As news outlets fight over who will interview boating accident survivor Nick Schuyler first, it sparks a question: Who would you pick, if the world’s media were beating at your door? Considering Florida’s habit of sparking national media stories, you may face that choice sooner than you think. H...

There have always been high-profile "crisis manager" publicists; the guys (or gals) you call when a well-known person lands in serious trouble, whether it's Michael Jackson accused of child molestation or O.J. Simpson accused of murder. These were the folks who figured out how to handle th...

After this week's back and forth on extending the date for the digital TV transition, I've concluded one thing: There is no activity so simple or complex that Congress can;'t find a way to screw it up. The U.S. House of Representatives did not produce the 2/3 majority needed to fast-track the bill d...

As someone who has written for many years about the need for racial equality in our politics and our media, Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday presents a wonderful quandary. It's tough to avoid the celebratory tone drenching the media these last few days, from the soaring inaugural celebration tele...

Come February 17th, that’s the date when all the stations turn off their analog TV broadcast signals and we only have digital transmissions. Everyone who still uses rabbit ears (not cable or satellite) to get their TV will be affected. OK, if you haven’t heard that in the past year and a...

It took staunch anti-Communist Dick Nixon to forge a relationship with Communist China and anti-interventionist George W. Bush to engineer the biggest experiment in nation building of this century. So maybe it will take a Democratic president to let the free market handle America's switch to digital...

Way back in 2003, St. Petersburg Times reporter Jeff Testerman wrote a story headlined "Dubious Housing Deals Line Avenue," noting Tampa officials were questioning sales of homes along a stretch of Amelia Avenue that saw a structure valued at $85,000 sold for more than $500,000. Even back ...

CNN must have known it was tempting fate by giving comic Kathy Griffin a live microphone during its   New Year's Eve special. This is the woman who exclaimed Jesus could "suck it" when she won an Emmy award. The woman who predicted Miley Cyrus would get a "down there virus" ...

* So I'm sitting in my office at 8 a.m., watching ex-Baywatch star Jeremy Jackson explain how fame turned him into such a pig that he obliterated a multimillion-dollar career as a teen idol on VH1's latest exercise in celebrity degradation, Confessions of a Teen Idol. And I'm smiling. That's the eff...

Some might say it's a cheeky way to fill a blog post AND dodge of bit of work close to the holidays. But I prefer to think of this next request as a fun way to do what I love most: Talk about TV. Every year, I pore over old blog posts and resurrect old TV schedules to figure out my highlights and lo...