NAB has hired a political campaign team to publicize the end of broadcast television, as the nation has known it for 55 years.
Jonathan Collegio, Myra Dandridge, Shermaze Ingram and Lale Mamaux have been hired to lead a national effort to flack the DTV transition.
"NAB's DTV transition team will be charged with educating the American public on the many benefits of DTV so that no TV set goes dark on February 17, 2009," said NAB President and CEO David K. Rehr.
Queries as to whether any of the team members had ever used an antenna were not answered by press time.
However, Ingram, the new director of media relations for the team, once worked for a broadcast news program, "The NewHour with Jim Lehrer." She was most recently director of communications and events for Discovery Education, a division of Discovery Communications.
Dandridge will serve as director of public affairs, "coordinating a coalition of grassroots and membership organizations," according to the NAB statement announcing the formation of the team. Most recently, Dandridge was communications director for the Congressional Black Caucus; she also served as the Florida state press secretary for the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign.
Mamaux will be director of external relations, coordinating the participating coalition of lobbies, businesses and broadcasters. She was previously communications director for Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.). She also worked for the Kerry-Edwards team in Florida.
Dandridge, Ingram and Mamaux will report to Collegio, who joined NAB in late 2006 as vice president of the digital television transition. Before coming to NAB, he was was press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Collegio also served as deputy chief of staff for Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and was an associate producer at News 12 New Jersey for a year.
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