By Joan Cartan-Hansen

On January 1, 2011, the Idaho Falls-based KIFI-TV, Local News 8, officially took over operations of its cross-town competitor KIDK-TV.  Under an Operational Shared Service Agreement, Fisher Broadcasting will still own KIDK, but KIFI will provide sales, promotional, administrative and operational support services for both companies. The newsrooms also were combined. “It has been a whirlwind,” says Mark Danielson, KIFI General Manager.

KIDK-TV started as an offshoot of KID radio in 1953, and enjoyed high … [Read more...]

Celebrate journalism at gala awards banquet

By Deanna Darr

Idaho Press Club members can join in the celebration of some of the best journalism to come out of the state last year at the Best of 2010 Annual Awards Banquet on Saturday, May 7.

This annual event is one of the ways the Press Club works to support and improve journalism—by recognizing and awarding excellent work in both print and broadcast journalism, as well as in public relations. It’s also a great time to celebrate our profession by gathering with others … [Read more...]

We stand on their shoulders…. 

By Betsy Russell

With all the turnover in Idaho news organizations, we often lament the loss of institutional memory. Here's a case where a longtime Idaho journalist, Tim Woodward of the Idaho Statesman, has reminded us all of someone we may never have heard or met, but who is an important part of the fabric of Idaho's journalistic history.

Tim himself is an Idaho journalistic institution; I've been in the state 25 years, and Tim came before me on the Boise downtown redevelopment … [Read more...]

By Tim Woodward

Vern Moore, radio icon and journalism pioneer, was Idaho’s first television news anchor; he died Feb. 17 in Coeur d'Alene. His obituary devoted a little more than a paragraph to his broadcast career. Some readers may have missed it entirely, never realizing that we had lost a local icon.

Moore was the patriarch of broadcast news in Idaho. Thousands of Idahoans grew up hearing his voice and seeing his face. He was etched in our memories, like Howdy Doody or Walt Disney or Edward R. Murrow.

Moore’s was … [Read more...]

By Kathleen Kreller

Note: Dan Morris was a longtime Idaho Press Club board member, and is the only person ever named a life member of the Idaho Press Club for his contributions to the organization. He died on March 20 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer; this article first appeared in the Idaho Statesman.

Boise State University officials said Dan Morris was surrounded by his family when he died Sunday, at the age of 59.

Morris retired from BSU last April after 23 years as a faculty member in the department of … [Read more...]

By Kathleen Kreller

As my college newspaper adviser in the early 1990s, Dan Morris was one of my earliest mentors in journalism. He taught me to think in critical terms and to question everything. He was a kind and thoughtful man.

One of my fondest memories include trying to teach Dan to do the “running man” dance in the Arbiter’s offices to one of the day’s pop anthems. Dan refused to take off his Birkenstock sandals.

At some point, in a fit of moral outrage, I dug up and took his reserved parking sign from outside the … [Read more...]

By Dan Popkey

Note: This column was first published in the Idaho Statesman on March 22, 2011; it is reprinted here by permission. Lt. Gov. Brad Little addressed a full house at a Press Club Headliner event on March 23.

Idaho’s governors have met with the Idaho Press Club during the annual legislative session since the tradition began with Cecil Andrus in the early 1970s.

They did it because they honored the media’s duty to inform.

But this year, Gov. Butch Otter begged off. On Feb. 25, spokesman Jon Hanian … [Read more...]

TELEVISION

IDAHO FALLS/POCATELLO 

KIFI-TV

New staffers are Jessica Crandall, arriving from BYU, to be a new weekend anchor/reporter; new reporter Troy Campbell from Cal State Northridge; new reporter Marissa Bodnar, from New England Cable News; new reporter Britney Borghi; and new sports director Jeff Flanders.

Leaving KIFI are reporter Aman Chabra, who headed to KJCT as Sports Director; reporter Hailey Higgins, reporter, who left for a station in Sioux Falls; weekend anchor Emma Jade went to a … [Read more...]