Posted by chicagomedia.org on August 04, 2009 at 10:01:53:
Harry Porterfield set to return to WBBM-Ch. 2 roots
Phil Rosenthal | Tribune Media
August 4, 2009
It is impossible to know whether bringing back newsman Harry Porterfield helps long-beleaguered WBBM-Ch. 2 win back viewers it lost long ago or shed the stigma it took on 24 years ago with the boycott that followed his demotion and subsequent departure for rival WLS-Ch. 7.
For Channel 2, hiring Porterfield, 81, as an anchor and reporter may be a case of seizing the chance to pick up a free agent with 45 years of experience in Chicago TV news whose calling card is a kind of uplifting human-interest feature that seems in short supply of late amid the doom and gloom of headlines.
Not that anyone has forgotten the protest against CBS-owned WBBM that followed Porterfield's exit after 21 years at the station or the extension of a ratings shift that left WLS atop the market and WBBM in a hole from which it has yet to emerge.
"We're certainly aware of the history of Harry Porterfield's departure from this television station," said Jeff Kiernan, Channel 2's news director since January. "History cannot be changed. That said, we can only move forward, and Harry and his relationship with the viewer is something that has not changed. It's important that that relationship continues."
Beginning Monday, Porterfield will co-anchor Channel 2's 11 a.m. newscast with Roseanne Tellez. He also will continue his award-winning "Someone You Should Know" series of features he began at Channel 2 in 1977 and took to Channel 7.
WLS last month declined to renew his contract, citing a need to cut costs, and his final newscast there was Thursday. For a while, Porterfield contemplated putting to use the law degree he received a while back at DePaul University. But WBBM quickly stepped into the breech.
"It's another opportunity to do what I want to do," he said. "So it's all good, and I'm very happy with how it turned out."
The move brings Porterfield back to WBBM, where he broke into Chicago TV as a news writer in 1964 after nine years in radio and television in Saginaw, Mich.
In his first 21-year hitch at Channel 2, he would rise through the ranks to become a reporter, a host and an anchor. And it was his demotion to reporter from 6 p.m. weeknight co-anchor to accommodate the return of Bill Kurtis from CBS in New York that convinced him to seek a position elsewhere.
But just as damaging to Channel 2, if not more so, was the subsequent boycott led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, who sought to spotlight a need for greater diversity both on-camera and in management.
But this was less about the past, Channel 2 boss Bruno Cohen insisted, than the station's current needs.
"It puts a very important, legendary Chicago broadcaster with an extraordinary relationship with many, many news viewers back on our air," Cohen said. "It gives us a really interesting anchor at 11 o'clock and an important, well-known feature on our other newscasts. So it helps our programs."