WSRE TV Connects the Community

WSRE-TV has been a vital source of community information for decades.

2006 Maritime Park Vote

The week before the 2006 referendum vote on the Community Maritime Park, WSRE-TV’s “Connecting the Community” had Quint Studer and Mort O’Sullivan and Save Our City’s Charlie Fairchild and Councilman Marty Donovan answer questions from the local media.

• “It’s an important community decision with implications stretching far into the future of Pensacola. We want to provide citizens with the facts in an organized and non-partisan format, one last time before the vote,” stated Tony Ferguson, program producer. “We’re going to have equal representation from park supporters and the opposition here. Our format will give local journalists from print, radio and television an opportunity to ask fair and balanced yet challenging questions to both sides.”

WSRE moderator Robin Woods, today Robin Reshard, hosted a panel of journalists from the Pensacola News Journal, the Independent News, WEAR-TV, and WUWF-FM. Whether the Independent News would have a reporter participating became a hot topic right up to airtime.

Almost Canceled

On August 29, two days before the telecast, I received an email from Ferguson: “To help foster an impartial and informative program, WSRE invited working reporters to ask challenging but impartial, issue-oriented questions. Up until Monday of this week, two people who oppose the Community Maritime Park project, Charles Fairchild and Marty Donovan, were going to join the program. They have since declined, citing media bias as their reason.”

• He added, “As program producer for WSRE, while disappointed that the Save Our City parties have made this decision, I continue to make efforts to schedule a park opponent for Thursday’s program. In discussions regarding the program, we never contemplated or even discussed canceling the program; only ways to still present the best possible information to voters.”

An hour after I posted Ferguson’s comments, Donovan agreed to participate with reservations. Another SOC member would substitute for Fairchild.

• Save Our City believed all the journalists were biased, particularly my editor, Duwayne Escobedo. Duwayne called Fairchild to convince him that the process would be fair. Fairchild responded that he had no problem with Duwayne, only me. My editor was “collateral damage.”

Targeting Me

During the show, Duwayne asked Donovan how he believed Quint would profit from the park. The councilman went into a tirade against the Independent News, Rick’s Blog, “Outtakes,” which he called a “gossip column,” and me. Donovan accused me of demonizing him and SOC, calling them “Hitler-like,” and offending World War II veterans.

• He said, “The Independent News is anything but independent and newsworthy.”

Donovan said it was “irreprehensible” that I never called him for a quote for my articles. He added that he initially refused to participate in the debate because Duwayne was added at the “11th hour,” which was untrue. Of course, Donovan never answered the question.

In my “Outtakes,” I admitted that Donovan had a reason to be upset:

Donovan has reasons to be angry with me. For the past six months, I’ve relentlessly challenged him and Save Our City in “Outtakes,” “Winners & Losers,” and on the other opinion pages.

Their campaign to defeat the Vince Whibbs Sr. Community Maritime Park was so filled with misinformation and half-truths that I couldn’t remain silent. If the waterfront park proposal was defeated, I want the plan to lose on its merits, not because of some sound bite that evokes fear, envy or mistrust.

I couldn’t stand idle while the names of the late Vice Adm. Jack Fetterman and Mayor Emeritus Vince Whibbs were maligned, insinuating that they were part of a conspiracy to give away public land.

So, I went on the offensive. On our opinion page, we published the “Save Our City Misrepresentation of the Week,” where we corrected misstatements made on their website. Eventually, SOC would edit the site and correct many of the inaccuracies.

PNJ columnist Mark O’Brien covered the WSRE forum, noting it revealed the personalities of Studer and Donovan. About Studer, O’Brien wrote, “He’s unaccustomed to being silenced. He kept talking despite the moderator’s efforts to maintain time limits and focus the debate on specifics.”

He criticized Donovan for spending “valuable TV time not discussing his objections but attacking a reporter for a weekly newspaper that roasts Donovan regularly.”

O’Brien said he opposed the park for two reasons: “We should have sought more ideas, and we should know the fate of the Main Street Sewage Treatment Plant before borrowing $40 million for the park.”

HELP WSRE – 2025

Today, WSRE needs your help. As part of its August pledge drive for viewer support, the local public television station will host an open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 16, at the WSRE studios in the Kugelman Center for Telecommunications at Pensacola State College. This free event will include production studio tours and PBS KIDS activities for children, including meet-and-greets with Clifford the Big Red Dog.

• “This open house will provide an opportunity for the community to get a behind-the-scenes look at our operations and to learn about our programming and productions, as well as our educational services and public media mission,” said WSRE General Manager Jill Hubbs.

The station also invites the public to participate in its I Love WSRE viewer support campaign, designed to increase awareness about the breadth of station services and its value to the community. Station supporters are encouraged to share their own WSRE stories by submitting video or written testimonials about why they support public television at wsre.org/value.

Video testimonials will also be filmed during the open house event, which is free and open to the public. Ample parking is available on campus near the Jean & Paul Amos Studio entrance. WSRE is located at the corner of College Boulevard and 12th Avenue.