Milwaukee

Michael Schlesinger is the newest member of the weather team at WDJT, the CBS-affiliate in Milwaukee.

Schlesinger joins WDJT from WNWO, the NBC-affiliate in Toledo, where he was an environmental reporter and meteorologist, TVNewsCheck reports. His first day on the air was February 4.

Previously, he was chief meteorologist at both WEVV in Evansville and WSYM in Lansing. Schlesinger will be WDJT’s weekend meteorologist.

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WITI has tapped John LaPorte to lead its newsroom.  The Milwaukee Fox-affiliate announced today that LaPorte, the station’s news content manager, has been named vice president of news.

He replaces Jim Lemon, who left the station in December after six years as its news director.

Before joining WITI in 2010, LaPorte served as news director at WEAU in Eau Claire, WI.  He also spent several years at Milwaukee NBC-affiliate WTMJ, working as an executive producer and eventually serving for a year as the station’s news director.

“John has many years invested in the news business and the Milwaukee market,” WITI president and general manager Chuck Steinmetz said, in announcing LaPorte’s promotion, “and over the past several weeks I had the opportunity to see just how competitive and compassionate he is about this newsroom and his craft.”

Michael McCormick, a former president of Milwaukee NBC-affiliate WTMJ, died this week at his home in Winston-Salem. He was 82.

McCormick was hired in 1972 to oversee operations at the station, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He was named president of WTMJ and senior vice president of Journal Communications in 1975, a position he held until his retirement in 1987.

McCormick was known as a strong advocate for local news, which he spoke about at his 2008 induction into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame, the Journal Sentinel reports.

“I believe very strongly in news because that’s how the audiences judge a station — by their news operation, not by some program in prime time,” McCormick said.

 

In switching to high definition over the weekend, Milwaukee CBS-affiliate WDJT cancelled its 10 p.m. newscast on Saturday to allow its engineers time to work on the transition.

At 10 on Saturday, WDJT aired an update featuring anchor Michele McCormack (right), who announced that the station would be running a Best Of special in place of its regular half-hour newscast.

“We are in the finishing stages of getting our news to broadcast in high definition,” McCormack told viewers on Saturday.  “Tonight, our engineers are changing out a lot of equipment in our control room.  Because of that, our news will not be shown tonight.”

WDJT’s 10 p.m. newscast was back on Sunday night.

Todd Hicks is joining WTMJ, the NBC-affiliate in Milwaukee, in early 2012.

Hicks joins the station from WGBA, the NBC-affiliate in Green Bay, where he has been a reporter and weekend anchor for two years. His last day will be January 23. Prior to joining WGBA, he worked at WSAW in Wausau, WI and KSAX in Alexandria.

Hicks will be a general assignment reporter at WTMJ. His first day will be January 23.

Charges were dropped this week against WITI photojournalist Clint Fillinger, who was arrested back in September while filming at the scene of a house fire.

Fillinger, 68, was clearly outside of the yellow police tape, standing next to a group of onlookers, when a Milwaukee police officer began hassling him about filming at the scene.

After being backed down for several yards, Fillinger briefly touched the officer in a defensive motion–a move that sparked the cop to knock Fillinger to the ground and arrest him (video here).  He was charged with resisting and obstructing a police officer. WITI management, along with the NPPA, protested the charges.

WITI reported on the dropped charges during its evening newscasts on Wednesday.

Rob Haswell, a meteorologist at Milwaukee Fox-affiliate WITI, is profiled by OnMilwaukee.com, and the forecaster expands on why local news — specifically, local weather — is still necessary, despite the increasing access viewers have to local weather reports:

Every morning, I ask my iPhone what the weather will be like today, and it tells me. Why should I watch you on TV?

Rob Haswell: Actually, that’s pretty easy. Siri is probably getting “her” data from an out-of-state source, like AccuWeather out of Pennsylvania or The Weather Channel out of Atlanta. Her ability to forecast on a local level like we do and to know the local terrain like we do is pretty limited. On a day like today, when it’s sunny and 38, she’s probably 100 percent right. But when we start getting into severe weather season, particularly blizzards, you’re not going to turn to a phone to know what’s going on. Read more

Jim Lemon is bidding farewell to WITI.

Lemon, who has been WITI’s news director since 2005, confirmed to TVSpy this week that he is leaving the Milwaukee Fox-affiliate. His final day will be December 16th.

Before arriving in Milwaukee, Lemon held ND positions in Sacramento and Honolulu. He told Rick Gevers & Associates that he’s leaving because he wants to avoid another Wisconsin winter.

No word yet on who will replace Lemon as WITI’s news director.

Diane Pathieu, a reporter and midday anchor at Milwaukee NBC-affiliate WTMJ, is leaving is joining ABC owned-and-operated WLS in her native Chicago.

“It’s very bittersweet to share this,” she wrote on Facebook. “I am moving back home to Chicago! I have an incredible opportunity to work for a station my family and I have been watching for years!”

Pathieu’s last day at WTMJ, where she has been since 2005, will be December 4. Her first job in television was as a production assistant at Chicago’s WMAQ, a rival station to WLS.

To investigate a controversial website that may be promoting prostitution, WTMJ reporter Rob Koebel recently went out on a date with a young woman he contacted through the site.

SeekingArrangement.com helps young women hook up with sugar daddies, who pay them significant sums of money for their company, and Koebel wanted to find out if the site was “just a clever way to promote prostitution.” Read more