Veteran WCPO anchor Clyde Gray has been forced to change his involvement with the advertising and marketing agency he launched two weeks ago amid criticism that the agency presented significant conflict of interest issues.
Gray, who has been a marquee anchor with Cincinnati’s WCPO for the past two decades, launched C. Gray & Associates on February 25th, listing a local casino among its clients.
Facing criticism from the journalism community and concern from executives at Scripps, WCPO’s parent company, Gray announced this week that he will be taking a less prominent role with the agency and changing its name. Gray, who was CEO when the agency launched, did not go into further detail about what his future role with the company will be and what it would be named.
“It’s important to make sure there’s no confusion between these two parts of my life, and to safeguard both my and WCPO’s integrity,” Gary told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute points out that casinos and gaming “were the biggest contributors to state legislators” last year. “For an anchor to profit from working with them is definitely a conflict of interest.”
The C. Gray & Associates’ website describes Gray as “one of the most respected and trusted communicators in the market.”