Joel Cheatwood
Encyclopedia
Joel Cheatwood is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 executive best known for creating modern news formats which combine flashy presentation to make news more attractive for younger audiences.

Cheatwood first came to prominence in 1989 while serving as news director
News Director
A news director is an individual at a broadcast station or network or a newspaper who is in charge of the news department. In local news, the news director is typically in charge of the entire news staff, including journalists, news presenters, photographers, copy writers, television producers,...

 at WSVN
WSVN
WSVN, channel 7, is a television station located in Miami, Florida, USA. WSVN is owned by Sunbeam Television, and is an affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company. The station has its studio facilities located in North Bay Village and transmitter based in north Miami-Dade County.WSVN operates a Key...

 in Miami, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. The longtime NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 affiliate had recently switched to Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 as part of a major shakeup in South Florida television. Station owner Ed Ansin responded by pouring most of the station's resources into its news department. With Ansin's backing, Cheatwood adopted an "if it bleeds, it leads" format heavy on flashy graphics and crime stories. Cheatwood was often criticized for an emphasis on sensationalistic reporting, as it was often overlooked that crime was a major concern for the people of Miami at the time. However, the "7 News" format revived a station that had low ratings while it was an NBC affiliate. It also heavily influenced what other Fox stations' newscasts would look like for many years to come.

In 1993, Ansin bought WHDH-TV
WHDH-TV
WHDH, digital channel 42 , is an NBC-affiliated television station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest NBC station not owned by the network. Owned by Sunbeam Television, WHDH is a sister station to CW affiliate WLVI...

 in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. Like WSVN, WHDH had long been last in the local news ratings. Ansin brought Cheatwood to Boston in with the hope of turning the station around. By this time, Cheatwood's reputation in television news was such that many of the station's veteran reporters resigned. Cheatwood introduced an entirely new format to the station which led to a ratings boost, especially after the longtime CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 affiliate switched to NBC in 1995. It soon rose to second place in the Boston ratings, and for the last decade has regularly traded first place with long-dominant WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV
WCVB-TV, channel 5, is a television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Hearst Television and affiliated with the ABC Television Network. WCVB-TV's studios and transmitter are co-located in Needham, Massachusetts. WCVB is also one of six Boston television stations seen in Canada by...

.

In 1997, Cheatwood moved to WMAQ-TV
WMAQ-TV
WMAQ-TV, channel 5, is an owned-and-operated television station of the NBC Television Network, located in Chicago, Illinois. WMAQ-TV's main studios and offices are located within the NBC Tower in the Streeterville neighborhood, with an auxiliary street-level studio on the Magnificent Mile at 401...

 in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, as vice president of news and promotion. Although the decision was made by WMAQ-TV before Cheatwood was brought onto the scene, Cheatwood is often mistakenly criticized for bringing Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Gerald Norman "Jerry" Springer is a British-born American television presenter, best known as host of the tabloid talk show The Jerry Springer Show since its debut in 1991...

 on as a commentator. The station's longtime anchor team, Carol Marin
Carol Marin
Carol Marin is a television and print journalist based in Chicago, Illinois.She began her career in 1972 at WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee working as a reporter, anchor, and assistant news director....

 and Ron Magers
Ron Magers
Ron Magers is a weeknight anchor for WLS-TV, the ABC owned-and-operated station in Chicago, the city's number one station. He currently co-anchors the top-rated 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. broadcasts with Cheryl Burton and Kathy Brock, respectively...

, resigned in protest. Springer only made two commentaries before being let go, and station management later admitted that his hiring was a mistake. Cheatwood took the fall for the management's decision and was later moved to serve as a consultant for NBC (WMAQ is an NBC O&O).

In 2000, Cheatwood moved to WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, located in New York City. The station's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building, both in Midtown Manhattan....

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 as news director. He also doubled as executive vice president of news for all of CBS' O&Os. At the time, once-proud WCBS-TV had been in last place in the New York ratings for five years. Soon after his arrival, WCBS-TV adopted a format that, while tame compared to WSVN and even WHDH, was still much flashier than had been the case on New York's Big Three affiliates. In August, he rebranded the station as the "CBS 2 Information Network," using "content partners" such as U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

and VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

. He also moved most of the station's newscasts to the CBS Sports
CBS Sports
CBS Sports is a division of CBS Broadcasting which airs sporting events on the American television network. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on West 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street.CBS...

 studio. This caused a few problems whenever the sports department needed the studio on the weekends. For instance, the studio sported "CBS Sports" rather than "CBS 2" logos at times. He also renamed the 11pm newscast "Nightcast," giving it its own graphics and music.

During his tenure at WCBS, Cheatwood is also known for running the stations operations throughout the September 11, 2001 crisis, providing a sizable portion of footage that otherwise would have been unavailable. In February 2002 he opened a full-time news bureau in Jerusalem, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, hiring former CBS Radio
CBS Radio
CBS Radio, Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Media. CBS Radio owns around 130 radio stations across the country...

 reporter Kimberly Dozier
Kimberly Dozier
Kimberly Dozier is a correspondent for the Associated Press, covering intelligence and counterterrorism. She was stationed in Baghdad as the chief reporter in Iraq for CBS News for nearly three years prior to being critically wounded on May 29, 2006.-Biography:Dozier was born in Honolulu, Hawaii,...

 as correspondent.

After finishing out his contract with CBS, Cheatwood was hired as executive director of program development at CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

. At CNN Headline News
CNN Headline News
HLN, formerly known as CNN Headline News and CNN2, is a cable television news channel based in the United States and a spinoff of the cable news television channel, CNN. Initially airing tightly-formatted 30-minute newscasts around the clock, since 2005, the channel has increasingly aired long-form...

, he worked on shows for Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...

 and Nancy Grace
Nancy Grace
Nancy Ann Grace is an American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor. She frequently discusses issues from what she describes as a victims' rights standpoint, with an outspoken style that has won her both praise and condemnation...

.

In April 2007, Cheatwood joined the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...

 as Vice President of Development, to focus on shows for Fox News Channel and the soon-to-be launched Fox Business Channel.

On April 6, 2011, Fox News and Glenn Beck's syndicator, Mercury Radio Arts announced that Joel Cheatwood would be leaving Fox News and would become an Executive Vice President for Mercury Radio Arts. He will work as the liaison between Beck and Fox News as Beck transitions from an employee of Fox News with a 5 day a week TV show to someone who will perhaps produce occasional specials for Fox News later in 2011. He will be starting with MRA on April 24, 2011.

External links

  • Joel Cheatwood collected coverage at the Los Angeles Times
    Los Angeles Times
    The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

  • Joel Cheatwood collected coverage at The New York Observer
  • Joel Cheatwood collected coverage at the NY Daily News
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