Elizabeth Murphy Burns, Trailblazing Broadcast TV Exec, Dies at 79
Elizabeth Murphy Burns, who served as president and CEO of family-owned broadcasting and media company Morgan Murphy Media for 43 years, has died. She was 79.
Her death was announced Friday by Morgan Murphy Media. The company did not provide details on the cause of her death.
Murphy Burns last month stepped down as CEO to become chair of the Madison, Wisconsin-based company's board. She was a pioneer in American broadcasting who transformed her family's business into a multiplatform media company while breaking barriers for women in the industry.
'Elizabeth Murphy Burns was a visionary leader whose influence extended far beyond our company,' Morgan Murphy president and CEO Brian Burns, Murphy Burns' stepson, said in a statement. 'Her commitment to journalistic integrity, technological innovation, and community service shaped not only Morgan Murphy Media but the entire broadcasting industry. Her legacy will continue to guide us as we move forward.'
Born Dec. 4, 1945, in Superior, Wisconsin, Murphy Burns began her career at 14 selling classified ads for her family's newspaper. After attending the University of Arizona, she entered broadcasting and owned and operated a radio station by age 25 before rejoining her family's management team. In 1982, she became vice president of what would later become Morgan Murphy Media, leading the company with her brother John Murphy.
Under her stewardship and in partnership with her brother, the newspaper business her grandfather founded in 1890 grew to include broadcast TV stations in eight markets affiliated with all major networks, 17 radio stations, a monthly magazine, and digital marketing agency Phase 3 Digital Agency.
Murphy Burns' accomplishments including becoming the first woman elected to the CBS affiliates advisory board and one of the first women elected to the National Association of Broadcasters board of directors. She was inducted into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2005, joining her father Morgan Murphy as an inductee, and she was designated a 'Giant of Broadcasting' by the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation in 2018.
In addition, she served on the board of trustees for Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism Endowment; served as chairwoman of the board of the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV); and was a director of the Republic Bank in Duluth and of the National Guardian Life Insurance Co. in Madison.
Morgan Murphy's influence extended beyond company leadership into technological innovation and policy. In 1998, she testified before a Senate congressional hearing advocating that cable companies should be required to carry digital broadcast signals, helping to advance the transition to HDTV. Her impact reached international levels when she participated in a delegation for the administration of President George W. Bush to promote independent news media in Russia, collaborating with Russian media executives to foster journalistic integrity.
In recent years, Murphy Burns and her husband Richard spent time in Arizona, helping shape the next generation of journalists at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The couple's contributions led to the dedication of the school's largest teaching space in their honor, a 141-seat, technologically advanced classroom.
Murphy Burns often reminded employees their duty was to 'inform, educate and entertain,' according to the company. Despite trends toward corporate consolidation at all levels of media, she believed being family-owned and operated allowed the local properties to be more closely connected to the communities they serve. 'This industry has been very good to me and my family. And you need to give back, and you need to set an example. Because what you're doing is what should be focused on. It's the act, not the person,' Murphy Burns once said.
In a statement about her death, NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt said, 'Liz Burns was a trailblazer, a fierce advocate for local broadcasting and a dear friend to me and so many in our industry. Through her visionary leadership at Morgan Murphy Media and her tireless work with NAB, Liz left an indelible mark on broadcasting that will endure for generations. From pioneering roles on the NAB Board and CBS Affiliate Board to championing the concerns of small market broadcasters on Capitol Hill, Liz's passion for our mission was unmatched.'
