Eli Stokols.
The Columbia Journalism Review takes a look at the departure of Fox 31’s Eli Stokols for Politico — and what it means for his Sunday public affairs show #COPolitics:
…his departure will leave a noticeable hole in coverage of politics and policy in Colorado, and his own station isn’t sure yet how it might be filled.
“I’m not positive what we will do when he leaves. Still working on that,” said Holly Gaunt, the news director and vice president for KDVR and its sister station KWGN. “Covering politics will still be important to us, but at this stage I don’t know how things will shake out.”…
…And since he’ll be assessing day-to-day Colorado news from the perspective of a consumer rather than a producer, I asked what he hopes to see more of when he’s gone. More enterprise coverage, for one, he said. (I agree.)
And, he added, “I’d like to see people here be a little tougher on some of the people that we cover. I don’t know if I saw that enough in the campaign coverage last year. There seems to be a reluctance to hold people accountable for policy positions. [Pols emphasis]
“I think for the most part people here do a good job,” he continued, “but I think it’s tough when you have these relationships and you’re everybody’s friend to really bang peoples’ heads around because you don’t want to do it. There’s always that catch between access and holding people accountable.”
Stokols starts his new job as a national political reporter with Politico in April.
And now we’ve lost one of the only reporters who would.
One of the only.
“I think for the most part people here do a good job,” he continued, “but I think it’s tough when you have these relationships and you’re everybody’s friend to really bang peoples’ heads around because you don’t want to do it.”
These relationships all too often co-opt real change…the key word being “access”…
Damn Shame, losing Eli. And hope for success in his career path, he’s earned our best wishes, set a standard that now he’s going, allows the monkey see, monkey do slavish pursuit of ratings by other stations political programs to wither. It’s what the public wants anyway. My choices as a political junkie, are pathetically out of touch over the frequent preemption of Sunday talking heads in deference to sports programming. Channel 9 breathes a sigh of relief with their “Balance of Power” maybe some double & triple doses of Andy of Mayberry reruns , close to 10 hrs a week on their combined stations.