MarketInk: Radio News Director Cliff Albert Enjoying Holidays as ‘Changed Man’

Veteran radio news journalist Cliff Albert says this year’s holiday season will be extra special for him and his family.

“These holidays will be different for me,” Albert told Times of San Diego. “After what happened to me this past year, I have a greater appreciation and value about family, friends and co-workers. I now look at the gift of life with new eyes. I’m a changed man.”

This past spring, an expected three- or four-day hospital visit for the 72-year-old Albert, who had an intestinal disorder, ended up to be 42 days.

“I admit, I was scared,” Albert said. “During those six weeks in the hospital, after three different surgeries, there were times when I said to myself, `I think my time on earth may be over soon.”

Albert has worked in San Diego since 1979 in radio news and programming. 

Albert said, “My surgeon had said it was supposed to be a routine, clean-out-some-stuff procedure but then complications happened, including an inflection in my intestines. Also, my kidneys started to fail and my blood pressure was falling and I was in ICU.”

Albert, who attends Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, said he remembers hearing the voice of God one particular night at Sharp Memorial Hospital.

“There was one night when I started vomiting green slime all over the nurses and I couldn’t stop,” Albert said. “God spoke to me and reminded me how my life was in the hands of people I didn’t even know. It’s been said that we often meet angels without knowing it, but now I’m sure of it.

“The message that night from the Lord was clear: `You’re not in control. You can’t do it all by yourself. You need others.’ It was a powerful lesson for me.”

After missing 12 weeks of work on medical leave, Albert returned on July 24 to the iHeartMedia building in Kearny Mesa, the home to eight San Diego radio stations.

“Several dozen members of the radio staff were in the lobby to welcome me back,” Albert said. “It was very touching and sort of embarrassing. It took me about four days to go through about 3,000 old emails, most of which I deleted.”

At 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, KOGO will air Albert’s annual broadcast of “The Bethlehem Report,” a special, hour-long program about the first Christmas as if it were breaking news covered by modern day reporters. It will be the 41st anniversary of this San Diego radio tradition.

The broadcast features members of the KOGO team reporting about a star in the sky as an unusual astronomical event, rumors of a new king born in Bethlehem and visits from wise men from the East. Several of Albert’s eight grandchildren have talking roles, including his five-month-old grandson at the time crying as the baby Jesus.

When Cliff and wife Marianne relocated to San Diego from the Chicago area in 1979, “we were expecting it would last three or four years. It’s now been 44 years,” said Albert.

After 16 years as news director at KFMB-AM, in 1996, he joined KSDO AM 1130, which was owned by Jacor Communications, as program director. In 1997, the news station switched to another frequency, KOGO AM-600. Jacor was acquired by Clear Channel in 1998, which was acquired and rebranded as iHeartMedia, Inc. in 2014.

At KSDO and KOGO, his roles have included program director (1996-2013) and news director the past 10 years.

“I’ve always been a news guy,” said Albert, whose personal email address begins with “mrnooz.”

While attending Southern Illinois University, Albert was involved with the student radio station. “One day, a construction crane on campus fell over and students were hurt. It happened right in front of me. I ran to a pay phone and went on the air to describe the scene,” he said. “I’ve been hooked on reporting news ever since.”

Cliff met Marianne in high school in Elk Grove, Ill. “She was in drama class, raising money for a student dance club by selling raffle tickets to win a Ford Mustang,” Albert said. “I told her that I would buy all her raffle tickets if she agreed to go on a date with me. She agreed. I didn’t win the car, but I won a wife.”

They’ve been married for 52 years.

Black Talk-Radio Station in L.A. Airs `What Resistance Looks Like’

KBLA Talk 1580-AM, a 50,000-watt, Los Angeles-based, hard-left, talk-radio station known for airing Black progressive and provocative voices, has added Cornel West, a former independent candidate for president, and former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. as talk-show hosts, beginning Monday, Jan. 6.

West will co-host “Truth Time” with former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner from noon to 1 p.m., preceding “The Jesse Jackson Jr. Show” from 1 to 2 p.m.