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Associated Press
13 minutes ago
- Associated Press
ICE is using no-bid contracts, boosting big firms, to get more detention beds
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ICE has cited a 'compelling urgency' for thousands more detention beds, and its efforts have sent profit estimates soaring for politically connected private companies, including CoreCivic, based in the Nashville, Tennessee, area and another giant firm, the Geo Group Inc., headquartered in southern Florida. That push faces resistance. Leavenworth filed a lawsuit against CoreCivic after it tried to reopen without city officials signing off on the deal, quoting a federal judge's past description of the now-shuttered prison as 'a hell hole.' The case in Leavenworth serves as another test of the limits of the Republican president's unusually aggressive tactics to force migrant removals. To get more detention beds, the Trump administration has modified dozens of existing agreements with contractors and used no-bid contracts. 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CoreCivic and Geo Group officials said last month on earnings calls that ICE used what are known as letter contracts, meant to speed things up when time is critical. Charles Tiefer, a contract expert and professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School, said letter contracts normally are reserved for minor matters, not the big changes he sees ICE making to previous agreements. 'I think that a letter contract is a pathetic way to make big important contracts,' he said. A Kansas prison town becomes a priority CoreCivic's Leavenworth facility quickly became a priority for ICE and the company because of its central location. Leavenworth, with 37,000 residents, is only 10 miles (16 kilometers) to the west of the Kansas City International Airport. The facility would hold men and women and is within ICE's area of operations for Chicago, 420 miles (676 kilometers) to the northeast. 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Leavenworth sued the company to force it to get one, and a state-court judge last week issued an order requiring it. An attorney for the city, Joe Hatley, said the legal fight indicates how much ill will CoreCivic generated when it held criminal suspects there for trials in federal court for the U.S. Marshals Service. In late 2021, CoreCivic stopped housing pretrial detainees in its Leavenworth facility after then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to curb the use of private prisons. In the months before the closure, the American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders detailed stabbings, suicides, a homicide and inmate rights violations in a letter to the White House. CoreCivic responded at the time that the claims were 'false and defamatory.' Vacancies among correctional officers were as high as 23%, according to a Department of Justice report from 2017. 'It was just mayhem,' recalled William Rogers, who worked as a guard at the CoreCivic facility in Leavenworth from 2016 through 2020. He said repeated assaults sent him to the emergency room three times, including once after a blow to the head that required 14 staples. The critics have included a federal judge When Leavenworth sued CoreCivic, it opened its lawsuit with a quote from U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson — an appointee of President George W. Bush, a Republican — who said of the prison: 'The only way I could describe it frankly, what's going on at CoreCivic right now is it's an absolute hell hole.' The city's lawsuit described detainees locked in showers as punishment. It said that sheets and towels from the facility clogged up the wastewater system and that CoreCivic impeded the city police force's ability to investigate sexual assaults and other violent crimes. The facility had no inmates when CoreCivic gave reporters a tour earlier this year, and it looked scrubbed top to bottom and the smell of disinfectant hung in the air. One unit for inmates had a painting on one wall featuring a covered wagon. During the tour, when asked about the allegations of past problems, Misty Mackey, a longtime CoreCivic employee who was tapped to serve as warden there, apologized for past employees' experiences and said the company officials 'do our best to make sure that we learn from different situations.' ICE moves quickly across the CoreCivic's Leavenworth prison, other once-shuttered facilities could come online near major immigrant population centers, from New York to Los Angeles, to help Trump fulfill his deportation plans. ICE wants to reopen existing facilities because it's faster than building new ones, said Marcela Hernandez, the organizing director for the Detention Watch Network, which has organized nationwide protests against ICE detention. Counties often lease out jail space for immigrant detention, but ICE said some jurisdictions have passed ordinances barring that. ICE has used contract modifications to reopen shuttered lockups like the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall Facility in Newark, New Jersey, and a 2,500-bed facility in Dilley, Texas, offering no explanations why new, competitively bid contracts weren't sought. The Newark facility, with its own history of problems, resumed intakes May 1, and disorder broke out at the facility Thursday night. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat who previously was arrested there and accused of trespassing, cited reports of a possible uprising, and the Department of Homeland Security confirmed four escapes. The contract modification for Dilley, which was built to hold families and resumed operations in March, calls its units 'neighborhoods' and gives them names like Brown Bear and Blue Butterfly. 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Associated Press
13 minutes ago
- Associated Press
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Maxim Group LLC acted as the sole placement agent on a reasonable best-efforts basis for the offering. A shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-284205) relating to the securities being offered was previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the 'SEC') and became effective on January 24, 2025. The shares of common stock and shares underlying the warrants were offered only by means of a prospectus. A preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to and describing the terms of the public offering have been filed with the SEC. 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(NYSE-American: CTM) is a cybersecurity, electronic warfare, and software engineering services company focused on the federal government - Forward-Looking Statements: This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, based on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events or future performance of the company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are only predictions and speak only as of the date hereof. Words such as 'will,' 'would,' 'believe,' and 'expects,' and similar language or phrasing are indicative of forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are outside of the Company's control, that could cause actual results to differ (sometimes materially) from the results expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, including, among others: the Company's ability to effectively integrate and grow its acquired companies; its ability to identify additional acquisition targets and close additional acquisitions; the impact on the Company's revenue due to a delay in the U.S. Congress approving a federal budget, operating under a prolonged continuing resolution, government shutdown, or breach of the debt ceiling, as well as the imposition by the U.S. government of sequestration in the absence of an approved budget; the ability of the U.S. federal government to unilaterally cancel a contract with or without cause, and more specifically, the potential impact of the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization on government spending and terminating contracts for convenience. In evaluating such statements, prospective investors should review carefully various risks and uncertainties identified in Item 1A. 'Risk Factors' section of the Company's recently filed Form 10-Q, Item 1A. 'Risk Factors' in the Company's most recent Form 10-K, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission which can be viewed at These risks and uncertainties, or not closing the described potential equity financing in this press release, could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Except to the extent required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, a change in events, conditions, circumstances or assumptions underlying such statements, or otherwise. 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Yahoo
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