Ed Bark — you can’t keep a good TV critic down

by Alexandra Merriman

It’s a cloudless Saturday afternoon in Dallas but the dim, smoky Stratos Global Greek Taverna still draws a considerable crowd. The main attraction is the second filming of the Uncle Barky Show, hosted by beloved Dallas television critic Ed Bark.

A couple of fans toward the front of the makeshift stage pass Bark a Wisconsin Cheesehead hat, a tribute to his roots. Bark gladly accepts before introducing his guest, CBS Channel 11 anchor Tracey Rowlett, and the show begins.

Prompted by former Dallas Morning News coworker and longtime friend Michael Precker, Bark launched the monthly Web broadcast, available on pegasusnews.com, to showcase a unique, in-depth perspective on local TV personalities. The “Uncle Barky” brand, which dates back to Bark’s college days, is also tied to his recently launched blog, UncleBarky.com.

“You get to be your own editor,” says Bark. “And there’s nothing bad about that, believe me.”

Despite a rocky last six years, Bark enjoyed a successful 26-year career as the Morning News media critic because of a loyal readership. He served as the president of the national Television Critics Association and sat for seven years on the exclusive national Peabody Awards board. His alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, honored him with the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004. Bark has scored interviews with big names like Aaron Spelling, Jerry Lewis and Ringo Starr.

“That was the most nervous I’ve ever been,” Bark says of the interview with Starr. “I just couldn’t believe I was talking to a Beatle.”

When he’s not writing reviews, Bark indulges in his “girly-man” guilty pleasure, Dancing with the Stars, or collects album covers and sports memorabilia. He spends time with his wife, Madeline; his children, Sam and Liz; and his stepchildren, Carl and Rachel. If he hadn’t gone into journalism, Bark says he would have loved to be a baseball announcer and thinks he might have been pretty good at it.

Bark’s hard work, intelligence, candid sense of humor, and thorough knowledge of the industry have made him one of the most widely respected television experts in the country.

“Ed just stood out,” says former colleague and current Morning News entertainment critic Tom Maurstad, recalling the first time he attended the bi-annual TCA convention in Los Angeles with Bark. “If someone was asking a smart, interesting question, nine times out of ten Ed was the one asking the question.”

Robert Philpot, who covers TV for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, also commends Bark’s knack for asking tough questions, comparing him to a student who always raises his hand during class.

Bark says he had wanted to be a newspaper reporter for as long as he can remember. He grew up in Racine, Wisc., an industrial town on Lake Michigan, sharing a small house with his parents, grandmother, three brothers and sister. After some encouragement from his English teacher, a nun, Bark had his first brush with journalism as the sports editor for his high school newspaper.

He spent four years in the Marines before enrolling at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1971, where he wrote for the campus newspaper, The Daily Cardinal, and earned a B.A. in journalism. After graduating, he worked as a political reporter for The Madison Press Connection alongside Bob Mong, now the executive editor at the DMN.

“He’s very steady and strong,” says Mong in an e-mail interview. “His supervising editors always said the same thing about him: he does the work of three people.”

Bark’s connection to Mong brought him down to Dallas, where he pursued his passion as a media critic.

But everything changed in February 2000 with Belo Corp’s decision to stop covering local TV news shows and personalities due to its cross-ownership of the Morning News and WFAA Channel 8. According to Belo, the ban was part of an effort to promote “synergy” with the station. This was a particularly devastating blow for Bark since the newspaper had opted to cover network TV with wire copy earlier that year.

“It seemed not so much a matter of avoiding a conflict of interest as a matter of avoiding reporting on the competition,” says Philpot in an email interview. “Other media outlets, such as Entertainment Weekly, acknowledge when they’re reporting on something that involves their parent company, and that could have been a solution for the Belo problem.”

Convinced the restriction would be short-lived, Bark remained onboard. But as time passed and the ban endured, Maurstad recalls, the “lion of the arts critics” became “very outspoken on behalf on a lot of people in the department,” repeatedly protesting the position.

“It made him kind of a thorn in [Morning News management’s] side because he wouldn’t let it go,” says Precker. “The power at the paper got fed up with him, with Mr. Integrity.”

The final straw came in 2006 when Bark voiced his frustrations on D Magazine’s FrontBurner blog, prompting a letter from Morning News managing editor George Rodrigue that called his remarks “troubling and disappointing.” So when Belo began to significantly cut down its staff that fall, a somewhat embittered Bark took the severance package and said goodbye.

“It was a real loss to the paper and a loss to Dallas that the guy who did some of the intensive local reporting wasn’t wanted because of this silly policy,” says Precker. “It really bugged him.”

But leaving the paper by no means marked the end of the widely respected critic’s career. His passion for reporting, talent and credibility made him a perfect candidate to test the waters of push-button publishing. With the help of his computer-savvy stepson, Carl Morgan, he launched his new Web site. UncleBarky covers Dallas-Fort Worth TV, network news, primetime TV, press tours, music and more. The writing is colorful and clever, appropriately punctuated with video clips and pictures.

Maurstad sees the site as a daily testimony to Bark’s hard work. “Ed’s prolific,” he says. “He always maintained a remarkably high standard of analysis and criticism and information. [The site] is Ed unleashed.”

Promotion has been done primarily through word of mouth. In some cases, however, it has taken care of itself. In order to survive in a medium of limitless information where anyone can be “published,” content is key. And Bark’s got it. He initially launched the blog in an effort to prove he “wasn’t just BS-ing” about the need to cover local channels. The otherwise untouched niche makes UncleBarky an exclusive resource for in-depth coverage of local television, attracting an average of 3,000 visitors per day and hundreds of comments per post.

“People appreciate it,” Bark says. “It’s something that I’m sad to say that once I stop, no one else will do it anymore.”

Bark says he only wishes he had started the site sooner, noting the freedom that comes with being his own editor and the fulfillment of doing what he loves every day. Though working for himself requires the discipline to be his “own worst boss,” Bark enjoys the day-to-day variety and flexibility. This month he has been covering the four local news stations during the annual sweeps period.

“I started out in journalism as this passionate, fearless kid reporter,” says Bark. “Now I’m kind of going out the way I came in.”

Catch the next Uncle Barky Show at Stratos Global Greek Taverna, Saturday April 12 at 4 p.m. Bark promises a fun show with this month’s guests, filmmakers Manny Mendoza and Mark Birnbaum, as they discuss their new film, Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril. Admission is free and Stratos will offer food and drink specials all day.

This article was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community. Alexandra is an SMU journalism student and originally produced this piece for a class assignment. Uncle Barky is a content partner of Pegasus News.