“I am both humbled and deliciously proud that Dr. Cornel West, Nina Turner and Jesse Jackson Jr. have decided to join us at KBLA Talk 1580 as we continue to build the most innovative and empowering Black talk media platform in the nation,” said Tavis Smiley, KLBA station operator since 2021. “No talk station in America can match the intellectual firepower that we will be launching on Monday, January 6th.”

Smiley is the founder and chief visionary officer of Smiley Audio Media, Inc., founded in 2005. A spokesperson told Times of San Diego that SAM controls the KLBA signal and manages all station operations, including programming, under a local marketing agreement pending final FCC approval and official license transfer.

“After all the bickering about Black men during the recent presidential campaign, now is the time to pass the mic to more Black men of different generations to facilitate conversations you won’t find anywhere else,” Smiley said. “It’s going to be a rough four years. This is what resistance looks like.”

A statement said KLBA Talk 1580 boasts an all-star lineup of hosts who speak candidly and passionately to the challenges people of color face daily. The station said it serves people of color and progressives, an audience long ignored by talk radio in Los Angeles and other American cities.

Crowe PR Promotes, Add Staff

Crowe PR, a San Diego-based public relations agency, has announced promotions for three staff members and a new hire.

Janine Warner, who has worked at Crowe PR for three years, has been promoted to director of healthcare and technology. Laurel Tiedeman, who has worked at the agency for four years, has been promoted to group manager of destinations. Melissa Simon, who has worked at Crowe for three years, has been promoted to integrated PR manager.

In addition, Alex Meyers, who has more than 10 years of experience in driving brand growth, has been hired to the newly created role of strategic growth and partnerships manager. In this role, a statement said Meyers will lead efforts to build strategic partnerships with forward-thinking brands that are ready to achieve transformational success and reach new heights in their industries.

“At Crowe, fostering exceptional talent isn’t just a value, it’s our growth strategy,” said Natalia Barclay, senior director of communications at Crowe PR. “Janine, Laurel and Melissa have consistently demonstrated remarkable dedication and exemplary leadership, and their promotions underscore our commitment to creating a culture of innovation and excellence. Welcoming Alex to the team also opens new opportunities to partner with forward-thinking brands as we continue to redefine success in the PR industry.” 

Trump Suing News Outlets, Claiming False, Misleading Reporting

President-elect Donald Trump is adopting a wide-ranging legal strategy consisting of suing media companies over what he describes as false or misleading coverage about him and his upcoming administration.

As reported by Reuters, three lawsuits, all filed within the past year, are challenging news outlets over their slants with news coverage. Reuters reports a Trump spokesperson said the lawsuits are necessary because media companies are dishonest and need to be held accountable.

“President Trump will continue to hold those who have committed, and are committing wrongdoings, accountable for blatantly false and dishonest reporting, which serves no public interest and only seeks to interfere in our elections on behalf of political partisans,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to Reuters.

Trump is suing CBS News for editing Kamala Harris’ answers for an October “60 Minutes” interview. The lawsuit claims that the network engaged in election interference with “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public.” 

In addition, Trump is suing the Des Moines Register newspaper in Iowa state court over the newspaper’s opinion poll that showed Democratic presidential candidate Harris ahead of Trump a few days before the Nov. 5 election. He is bringing the case under Iowa’s deceptive and unfair trade practices law, which makes it illegal to deceive or mislead consumers in the sale of merchandise. Trump’s lawsuit said millions of Americans “were deceived by the doctored Harris Poll.” He won the state by 14 points, according to the Associated Press.

Trump’s recent lawsuits follow his success in a defamation case he brought against ABC News and TV  anchor George Stephanopoulos, who got the network in hot water after repeatedly saying that Trump was found liable for rape. As part of a settlement, ABC agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and apologize for Stephanopoulos’ comments about Trump.

The New York Post reported that Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton White House official, is “humiliated” and “apoplectic” over his network’s settlement with Trump. The Post also said that Stephanopoulos has deactivated his X account, where he had more than 2.3 million followers. 

Reuters notes that Trump’s lawsuits could saddle news organizations with litigation costs and force them to turn over potentially embarrassing internal documents. Some experts said it would be corrosive to press freedoms if judges allow the cases to proceed, Reuters said.

Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly on Mondays in Times of San Diego.