims the right to direct decisions as he sees fit. “I’m the one the [MATC] board puts in charge of running institutions,” he says, adding that the college funds about one-third of the station’s annual budget.
Leaving little doubt Cole is in charge, Ellis Bromberg, 10/36 general manager, won’t discuss the staffing controversies. “You’ll have to get comment from Dr. Cole,” he says. “I can’t comment.”
But Cole was criticized by a consultant’s draft report that Pressroom obtained. The report was done by Lewis Kennedy Associates, a consulting firm that advises public broadcasters.
The firm was jointly hired by the station, MATC and MPTV Friends (the station’s private fundraising arm). Its goal was to examine the station’s operation and its relationship with the Friends – still strained by the failed effort nearly a decade ago to transfer the station’s ownership to the Friends. The Kennedy report doesn’t endorse repeating that controversial move, but instead recommends creating a nonprofit corporation to run 10/36 for the college. MATC would retain ownership, but the nonprofit intermediary could insulate the station from the college – and Cole.
The report implicitly provided reasons that such independence might be needed. It suggested Cole had blocked the station from hiring a marketing director – “holding hostage” the position, one critic told us – unless the post is put under the supervision of Rob Hartung, MATC’s vice president for public affairs. Again, Cole has no apologies, arguing that “marketing Milwaukee Public Television and the college should be one and the same.”
The report let Cole off lightly as to his role in creating “Cooking Simply.” “Since this is not a public affairs program, it is relatively noncontroversial, but it could create a public relations problem for the college,” the consultant noted.
But the “Black Nouveau” decision drew a harsher assessment. “This treads into the area of editorial integrity and undue influence,” the Kennedy report says. It went even further, slapping at Cole’s declaration that it’s his right to direct such decisions. “This reaction,” the report warned, “appears to display a lack of awareness of the issue of editorial integrity, one of the founding principles of public broadcasting.”
