FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WMUR Contact: Alex Jasiukowicz Creative Services Director 603-641-9073 Direct [email protected]
WMUR Hires First-Ever WMUR.com Political Director
Popular Political Analyst James Pindell Adds New Online Coverage Resources; WMUR Launches Web Site WMURPoliticalScoop.com
Manchester, NH (September 7, 2010) Hearst Television station WMUR has hired popular local political analyst James Pindell. Pindell is the publisher of NHPoliticalReport.com, a web site he launched in June 2009 dedicated solely to covering local politics. Statistical analyses and commentaries from NHPoliticalReport.com are frequently cited in New Hampshire newspapers and in widely read Washington, D.C.-based political publications such as National Journal.
“James will provide a new layer of on-air and online political coverage to complement WMUR’s already extensive reporting. He brings an analyst’s point of view and experience producing in-depth online content,” said WMUR-TV President & General Manager Jeff Bartlett.
Pindell assumes the title of WMUR.com Political Director and will be responsible for shaping the station’s online political content. He will also appear on the air at times, most immediately by serving as a panelist in WMUR’s Granite State Debates starting tonight with the First Congressional District Republican debate at 7pm broadcast on WMUR and streamed on WMUR.com.
“Adding James to the WMUR team means viewers will get unprecedented levels of news, commentary and insider reporting on the New Hampshire political process on multiple platforms,” said Hearst Television Vice President of News Candy Altman. “This fits squarely within the mission of our Commitment 2010 coverage.”
This timely enhancement to WMUR’s political reporting staff ensures a new dynamic to on-air, on-line and mobile coverage of the 2010 mid-term elections and the 2011-2012 presidential primary and election seasons.
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“In New Hampshire there is WMUR and then there's everybody else. I am honored to have the opportunity to cover and analyze politics on the state’s most influential stage,” said Pindell. “And with the new WMURPoliticalScoop.com web site, we will break news and set local political conventional wisdom. It’s exciting to work with Hearst and WMUR on creating bold, innovative new projects.”
Pindell will also run WMUR’s new subscriber-based web site packed with even more in-depth, insider content than is available on WMUR.com. WMURPoliticalScoop.com will charge users a fee to view articles and pages similar to NHPoliticalReport.com but with more robust content than was available to subscribers on the old site. Subscriptions will be available on a yearly, monthly and daily basis at start at $1.99 for a one-day pass. Breaking news, select articles and limited content will be available for free; all other premium content will be accessible with a subscription.
Pindell serves as a contributing editor to New Hampshire Magazine; a political analyst for New England Cable News and WGIR-AM, Manchester; and an adjunct professor of public policy at New England College. He was a founding editor of Politicker.com, a New York-based publisher of political-news sites serving 17 states; his “The Pindell Report” analysis of 531 electoral races surpassed several nationally famous political prognosticators in accurately calling contest outcomes.
The Washington Post called him the "Insider's Insider" for his coverage of New Hampshire politics. He is the only reporter ever to cover both the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary as a beat for local outlets. He has been quoted on New Hampshire politics in nearly every major U.S. newspaper and appeared nationally on every major broadcast and cable news network.
As a correspondent and blogger for The Boston Globe’s Washington, D.C. bureau, Pindell significantly advanced the paper’s digital coverage of New Hampshire political events. He began his years of covering New Hampshire politics in 2002, as managing editor of PoliticsNH.com, in Manchester, after several years of reporting local, state and national politics for The Dominion Post (Charleston, WV), Indianapolis Star, and Des Moines Register. Pindell holds a master’s degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism, where he was a Hitchcock Scholar, and a bachelor’s from the Drake University School of Journalism in Des Moines.
The expanded New Hampshire reporting is among a number of on-air, on-line and mobile coverage efforts encompassed within Hearst Television’s Commitment 2010 political-reporting project. A renewal of the Company’s detailed biannual election-coverage efforts, which began with Commitment 2000, Commitment 2010 will once again involve an intensified effort at the Company’s [27] news-carrying TV stations, and on their respective local websites, to provide comprehensive local TV news coverage of national, state and local election campaigns.
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Among the components of Commitment 2010, Hearst Television will continue to pledge a minimum 10 minutes’ airtime for daily political news and candidate- discourse coverage -- including at least five minutes of original content per weekday and, where possible, on weekends, in the 30 days leading up to the Primary and General elections at each of its news stations. In 2000 Hearst was an early adopter of a minimum five-minute commitment of total airtime, acting on a recommendation of a presidential commission on TV broadcasters’ public-interest obligations, and increased this commitment to 10 minutes in 2006.
WMUR’s Commitment 2010 coverage elements include producing 9 debates, candidate profiles and interviews, 10 questions with each candidate segments, political ad reviews, exclusive polls, candidate bios, and unique online coverage such as fun facts and a candid 60-second pitch shot on a flip cam from each candidate. WMUR will also produce an election special on the eve of the primary and will provide extended coverage on election nights.
Hearst Television’s Commitment 2000, Commitment 2002, Commitment 2004, Commitment 2006 and Commitment 2008 programs earned the Company prestigious Walter Cronkite Awards from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. Additionally, Commitment 2008 received a national Peabody Award, an unprecedented recognition of political journalism for an independent commercial broadcast TV station group.
For more information, please call Alex Jasiukowicz at 603-641-9073.
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About WMUR-TV & Hearst Television WMUR-TV is the leading source of television news in New Hampshire, reaching more than one million people, and is the largest commercial television station in the state. WMUR.com is the most viewed New Hampshire web site for local news. An ABC affiliate, WMUR is owned by Hearst Television, Inc. Hearst Television Inc., formerly known as Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc., is a leading local media company comprising 29 television stations and two radio stations. The Company’s television stations reach approximately 18% of U.S. TV households, making it one of America’s largest television station groups. It also owns more than three dozen websites and multicasts more than two dozen digital channels providing news, weather and entertainment programming. Hearst Television is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hearst Corporation. The Company’s Web address is www.hearsttelevision.com.