The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 372

JL fl jl fey -J j' 4p The long battle, waged in the courts and Congress, as well as the FCC, left Ed with a distrust of the Herald and of politics. Sidney never understood his new toy. Wandering through the newsroom, he would find a piece of videotape and hold it up to the light, looking for an image. Or he would invite friends to appear on the news. But his younger son, who became vice president and general manager, protected the newsroom's independence, even threatening to quit unless Sidney backed off.

"My dad was from an earlier generation," Ed Ansin says. "For some inexplicable reason, I just related to TV." After his father died, in 1971, Ansin took over the station. Although its ratings lagged, it won many national awards for investigative reporting. "They're very successful now," says David Choatc, who was news director from 1979 to 1987. "We were not, when 1 was news director.

We were never No. 1. There was never pressure to be No. 1. We had to do a product we were proud of.

That was the mission." The mission was also being a loyal affiliate. Ansin rarely preempted NBC programs, and staffers coordinated coverage with its Miami bureau. Then, on January 16, 1987, only two weeks after renewing An-sin's contract, two NBC executives walked into his office to break the news that the network had bought the CBS affiliate in Miami, WTVJ. Ansin calmly invited his visitors to lunch and paid for the stone crabs. His composure reflected his conviction that WSVN would remain a network affiliate, trading NBC for CBS, which was stuck without a Miami station.

Like NBC, CBS wanted to take advantage of a revised FCC rule allowing networks to own more stations. It offered to buy WSVN, but Ansin refused to sell. He enjoyed broadcasting, his children were interested in it, and he believed that CBS had to meet his terms or kiss Miami goodbye. Not so. In August 1988, CBS bought WCIX, an independent in the Miami market with a signal so weak that it barely reached Fort Lauderdale.

"I told everyone CBS wouldn't buy CIX," Ansin says. "It was too stupid to happen. I was wrong." This time, there was no cordial lunch. Ansin sued NBC and CBS and denounced them on WSVN. He complained to the FCC and sought support in Congress for the only time in his life contributing to a political campaign It was no use.

Ansin had to swal low what he estimated was a $75 million drop in WSVN's value. He had no programming; other stations already owned the usual independent fare: sitcoms and movies. "We were facing Bruce Lee reruns and Mario Lanza says anchor-woman Fitz, who has worked at WSVN for 14 years. "We were afraid the news staff would be cut to 15 people." She didn't have to worry. Ansin decided to expand staff, update equipment, and buy satellite feeds.

He summoned Joel Cheatwood, the news director, and Leider, the general manager. "Let's do more news," he told them. "But let's do it differently." ANSIN HIMSKLK DID THINCS differently. He barely knew most of his employees, but when WSVN lost its network affiliation, he began holding staff meetings. "He stood up and made us feel very good," says former WSVN newscaster Denisc White.

"He let us know that he'd keep the station, and we wouldn't sink." Instead of sinking, WSVN skyrocketed. Within weeks after going tabloid, it was running second to the ABC affiliate, beating the other networks. Although Ansin declines to provide specific numbers, he says that WSVN now makes more money than it did in all years but one with NBC. As co-anchor of the 5 p.m. news, White enjoyed being part of the turnaround.

She thrived in the looser on-air style that Cheatwood favored. Yet, in 1990, White left for the CBS affiliate in Tampa. "I felt their philosophy of news was no longer my philosophy of news," she says. "I could not look at myself in the mirror." What bothered White was WSVN's obsession with crime, especially in the black community. WSVN chases so many crimes that, according to a University of Florida study, it received 239 subpoenas to provide videotape or testimony in court between August 1988 and March 1992 far above the average of 17 subpoenas for other media outlets in Florida.

In one series, "Crime Check," co-anchor Rick Sanchez roamed the streets in search of the crime du jour. It was canceled in October 1990, after black leaders protested. The Cuban-born Sanchez has had his own scrapes with the law. He was exiled from WSVN from 1986 to 1988 for trading favors with a drug trafficker. In 1991, he pleaded guilty to drunk driving in an accident that left a pedestrian in a coma.

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